61. In The Air Tonight
SONS OF LEGION
His words don’t settle and stain,
they hover and haunt
as we stare and stare.
It’s the first time I realize: ‘together’ could still feel like falling apart.
This is why I don’t do relationships.
This is why I get mine,
I leave,
I keep my shit intact.
Every time you care,
it cuts out another piece of you.
I don’t know how long we sit there for,
in the dark, Christmas Eve,
Andrew’s eyes drilling into me,
those words lingering: ‘I can’t even trust that any of it’s real with you. ‘Too much shit blurs the lines. ‘Nothin’ solid to hold on to. Never was.’
I feel turned inside out
and upside down.
Then I stand fast.
“Allison, hey,” Andrew says, tracking my hands as I fix my sweatshirt. “Wait—you’re leavin’? Don’t. Don’t go.”
“Yeah. I uh…
“got my own thing goin’ on.”
Andrew stands next, shaking his head.
“C’mon. It’s almost four in the mornin’. It’s freezing out there. You—you been drinkin’.”
I grab his Christmas gift from under the side table, push it gentle into his chest. “This is for you. Merry Christmas.”
He freezes, looking down at the medium-sized box, Santa Claus with an electric guitar on the wrapping paper.
“You got me somethin’,” he says to himself, taking it into his hands.
“It’s nothin’.
“Just somethin’ I picked up.”
I walk across the living room.
Start collecting my purse,
my phone,
my plant…
He sets the wrapped gift on the table,
rounds it,
meets me in the kitchen,
eyes denim waters washing over me.
“C’mon. Sleep here. Please—”
“Drew. I’m fine. I’m not drunk anymore,” I say, reaching for my keys next.
He snatches them up before I can, looking at me scared, anxious, worried, like a thirteen-year-old boy who’d been hurt one too many times by alcohol.
“Slow down,” he begs,
finger looped in the key ring,
and he takes a step back,
taking the keys into his fist.
“I need you to slow down.
“Please. Gimme a second.”
A ragged exhale tears from my throat,
and I drop my eyes to the hardwood.
When I force my chin up to face him again, he sees the panic in my eyes, the silent ultimatum that if I don’t bolt through that door, whatever is left of me will shatter on his floor.
“Drew. I’m okay.
“I wouldn’t lie to you about that,
“and I’d never put that on you, okay?”
The fight drains from his shoulders, and his hand falls dead against his jeans, defeated. “Where are you parked? Lemme at least grab your car and pull it up.”
I clutch Andison to my chest, relieved to not have to walk in the cold alone in the dark. “Two streets back.”
Andrew’s sliding into his jacket,
his heels thudding hard into his boots.
Then the storm door groans after him
before the latch clicks.
I stand in the narrow hallway,
bundled inside my jacket, boots on,
staring through the glass door,
where the world is nothing but darkness
and the silent drift of snow flurries.
Ten minutes later, the headlights slice through the falling snow. I walk out into the cold air, meet him at the driver’s side as he’s climbing out.
He hangs on to the open door, other hand shoved into his pocket, looking down at me as I climb into the heat. “Maybe I should come with you.”
I sink back into the heated leather,
staring up into his worried gaze.
He doesn’t get to worry about me.
He doesn’t get to question everything,
and then worry.
“Andrew, it’s Christmas. This could be your mom’s last one,” I remind him. His head tips back, and he closes his eyes, as if he forgot. “You spend Christmas with your parents, I’ll spend it with mine.”
“Allison—”
“No, Drew—”
“No, goddamn it. Listen to me.”
He bends lower, forearm braced on the roof of the car, eyes locked on mine.
“I know you’re probably mad at me right now.
But I don’t give a fuck. I don’t. And I don’t know what’s gonna happen with us either after this.
But I’m not worried about that right now.
I need to know that you’re gonna be okay tonight, alright?
“I need you to be okay.
“I need you alive.
“And breathing.
“And okay.”
His eyes search my face,
scared and pissed
and trying not to show either.
“When you’re mad, you don’t watch where you’re goin’. And it scares the fuck outta me when you do that.”
My face falls deadpan.
He taps the roof of my car.
“I’m serious, Sonny. Promise me.”
My sigh leaves beaten and bruised.
“I promise.”
// DEC 25, 8:47 AM - WOODLAWN CEMETERY - brONX, NY //
An abrupt, harsh thunk-thunk-thunk of a knuckle hits my driver’s side glass, jolting me awake. Through the fogged windows, the sun’s fully up, pale light cutting across Jerome Avenue and the terrifying silhouette of an NYPD cruiser. The lights throw red and blue against the stone cemetery wall.
When I roll the window down, the freezing December chill slices through, and the 4 train rumbles overhead.
An officer from the 52nd Precinct stands there, a steaming paper cup of Dunkin’ in his other hand. “Morning. Everything alright in here?”
I rub my eyes, throat groggy.
“Yeah. Sorry. I… I fell asleep.
“Was waiting for the cemetery to open.”
He gestures toward the tall iron gates,
which are unlocked and opened wide.
“Gates opened seventeen minutes ago.”
My eyes dart to the dash.
The time glows 8:47 a.m.
“Look, sweetheart. You can’t be parking outside a cemetery and leave a car like this runnin’. First thing a cop thinks is an overdose. First thing a criminal thinks is an opportunity.”
I brush my hair back and sit up taller.
“Yeah. I know…”
“Right. Well, move it along.
“Put it in drive and get off the avenue.”
He taps his fist on the roof.
“Hey, and Merry Christmas.”
// 8:52 AM //
I drive through the winding, tree-lined ridges, to the highest point of Woodlawn, into the hills, where mausoleums rise out of the snow like a mini Gotham city.
I park the Benz on the asphalt path, retrieve my guitar from the back, then walk the rest of the way to Taylor Mausoleum that overlooks Jazz Corner.
I sweep snow from the stone bench under the tree, “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” then collapse in my usual spot and breathe in, the cold numbing my throat, eyes landing on the locked bronze doors.
“Merry Christmas.”
// 10:14 AM //
Crunching snow breaks the silence.
A man in a black puffer and beanie walks by, carrying a bouquet of red winter berries and carnations. He kneels in front of a newly carved headstone, his jeans soaking through instantly in the snow slush, every breath pumping out clouds into the gray morning.
He takes out the rotted stems from a plastic cone, tosses them aside, replaces them with the new flowers.
The weight of it seems to hit him all at once. He goes from tending to the grave, to collapsing against it, gripping the edges of the headstone. He presses his forehead against it, his shoulders shaking as he breaks down.
It’s a silent, violent kind of crying. A heartache that steals a tear from my eye.
I wipe it quickly.
// 11:58 AM //
“Funny story.”
I strum the guitar once, then twice.
“In less than seventy-two hours,
“I find out that I’m a monster,
“just like the bastard you left me with.”
Three times.
“And that I’m addicted to a boy.
“Who can’t be with me anymore.”
I slap my palm against the strings.
“Don’t worry, Dad… he’s still alive.”
// 12:29 PM //
I write:
I gave up Teddy, you put up walls,
I gave you sky, you watched me fall
I held my breath so you could breathe
then hated you for not needing me…
I stare at it.
Cross out then hated.
Write now I’m mad at.
Cross out now I’m mad at.
Write then hated.
Then tear out the paper and rip it to shreds.
// 1:02 PM //
“Do you think he opened his present?”
I’m lying on my side, facing the mausoleum. Then turn to lie on my back, spotting a silver canvas sky through naked branches.
“Still, I wish I could’ve seen his face.”
I close my eyes, imagining him sitting on the couch after I left—
all alone,
in the dark,
in front of the Christmas tree.
Maybe that’s where he’d open it,
in the place I left.
I envision him being careful with the wrapping paper. I don’t know why, but I can’t imagine Drew being the type to tear into gifts.
He’d take his time. He’d hold his breath.
Then he’d lift the box’s lid.
And his expression would fall younger, turning into the nine-year-old boy all over again. The one who only ever wanted the Jordan 4 White Cement. The one who drew pictures of it so his moms didn’t mess up.
I imagine his eyes as he stares down at them, in love the same way he first saw them through that shoe store window.
“Merry Christmas, Drew,” I whisper.
// 1:45 PM //
Google: my boy who’s a friend said he needed space then says he won’t continue with my contract (I made for my boundaries), what is probability we survive this relationship?
The probability of surviving this relationship
is near 0%.
Then my phone dies.
Goes pitch-black.
Reflects the face of a failure.
// 2:48 PM //
“So after I sing the first line, you’d think Raymond would follow up, right?
“Wrong.
“Try Teddy Vale, Mom.
“Like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
I shake my head.
“Of course this happens to me… Soon as I find Andrew, Life throws me Teddy like—‘I forgot I’m supposed to be makin’ shit hard for you.’ My apologies. Here, lemme rip away both.”
// 2:54 PM //
My head falls back against the tree.
“So yeah… if I can’t have Drew.
“Then I don’t want anyone,” I say,
shrug… “Except for Teddy Vale.”
I snap a twig in half,
toss it into the snow.
“I’m sad, not stupid.”
// 3:01 PM //
“Now where the fuck’ve you been?”
From the top of the mausoleum,
Tony tilts his peanut-pigeon head at me.
I reach into my bag.
Break a cracker in half.
Throw it out in front of me.
He jumps down, hops next to my feet, and plucks the soggy piece from the snow.
“Knew you’d come. Got a thing for melancholy, don’t we, Tony?
“Sick bastard.”
// 3:14 PM //
Fingers numb, nose runny,
I finger-pick the same four chords.
Over and over again…
C – Am – Em – G…
Mom still doesn’t answer.
Dad still doesn’t answer.
Andrew still feels so far away.
I close my eyes,
keep picking the chords…
Again.
Again.
Again.
// 4:34 PM //
“Miss Taylor?”
I open my eyes.
It’s colder. My joints are sore.
Snow dusts the mausoleum bone-white.
The sun decays on the horizon,