Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (41 page)

It was sweet, actually, how we all meshed together. I would frequently come home to find Chuck waiting for me, and one of the boys would be with him, and supper would already be on the table and a glass of wine would be poured and waiting for me. Or, on the weekends, when I would be at work, one or two or all three of them would pop in to keep me company. If Sparkle was already there, he would leave with them, and Sharon and I would catch up with the group sometime later in the evening.

Most times, we would all go over to The Castro and hang out at Kiki and Larry’s. Seeing as they had the most room for company (and the best stocked bar), it was the logical choice. And they loved to entertain. Kiki was the ultimate hostess, with Larry playing bartender. One night, to our great surprise, we discovered that Sharon had towed all of our drag gear over to the house and surprised us with it after dinner. It was drag central from there on out. Before long, Sam and Peter knew every Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, and Grace Jones song that we could lip-synch to. Needless to say, we were so proud.

Chuck and my cousin, Sam, had become inseparable during that first month of our dating, too. They were like kindred spirits. Apparently, Chuck also had a fairly bad time of it as a teen. Personally, I was thrilled. Sam had really come around during the short amount of time he had been with us, gaining back some much-needed weight and looking and acting like a young man ought to. He cooked and cleaned and did chores around our house, and, by all accounts, was doing well in summer school.

Sparkle, however, was still apprehensive. “I don’t like it,” he said, on numerous occasions, when we would be out and about or sitting around Kiki and Larry’s, and we would look over and see Sam and Chuck sitting in a corner somewhere, giggling about something. They rarely filled us in on the joke, though. Peter blew it off, but Sparkle was always put off by it. Even I, on those rare times I felt like being immature, would feel hurt by the exclusion of the rest of us in their little gab sessions. Still, if I said anything, Chuck would come over and peck me on the cheek and tousle my hair, and Sam would go over to Peter and give him a hug. It would always be over in a few seconds and we would go back to being one big, happy family. Sparkle, unfortunately, always remained weary, though he never said anything to anybody but me about it.

“Just seems odd, is all,” he would explain to me later on. “Those two are always together. What can they possibly have to discuss? They have almost nothing in common, besides a lousy childhood, and, by the way they’re always laughing and carrying on, I doubt that’s what they’re talking about. I smell a rat, Secret. A big, stinking rat.”

“Come on now,” I would respond, “you just don’t like not being the center of attention. I would think you’d be happy that Sam’s keeping out of trouble. He hasn’t given us one, single, solitary reason to give us cause for alarm, and Chuck is just being like a big brother to him. I think it’s sweet.”

“Sweet, shmeet. Something’s rotten in Denmark, and I, for one, don’t like it,” he would harrumph and cross his arms in protest.

“You know, you haven’t liked anything Scandinavian since Sven took up with that go-go boy and stopped sleeping with you.” I attempted joking with Sparkle to try and get him to lighten up. And he would, in fact, drop it for a time, but I could tell that he never felt easy around the two of them. Thankfully, everyone else was oblivious to his misgivings, Sam and Chuck especially. If they did know how Sparkle felt, they certainly didn’t appear to pay any attention to it. And so I blew it off as well. I mean, what choice did I have? My boat was finally sailing smoothly; why start rocking it again?

Anyway, besides Sparkle’s petty jealousies, all was happy in my gay, little world. I had everything I could wish for and then some. Fate had thrown me my share of lemons and I was finely drinking the lemonade. Corny, but true. And then… and then… well, you just have to guess that something God-awful was about to happen. Nobody remains that happy for very long. I’m sure even Santa Claus steps in some reindeer shit from time to time. Or chokes on a lemon pit.

The first sign of things to come happened one afternoon while Peter was spending the afternoon working at the shop. I could tell that he was preoccupied with something, and, after a few hours of watching him brood, I finally asked him if everything was all right. Honestly, I felt like being selfish for a change and let him live his life and make his own mistakes, but then those maternal genes kicked in and I butted my nose in just the same.

“What’s up, Peter?” I asked, sitting down at a table and inviting him over with a wave of my hand.

“Probably nothing,” he answered, but not nearly with as much conviction as I would’ve liked.

“Probably nothing or probably something, Peter?” I tried again. My heart was racing, though I hadn’t a clue as to what he was worrying about.

“Well, I know I’m just being silly, but… but…,” he hesitated, and I nearly fell off my seat in anticipation of him finishing the sentence.

“Jesus Christ, Peter, what is the but?” I practically shouted.

“
But
, I think something is up between my boyfriend and yours.” Yikes, I wasn’t expecting that one.

“What?” This time I did shout it, which caused Peter to jump in his seat. I patted his shoulder and apologized. Whatever was happening, it clearly wasn’t his doing, and I didn’t want to cause him any more discomfort than he was already experiencing. Still, the admission had thrown me for a loop. “Let’s try that again,” I said, regaining my composure, but just barely. “What makes you think something is going on between Sam and Chuck?”

“You know, I’m sure it’s nothing; probably just an overactive imagination.” He tried to sound reassuring, but I wasn’t buying it.

“Spill,” I commanded.

“Okay, fine, but I really doubt it’s anything to worry about. It’s just, well, there have been a few times when I’ve come home and, as soon as I walk in the door, they stop talking about whatever it is they were talking about, and when I ask them to continue with their conversation, they say they weren’t really saying anything worth continuing. Now that alone wouldn’t make me worry, but there have also been a couple of times when I’ve walked in and I can tell right away that they were doing something they didn’t want me to see, and they look and act just a bit, well, guilty. It’s completely subtle, but just enough so I get this hunch that something’s up.”

“But you haven’t actually caught them messing around, right?” I asked.

“Well, no,” he answered.

“Then I say that we give them the benefit of the doubt. From what I can tell, they’re just friends. Besides, I seriously doubt that they would cheat on us right under our noses.” Even as I said it, I knew that it was a distinct possibility. Straight, gay, bi or otherwise, men are all pigs. I never forgot Sparkle’s first lesson. And, though I wanted to believe with all my heart that Peter was mistaken, I knew that there was the outside chance that he was right.

“That’s fine with me. Like I said, I’m sure it was just my imagination.” Peter didn’t sound too convincing either, but he smiled as he got up and gave me a hug just the same. I felt awful and went back to work. Needless to say, the thoughts that were going around in my twisted, little head were none too pretty.

As a matter of fact, the whole thing was giving me the biggest headache ever. I asked Sharon if she would close up for me and I left work an hour early in the hope that my bed and a pretty, blue pill would help alleviate the pain. Halfway home, I remembered that I’d left my prescription bottle at Chuck’s. So I veered off my intended route and headed for the comfort of my boyfriend’s bed.

When I got to Chuck’s, the door was unlocked, and so I walked right on in. But no Chuck. Strange, I thought, that the door was unlocked and he didn’t seem to be at home. I checked the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom, but no sign of him. Then, realizing what room was left, I suddenly felt a rush of panic. If he was home, he must’ve been in the bedroom. I prayed that he was alone. Honestly, I got down on my knees, folded my hands in prayer, closed my eyes, and prayed to the dear Lord that Chuck was alone in his bedroom.

Then I stood up, inched closer to the door, which was slightly ajar, and held my breath as I grabbed for the knob. But, just as I was about to walk in, I heard voices. I knew instantly who they belonged to. Clearly, it was Chuck and Sam. My stomach sank and I nearly started to cry as I stood there, trying to draw the strength to walk into the bedroom and confront them. Man, I wished Sparkle was with me at that moment. (Even more so, I wished that the prescription bottle was with me at that moment.)

With little choice, I again grabbed for the knob, swung the door open, and walked into the room. It was worse than what I was expecting, sad to say. Oh, yes, Chuck and Sam were in there on the bed, all right. And, yes, they were as shocked to see me as I was to see them. But they weren’t having sex, though I would’ve preferred that, truth be told. As a matter of fact, they were fully dressed. Fully dressed with a mirror between their laps and a large heap of something white and powdery piled upon it. Chuck was so surprised to see me that he neglected to move the straw away from his nose.

I stood there in shock. Honestly, I didn’t have the faintest idea what to say. I wanted to scream at them, to hit them and smash the mirror over their stupid heads, to… to…

“Told you so,” Sparkle weakly mumbled from his bed.

“Well, fuck you… Wait, what did you say? WHAT DID YOU SAY?! SAY IT AGAIN! SAY IT AGAIN!

“Stop shouting. I said, told you so. You were a schmuck not to believe me.” Five seconds out of a coma and he was already being an asshole. “Now, would you mind telling me where I am and why does my head feel like an axe just ran through it?”

“Where, I can tell you, but why, well, you’re gonna have to fill me in on that one, good buddy.”

Chapter Ten

And the Answer Is…

Well, I suppose you want to know who shot Sparkle, right? I mean, you did make it all the way here and listened to my rantings and ravings along the way for something. Unless you really do care about my lack of sex, my uneventful job, and my tiny, little apartment. Do you? No? I didn’t think so. Well, okay then, I’ll fill you in on how Sparkle managed to have a bullet ruin his otherwise perfect chest.

But first…

(Now, you didn’t think that I was just gonna come right out and say it, did you?)

***

Six months have past since Sparkle snapped out of his coma and back into our lives. And let me tell you, they have not been the most pleasant six months of my life. Or any of our lives, for that matter. Recuperation is a bitch, you see. And Sparkle was a none-to-eager-to-cooperate patient. Such a shock, right? In any case, rehab has been slow but steady. Sparkle is walking with a cane and has nearly all his facilities back. He’s still an asshole, but I think the whole experience has mellowed him a bit. Well, that and losing all those brain cells, probably. Still, I’m glad to have him back. Man, I’m
really
glad. Life would’ve been pretty boring without him, sad but true.

Well, I guess all that’s left to do is to fill you in on what happened to our little troupe since that fateful evening when I burst in on Chuck and Sam. It does, after all, play a major role in the shooting. So, let’s go back to that horrible night…

The shock of catching my boyfriend snorting coke with my recently-out-of-rehab cousin was quickly replaced by rage. In all my years of hanging around Sparkle, I’d never seen anything that selfish, that destructive, or that moronic. I couldn’t imagine how the two of them could justify their behavior. I felt a deep, unending pain in my chest at the thought that Chuck, the man I was falling in love with, and Sam, my own flesh and blood and the person I’d bent over backward to help, were going behind all of our backs in such a foolish way.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed at the two of them.

That broke the shock. They immediately dropped the mirror and jumped off the bed. Chuck tried everything he could to hug me or to even come within a foot of me, but every time he tried, I angrily pushed him away. He was lucky that I wasn’t a violent person by nature, because I would’ve certainly killed him if I thought it would solve anything.

Not knowing what to do, I called Sparkle. No answer. He was obviously not at home. By that time, Chuck and Sam were in near hysterics and cowering in the corner of the living room. In all honesty, I wished they were both dead at that very moment. With my rage growing even more intense, I called Peter’s to see if Sparkle was there. Nope. But Peter, hearing the obvious agitation in my voice, pressed me until I told him what I’d discovered. He begged me to wait until he got there before I did anything else. Knowing that this was just as painful for him, I agreed and locked myself in the bathroom. See, I couldn’t face the two shitheads in the other room. Instead, I screamed through the door and told them that Peter was on his way and to stay in the living room and not move from there. They meekly agreed.

I sat in that bathroom for twenty minutes, trembling and crying until Peter arrived. It was the worst twenty minutes of my life. God, I wished that Sparkle were there right then. I mean, I desperately needed someone I could count on. And, apparently, Sparkle was it. The only one. (No, my dear friend, the irony was not lost on me either.)

Hearing Peter storm into the apartment and immediately start in on Sam and Chuck woke me from my daze and I emerged from the bathroom to join him. Seeing me in the state I was in, he stopped shouting and ran over to hug me and to apologize.

“I knew something was up, Secret. I just knew it.” He sobbed on my shoulder. “I should’ve confronted them weeks ago.”

“Come on now, Peter. There was no way for any of us to imagine this,” I said, rubbing Peter’s back and shooting angry leers at Chuck and Sam. “Trust me, if I’d had even a clue about this, I would’ve ended it weeks ago, too. Don’t blame yourself. Blame the two pricks over there.” I pointed at said pricks and started shouting at them myself. Having no excuse for their behavior, they stood there and took it all. I screamed until I was hoarse and still didn’t feel any better or any less angry.