Chapter 8 Perfume Genius
EIGHT
Perfume Genius
I get a text from West the next day asking to meet up for lunch. It’s past noon when I finally get out of bed, and a quick walk through the house lets me know Connor and Tristan are long gone.
The memory of last night puts me in a terrible mood.
I felt too much, and I went too far. I don’t know who the fuck that guy was on the kitchen floor last night, but I know I don’t trust him not to get attached.
And by that guy, I mean me. In the blinding light of day and the emptiness of my house, I remind myself why it’s important to keep my distance.
I am not cut out for closeness. It’s never turned out well for me.
A case in point:
Just after noon, I meet West at Deep Eddy Cabaret, a dive bar on Lake Austin.
He’s more unsettled than I’ve ever seen him, his knee bouncing rapidly, his eyes avoiding mine with deft and consistency.
He’s wearing jeans, Vans, and what looks like a bowling league shirt.
It’s navy blue with burgundy piping. A long wallet chain hangs from one of his belt loops and rattles with his frenzy of subtle movement.
His hair is back in the little bun again, his beard untrimmed.
I get a flash of the guy I used to know with his GQ hair and his team t-shirts, his skin golden tan and glowing from all the time he spent outside.
The persistent, charming smile that had everyone wanting in on his conversations.
Again, I want to know what the fuck happened.
He mentioned a DUI. An assault. Was it drugs?
“How's your brother?” he asks, snapping me back to now.
I shift on the barstool, uncomfortable because he is. I speak mainly to the right half of his face because he isn’t looking at me. He may as well have asked the question to the guy at the other end of the bar.
“He moved in.”
“Is his leg getting better?”
“I haven't really had a chance to discuss it with him.”
“Maybe you should.”
A lecture isn’t what I came here for. I discard his sage advice as I study the liquor bottles behind the bar. In truth, I’m still pissed about West’s refusal to speak to me on the ride home from the police station.
“Listen, I need to talk to you about something,” he says after a loaded silence.
Without averting my focus from the liquor stock, I say, “Okay.”
“I talked to my lawyer this morning. The situation’s pretty bad.”
I don’t say anything. I already know what’s coming, and it makes me want to leave without another word.
I can’t say why this hurts so much. He and I aren’t close anymore, and that was my choice.
I left and went no contact. He’s a stranger who feels sort of familiar, but instead of wanting to know me again, he’s here because he needs something from me.
Not my friendship or my support. He needs money, and he knows I have more than I know what to do with.
“I’ll probably have to sell the bar to be able to cover all of this. Financially.”
I give him the coldest glare I can manage. I try to make it slow, this glance toward him because I want him to remember it. I want him to picture it when he thinks about how bad of a friend I was.
It has the desired effect. He leans away, getting defensive. “Look—I wouldn't—you know me, brother. This makes me sick to have to do this, but I just thought— ”
“You want money?”
He cracks his knuckles between his knees. He won't look me in the eye.
“I've worked really hard to get where I'm at,” he says. “The bar’s a good business. I make a good living with it.”
“What happens to it when you go to prison?”
His mouth opens like he’s about to say something, but I cut him off, irrationally livid. “What else do you want me to buy, West? Your house? Your car? You want me to pay off your credit cards, too?”
He regards me with anger and disbelief. “What is it with you? You leave for six fucking years, you show back up, you stay for no apparent reason, and you meet me here today, why? 'Cause you're bored? I thought we were friends.”
“We were. I don’t know you anymore. You sure as shit don’t know me. So, I’m not good enough to have a real conversation with, but I’m good enough to bail you out of your shit?”
“Fuck you, Archer,” he mutters under his breath.
“No, fuck you, brother.” The handful of people in the bar at this hour turn our way when I raise my voice.
I wish I could find it in myself to care.
“You keep acting like I owe you something, but where does it end?
I sat with you all night in a police station while you barely spoke to me, I paid your bail, I got you home in one piece, and now you're meeting up with me because you know there’s more where that came from, and what?
You think I feel that guilty about leaving that I'm just gonna write you a blank check? Ease my conscience?”
His expression flattens. “It sounds like your conscience is just fine.”
“My conscience is all right, but thanks for not asking. You won’t even tell me what happened.”
“I hit a cop.”
Whoa.
“You what?”
He clears his throat and lowers his voice even more.
“I got pulled over on my way home after I left Abel’s.
The fucker was gonna arrest me anyway for drinking and driving, and then he put his hands on me.
I shoved him off, and then he shoved me back, and I hit him.
Then he clubbed me in the stomach and cuffed me. That’s what happened.”
“You fucking asshole,” I say, residual terror spilling through me at how lucky he was that the cop only used a club. “He could have fucking killed you.”
“I lost my temper.”
My hands shake at the thought. At the idea of a world without him in it. “Not good enough.” I’m not even angry anymore. I’m freaking out, but it’s not coming across.
“No? What’s good enough for you, Archer?”
“Fuck you.” I honestly don’t know what my problem is.
Yes, I would have liked him to call me for any other reason besides needing something—especially money.
I would have preferred he told me about what he was arrested for the night at the police station where I sat with him for hours.
I would have liked a chance to get to know him again, but he hasn’t offered me that.
And now he’s telling me he could have been on the goddamn news as nothing but a mugshot and a villain.
It hurts—knowing all this hurts and I hate it. I hate myself, and I hate him.
It looks like the feeling’s mutual.
“I don’t know what the hell I expected.” He stands up and puts his finger in my face. “You know what I realized six years ago? You’re not an asshole. You’re just a coward. Grow a pair, Brennan. Open your eyes for once and see what’s right in front of you. You fucking dick. Fuck you.”
And then—in a perfect imitation of me—he leaves.
I order a drink, still shaking enough that I don’t want to drive. The bartender asks me if I’m okay, if that guy was bothering me. I glare at him and tell him I’m fine. That it was personal.
I end up leaving before he can serve me, walking down the street for a few blocks while I try and catch my breath.
Obviously, I’m gonna help him. Whether he would do the same for me or not, I don’t know, but I know that once upon a time, he would have.
His mother would have, and if nothing else, I do still owe her.
I can’t be the guy that got him kicked out of prep school and the one who put him in prison because I wouldn’t offer him the one thing I have in abundance.
I need an accountant or an attorney or something. I need people. I need fucking help.
I leave a message with Philip Haskell, the only other Austin contact I have in my phone asking if he could give me a call back about some financial and legal questions I have, then I head back to my car.
On the way home, with no plan and way too much emotion roiling through me, I get a text from Jayne asking if I want to go to the lake with her.
She says she’s got a friend with a boat.
There aren’t a lot of things in the world I enjoy more than paint and boats. I was on crew at Salisbury, and I’ve never turned down an invitation to head out on the water, whether it was a ferry ride across the Sound or a yacht party one of the rich kids in college would throw.
The idea of being on a boat on water today?
That sounds pretty fucking nice. I can wait for Haskell to call me back on a boat just as well as I could at my house.
And honestly, I think a distraction like what Jayne’s offering might help get my head out of this mess of a life I’m fucking up on a daily basis. And maybe Jayne could, too.
I don’t expect anyone to understand.
The next morning there’s a Post-It note attached to my bedroom door.
I stare at it for a long time. If it were an echo of my past that would be one thing, but it’s not an echo.
It’s a bass drum. Beating. Pounding.
Fucking with me.
After I un-rattle myself, I peel it off the door and read it again.
Can we talk?—11:00, back porch—Connor
I check the clock on my bedside table next to Jayne’s sleeping head. 11:02.
In terms of Jayne, I don’t recall exactly what I was thinking or not thinking inviting her back here. I do know we fucked, and we were too drunk for her to do anything but spend the night, but coming back here? That was a mistake.
She looks decently passed out, so I don’t wake her. After I pull on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, I close my bedroom door and stop by the kitchen to find the coffee already made. This could be worse.
I can talk to my brother. If I can pretend I’m not triggered as fuck by the note itself, I can have a conversation with someone who says he wants to talk.
I skip the coffee and go outside, nervous before I even lay eyes on him, but it’s not Connor I see when I get to the porch.
It’s Tristan.
Of course.
Of course he’s here. Because I’m not in a fishbowl anymore. I’m in a fucking aquarium.