Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (43 page)

“You did what?” I suppressed a laugh as I jumped up. “Kiki knew about all this and didn’t say a word to me?” The thought of Sparkle and Kiki teaming up was so absurd and the image of them plotting together so riotous, that I began to laugh, despite myself. Even Sparkle let out what I assumed was a laugh. In his present state, it was hard to tell.

“Yup. And it worked, too. I told Kiki everything I knew and then I made him promise not to tell anybody, not even Larry. The plan was simple: never let Sam have a moment to himself. I learned the boys’ school hours, knowing that, while they were in class, Peter was keeping a watchful eye on his boyfriend. When they were at home, during the day, I would pop in. And, at night, Kiki would unexpectedly come acallin’. Peter loved seeing both of us. Sam was obviously miserable, and since I was paying his way and since Kiki was providing a roof over his head, he couldn’t say a thing.”

“So that’s why…,” I was putting the pieces together, but Sparkle shushed me so that he could continue. Even weak from the coma, a good story could still perk him up.

“Anyway, within a few days of putting our plan into effect, Kiki reported good results. He said that he could hear the boys arguing through the floor. And, as the weeks progressed, the arguing became more frequent. Until…” This time, as Sparkle was catching his breath, I cut in.

“Until that day we all came over to find Peter alone in his apartment with that note and most of their belongings suddenly missing.”

“Exactly.” Sparkle managed a smile, though I could tell it hurt to do so.

“God, I wondered what caused him to pick up and move out. You guys must’ve been truly awful to make him leave like that.” I stood up and bowed before him. “Bravo, Sparkle, I tip my hat to you. I know it was crushing to Peter, but that was one of the happiest days of my life.”

“Ain’t that the truth. Goodbye to bad rubbish. That boy was no good from the get go, and I was damned if I was gonna see him drag our Peter down with him, if I had any say in the matter. And, even though I knew that Peter was hurting badly, I could still detect just a hint of relief on his part to finally be rid of him. That’s when I knew that I’d done the right thing.”

Sparkle stopped there to rest again. I needed a break as well. That was the most excitement I’d faced since Sparkle uttered his first words just a few days earlier.

Anyway, I should’ve seen the signs earlier. It was just too perfect an ending to a bad situation. I should’ve known that we couldn’t have been so lucky without a little help from our friend, Tom Foolery. I guess I was just so happy for the whole thing to be over with that I didn’t even stop to think that Sparkle was the cause of it all. Now it all made sense.

Of course, that didn’t answer the original question of who shot him. For that, I would have to wait another day. Sparkle, you see, was suddenly fast asleep. He didn’t even wake up for his sponge bath, and he was going to be mad at me for that. But I’ll take mad over dead any day. I did, needless to say, stay around to flirt with his nurse, Justin, though. I had to take advantage of Sparkle’s weakness while I could. You know, strike while the getting’s good. After all, I had little to no chance once my friend regained his strength. Thankfully, yummy Justin was quite receptive.

That night, I went over to visit Kiki and Larry. Kiki was surprised to see me and even more surprised when I rushed in and gave him a big, old hug. I pulled him off to the kitchen so that Larry couldn’t hear us, and then I told him that I knew about his and Sparkle’s little arrangement. He was thrilled to not have to keep it a secret anymore. At least from Larry and me. We would never be able to tell Peter, though. He’d be furious if he knew.

“I already know about it,” came a voice from the wall vent.

“Hey,” Kiki shouted as he crouched down to get closer to the vent. “I didn’t know that you could hear us up here!”

“Um, well, sorry, I can,” came the voice again.

“Stay there,” I shouted into the vent. “We’re coming down.”

“No problemo,” Peter shouted back up. Damn kids!

“What do you mean you already knew?” Kiki shouted at Peter as we stormed into the apartment below. Did you overhear Sparkle and I planning it or something?”

“No, not really, Kiki. I mean, please, you were both so incredibly obvious about it. For starters, I know that Sparkle would rather have been anywhere else than hanging out with Sam and me practically every afternoon. Up until Sam got caught, he’d never so much as visited us without Secret, not even once. Then, like clockwork, he was here as soon as we got home from school every day. And you, Kiki, were down here every single night. I thought Larry was going to break up with you long before Sam broke up with me.” He started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” It was Peter’s lover Mitch, coming out of the bathroom. Oh, yeah, Mitch quickly replaced Sam in Peter’s life. So much for young love. The head may have a memory, but the heart rolls merrily along. Thank God.

“The truth is finally out,” Peter said to Mitch.

“Oh, that.” Mitch giggled and plopped down on the sofa. He was tall and goofy and completely irresistible. We loved him dearly. Of course, anybody would’ve been better than Sam. Luckily for us, Mitch wasn’t just anybody.

“Yes, oh that,” Kiki echoed. Then we all started to crack up. It was pretty funny, after all. We were all, except me, of course, too quick to have the wool pulled over our eyes for very long. Naturally, I was in darkness throughout the ordeal. If ignorance really is bliss, it wasn’t doing a hell of a lot of good for me.

“But you never complained,” Kiki said to Peter, once the laughing subsided.

“No, but Sam sure did. Every night, in fact. I guess that I was secretly glad that you guys were trying to get him to leave. I suppose I wasn’t brave enough to end it myself. And I did love him. Or at least I thought I did. But I realized that I could never trust him. Once I figured that out, it was pretty much over between the two of us. Then it was just a matter of waiting for him to move out on his own. Fortunately, you guys were so persistent. It felt like a million pounds had been lifted off my shoulders when I found that note of his.”

“Amen,” I agreed.

“Amen,” Kiki agreed.

“Amen,” Peter joined in.

“I think we know my opinion,” said Mitch from the couch.

We had a big group hug and agreed that we all needed a drink. Kiki went upstairs and got Larry. Once we filled him in on the details of Kiki and Sparkle’s scheme, we were off to pick up Sharon from work and then on to a nice family dinner. Well, almost family. But we all knew it wouldn’t be long before you-know-who could join us. We said grace for the first time ever and thanked God for bringing Sparkle back to us. In all honesty, I was sure that the good Lord was glad to get rid of him. I could only imagine the havoc Sparkle was wrecking up there.

I recounted the day’s events to my friends after the wine was poured. They were all thrilled at Sparkle’s noticeable recovery. Then the conversation turned to who we each thought shot him. We went through one scenario after another, pretty much touching upon all the stories I’ve already told you, but none of them sounded too likely. True, all those people hated Sparkle, but I was sure that they had other things in their lives more pressing than knocking him off.

We would just have to wait until I spoke to Sparkle the next day to find out. Seeing as how we’d waited that long, what was another day? And so, with a rousing toast to our dear incapacitated but mending friend, we ate and drank and enjoyed ourselves like any family would. I knew how lucky I really was to be blessed with such wonderful people in my life, and right there and then I told them all that.

The whole thing with Sparkle taught me that you never know when something crazy will happen, and that you should count your blessings before it’s too late. No, there’s no Gay Rule for that one. But, word to the wise, don’t wait too long to tell those around you that you love them. After all, you never know when you’ll get that call in the middle of the night telling you to come down to the hospital. (Last preachy thing I say. Promise.)

***

The next afternoon, I showed up in Sparkle’s room and was greeted by a pleasant surprise. Sparkle was propped up in his bed and watching
Oprah
. Meaning, the long road to recovery had finally begun. I sat down and watched it with him. I almost never get a chance to watch it, as I’m always at the shop. Funny, very little can make me cry. Not movies, not real life tragedies, not family deaths, but five minutes into
Oprah
and I’m balling like a baby. Sparkle, too, and he has even less of a heart than I do.

An hour later, we both knew what had to be said. I was dreading it, but
Oprah
had me prepared for anything. Whatever happened, it couldn’t be any worse than the shit she has going on during her show. (Yes, yes, I was wrong as usual.)

“I suppose I fell asleep yesterday before I could finish my story,” he began.

“Yup. That’s okay. Justin and I had a fine time with you,” I kidded.

“Who’s Just…. oh… you’re being awfully mean to a man who, until recently, was very close to death, aren’t you?”

“Please, Mary, look who taught me. If the situation was reversed, I’m sure I would’ve woken up this morning with some dried up something in my hair, and it wouldn’t have been mine,” I said. And it was probably true.

“I’ll give you that one,” he agreed. Justin, after all, is rather pretty to look at. It was everything I could do to behave. Sparkle, however, would’ve gone hog-wild. That would’ve been just my luck, too. My first three-way and I’d have been fast asleep.

“Anyway,” he started again, “I feel better today. Let’s get it over with.”

“Fine,” I said, bracing myself.

“Fine,” he said, obviously stalling.

“Sparkle, just say it already. You’re killing me here,” I commanded.

“Bad choice of words, but okay,” he said and took a breath. “First, well, I guess you should know that this whole mess is partially my fault.”

“No shock there. Isn’t it usually?” I commented. It really wasn’t a big surprise. I said all along that he probably had it coming to him somehow.

“Fucker. Be nice. I’m in pain here,” he said, wincing. That I did doubted, as he was hopped up on every painkiller and medication in the book. I suspected, actually, that he wasn’t feeling much of anything, but I kissed him on the forehead for good measure and bade him to continue, and that he did.

“Okay, well, Sam did take whatever he could lay his grubby, little hands on and he did leave that note for Peter. That much you know. That’s what all of you know, by now. What you don’t know, however, is that he wasn’t completely out of our lives after that.”

“Oh Lord, here we go,” I lamented.

“Be quiet, Secret, and let me finish. So, anyway, about a week after the vanishing act, he shows up at my door. For a split second, I had forgotten what he had done and took pity on him. He did look horrible, and I’m nothing if not merciful.”

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat while he shot me a menacing look. I let him continue.

“He sat down and got right to the point. Basically, he came to extort money from me. He threatened that if I didn’t cooperate, he would reappear in Peter’s life, begging forgiveness. He pointed out that he was sure to succeed and that I alone had the means to prevent him from doing so. Meaning, I relented, and quickly. I figured that it was worth it for Peter’s sake. And I knew that he was right. Peter would have let him right back in.” (Huh, Sparkle was actually wrong in this instance; Peter wouldn’t have let him return, as I had come to find out, but far be it from me to rub salt in the wound. Tempting though it was.)

“He returned to my doorstep three more times. Each time, he looked worse than the time before. Each time, he threw the same threat at me, but we both knew that he had gone way beyond what Peter would’ve ever taken back. What he didn’t know was that Peter had already started seeing Mitch. See, I never told him.” Sparkle paused. I could tell that this was wearing him out.

“Why?” I asked.

“Don’t rightly know. I guess I felt responsible. Their break up, after all, was somewhat through my own doing.” He looked remorseful. First time for everything, I guess.

“Sparkle, you are so not responsible in any way for his condition. He was snorting coke with my boyfriend behind all of our backs. Remember?” I get angry every time I think of that, but I tried to be gentle with my weakened friend.

“I know, I know. But you should’ve seen him. He was so pitiful. And, anyway, he wasn’t even asking for that much money. I think he was there to be around the normalcy more than anything else. (Strange thought that.) I assumed he’d really hit rock bottom by that point. I even offered to get him back into a treatment program, but he refused. So I would give him money and lunch, and then he would leave. I never even knew if I would see him again each time. And then, of course, I didn’t. Not until that night.” Long pause followed by a sigh.

“My cousin shot you, Sparkle?” I choked out, barely in a whisper. That scenario had never played out in my head, and an incredible sense of guilt enveloped me.

He paused a moment before he answered. He was obviously having a hard time in the retelling. “Not exactly. And not intentionally,” he offered.

“Um, did he shoot you or didn’t he? Seems like a pretty cut and dried situation.” I was getting sort of frantic by then. How awful that my own flesh and blood shot the person that meant the most to me in the whole entire world.

“Not on purpose, no. Let me explain… Secret, sit down, you’re making me nervous… Okay, the night I was shot, I came home early from the gym…”

“Slow night in the sauna?” I broke in.

“And we are friends
why
?”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Continue.”

“Fine. And, yes, it was. Fucker. Anyway, I came home from the gym and my front door was unlocked.
That
I never do. I entered slowly and saw nothing unusual. Not until I walked into the bedroom. Then I saw your cousin going through my dresser drawers. My best guess is that he got the key while he was living with Peter. My door wasn’t forced, so it’s the only way he could’ve gotten in. He’d already found my jewelry and some medication by the time I walked in on him. He also had my gun in his hospital-gloved hands. It was all very bad timing.” He sat there, shaking his head.