The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade: Stories (30 page)

***

So I told him everything.

I told him about the graduation dance and about how my
friend mysteriously stopping talking and, ten years later, died. I told him
about my roommates, the good ones and the tough ones. I told him about my uncle
and my parents and Abbey. I told him about my youth and young loves.

In the beginning my stories were choppy, I guess, because
that’s the way distant memories always seem to be. Little details can stand in
for so much in memories. An itchy chin is how you remember a friend. A
green-eyed boy on a subway platform is how you remember a life-changing day. A
pair of worn corduroys is what you remember about being in love. The sound of a
dial-up modem connecting. The tips of your dad’s fingers at the small of his
back. These details are like pulses, like heartbeat spikes on the cardiac line
of memory.
BeepBEEP
,
beepBEEP
,
beepBEEP
. I think memories are like that for everyone.
One day stands out in a hundred, five stand out in a thousand. A few events in
a lifetime of nothing-days can build you, just like how atoms are made up
mostly of empty space and yet can build the world.

There was more to tell as I got older. My memories were more
vivid and the details piled up. They didn’t necessarily bring clarity, though;
sometimes details only made things more confusing. Maybe things were simpler
when they were choppy. I remembered telling Wesley how I’d been confused
growing up as a gay kid, and the confusion hadn’t ended in college or
afterward, even with clearer memories.

Telling Fletcher all these things, I was worried he would
think I was a dumb-ass. I’d made so many mistakes in my life, and in the
telling of it they all seem so obvious. Why did I accept an invitation to a
dance I didn’t want to go to? Why did I smother a boy who needed someone just
to be there? Why did I not realize how my parents would be affected by Abbey?
It was stupid, all of it, and looking back it’s easy to criticize. I’d have
every right to be hard on myself. But I know that in the moment I was always
just doing the best I could. I was working with what I had, with what I knew,
and sometimes that was not very much. But I was never trying to be a bad guy.
Everyone I met along the way, everyone who contributed the little hurts that
gave me muscle—they all were doing the best they could, too. And I guess
I owe them for it. I owe them for the muscle, and I owe them because each one,
one by one and stacked together, got me here. The foundation of everything I’d
ever be, whatever that might be, was here now, watching fireworks with
Fletcher.

***

It happened naturally, and I don’t think either of us was
completely aware of it, but by the time the fireworks started I was lying on my
back with my head in his lap. People were seeing us but nobody said anything.
The little girl smiled and I smiled back. TV cameras on cranes swept back and
forth overhead, their red
Live from
Boston
lights glowing. I understood I was on television with my head
resting on a guy’s lap, and I was OK, and I thought, again,
Dear young Ollie, you won’t believe this but
it’ll be true.

“Ba-boom,” Fletcher whispered, and he put his hand on my
chest, and I didn’t know whether he meant the fireworks or my heartbeat.

I told him everything over those past few hours, except
one thing. There was something I was saving; it was something I always saved. I
hadn’t told him what I saw the night of the blackout.

I hadn’t told him that after I said goodbye to him and got
off the train, I didn’t go home. I crossed over to the inbound side of the
tracks, got back on, rode to the end of the line and looped around. I hadn’t
wanted to be home yet and my feet were too tired to walk anymore.

I sat on the train with my arms folded and I looked out the
window, through the scuffed, scratched glass, at the fuzzy shapes of the city
drifting by. My mind was silent. I had listened to R.E.M.’s last new song, “We
All Go Back to Where We Belong,” a dozen times but now my earbuds were tucked
away in my pocket again. I watched through the window as the sunlight dimmed
and disappeared, as storefront lights and headlights and signs lit the worn
glass with blurs of color, like watercolors rubbed on the window.

Night had fallen fully and for the last few stops I’d been
almost alone in the T car—at the other end a man dozed with his head
against a handrail.

I was looking at the window, at the colors, not thinking,
just being. Clear of everything else my mind’s eye started conjuring the
picture that boy on the subway platform drew with his finger so many years
before. That two-stroked heart and the line that flowed away from it, made when
my train started to pull away from him—while I’d watched unbelieving that
I’d lost him forever. I didn’t know what made me think of that now, what made
the image so clear in my mind. I could almost see the heart fading onto the
window, clear lines growing in the scuff, like the reverse of breathing on
glass. If I held my head just-so, if I tricked my eyes, I could almost
see—

With a jolt I leaned forward.

I got up and went to the window, knelt on the seat in front
of it. Two strokes were there now, two parts of the heart, one curved, one
curved with that flat line—two strokes clear in the scuff, glowing with
the colored lights of the city. I touched the glass. How? But it was there.
Tears came to my eyes and electricity seemed to buzz along my hair.

My heart started thumping in my chest, reminding me it was
there, and that it was strong.

I thought, If I decide to tell Fletcher about that heart
that showed up on the night we now call Paint Day— If I tell him that I
know who the Painter is, that I know what he looked like as a teenage boy, with
emerald eyes and space-black hair— If I tell him that when I mouthed to
the boy that I loved him he
smiled
—
If I tell Fletcher those things, and if he believes me, if he is the kind of
person who would believe a thing so unbelievable, I swear I’m going to marry
him. If he believes me, I’ll know this is where I belong.

Fireworks were crashing overhead, faster now, and louder. Then
louder. We were close to the grand finale. I wanted to tell him. I was afraid
he would laugh at me and the day would be ruined, but if ever there was a time
to risk everything, it was underneath fireworks. I felt as though they’d push
things my way. And anyway, if he laughed, I was strong.

With my head still lying in his lap I looked up at him. “Want
to hear something pretty weird, Fletcher?”

“Yeah, tell me, Ollie,” he said, watching the sky. Colors
lit up his face and he looked beautiful. “I can handle weird, believe you me.”

“Let’s find out if you can,” I said.

So I told him the last thing, and slowly he looked down at
me while fireworks exploded beyond his head, forgotten. My story had made him
forget about thunder and fire. Although his eyes were wide enough for me to see
myself looking up into them, there was no doubt in them. There was confusion,
maybe, but even in the confusion I knew I belonged. What can love ever be but
confusing? Even when you know every detail, it’s something to figure out, day
by day, a perpetual discovery. You wouldn’t want it any other way.

The sky lit up with sound and sparks.
Ba-boom,
ba
-boom.
Deep, thunderous, loud
enough to set off car alarms in the distance. I could feel the sound in my
chest.

Fletcher leaned down and kissed me and said, “I believe you.”

I laughed, and at long last I knew I belonged. It was a
sweet word,
belong
. Once upon a time
I had said it to my daughter, but I had said the wrong thing. This was what I
should have said to her that day, when I told her not to be like me: “Yes, be
like me. When a path isn’t laid out for you, find it. Find the place you
belong.”

Belong. Do you hear it?
Belong.
It was an orange word, warm, warm as a whisper in a noisy bar, warm as a bed
with the blankets held open for you, warm as a kiss that ends a fight, warm as
plans, warm as future, warm as fireworks on a summer night.

Belong, belong, belong.

You know?

AUTHOR’S NOTES

A few things before you go:

First, if you liked this book, please rate it, tweet it,
whatever it! This helps other people discover the book—and let’s face it,
given my poor marketing skills it’s basically all in your hands. I’ll be
grateful forever for your help!

Questions, comments, complaints? Email me at
[email protected]. Tweet me @
benmonopoli
.

Second, fans of R.E.M. and doers of careful math will note
that in this book the band disbands in 2008; in real life it happened in 2011.
Otherwise I’ve mostly stuck to the actual dates of their album releases and
such. I wish I’d been able to show Ollie at a concert, but the band’s tour dates
never quite lined up with the timeline of the stories. It’s safe to say Ollie saw
a concert or two between stories, though.

Last but not least, I need to thank the usual suspects. Particularly
Maggie, for reading and encouraging a lot of these stories when they were still
just snippets in emails. Jake, for designing me a fancy new lighthouse logo. Tom,
for helping with the blurb, which is always the hardest part for me. Enriquez,
for answering all my questions about Army enlistment. Chris, for continuing to
be where I belong. And you, of course, for reading.

—Ben

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