Working Title

April 24th, 2022 8:46 PM

There’s a persistent ache coming from the left side of his face. But that should be expected of getting your ass handed to you by a ladder. The whole left side of her face is swollen, promising a bruise on the cheekbone and underneath the eye. His nose is not broken but definitely sprained from getting hit, and is still lightly trickling blood. The liquor store lights are suddenly very obnoxious. A bright blue frames the peripherals of his vision. To put it lightly, our leading man has not had a good week, or month, or past two years to be fair. He doesn’t smoke anymore, at least not regularly. But a pack of menthols is burning a hole in his pocket, so he pulls it out. He shouldn’t smoke them. The liquor store aptly named the Corner Store, is placed on the corner of two main streets leading directly into the main part of town. Making the view from the front stoop perfect for people-watching. Or for people to watch you. Sitting on the cold pavement, she lights up with a nine-year-old Zippo. It’s late April and the air is beginning to warm up. It’s becoming consistent, the warmth that lasts through the night. Tonight is not one of those nights, the air is lined with a series of cold breezes that whip through the area. The moth-eaten college sweatshirt doesn’t do much against the weather. A man, wrapped in a tattered Carharrt jacket sits down on the pavement beside him. He gives a deep sigh, prickling with amusement before he speaks.

“The cashier told me to give you this,” he says as he hands over a bag of half-melted ice.

“Thanks,” he takes the bag of ice, clutching it to his chest before pressing it to the side of his face with a hiss.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I apologize.” The other man stares off into the street, the blue lights are kinder on his side profile. Or maybe it’s the lack of blood. Or something else that will remain unsaid.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that,” he mutters softly, regret seeping in after he says it.

“Say what?” He looks at the other man closer now, an incredulous look on his face. “That I’m sorry?” He asks the question with a bit of shock. There’s something in his eyes that can’t be placed. Disappointment, maybe. Annoyance, definitely. “I would have a lot more to say to you right now, but you know what I’m feeling kind,” he pushes herself off the curb and stands. He begins to walk away before stopping suddenly. It doesn’t appear as though he means to. He doesn’t turn around for a few beats.

Finally, he looks down at the man he’s speaking to - with, who knows. “I missed you, but that doesn’t mean I like you.” He begins to walk away. He turns around again. This time it’s purposeful. The disdain and annoyance and many other things that can’t be recognized at this moment are wiped off of his face. “I’ll see you later, and I’ll be pleased to see everyone’s reaction to that face of yours.”

“You used to like my face.”

“Never said I don’t. Bye James,” his words are final this time. He turns for the final time, crosses the street, and doesn’t look back.

James clutches the ice pack, now almost fully melted closer to his chest. The condensation begins to seep through the front of his sweatshirt. The cigarette he lit is forgotten in his fingertips, and down to almost the butt. He puts it out on the pavement and goes to chuck it away before remembering his little brother with tears streaming down his face explaining to their mom that squirrels eat cigarette butts because they think it’s food, and why would anyone want the squirrels to die, Mom? He crumbles the cigarette in his hand. Shakes the memory out of his head. Sometimes he wishes that his memories were like those film reels his mother loved so much. He’d take a pair of scissors and do something drastic. He throws the cigarette away in the trash can on the corner.

Twenty-Three Minutes Earlier

The thing about liquor stores in the Midwest is that they are very reliable. You can always be sure of what to expect. They won’t necessarily always have the millennial IPA brewed in Wisconsin that your brother wants but they will have Malibu. They will always have the same mildly misogynistic beer ads. They’ll always smell of cigarettes and cinnamon. The cashier is either someone you went to high school with or the same man who’s been working since before you were even a thought. Liquor stores in the Midwest are also reliable in the way that you can expect to see your ex from your teenage years. The ex you haven’t spoken to since your mother died. Your ex that, in some way, because you are who you are, you still have some sort of -

“James?” It takes twenty-three seconds for James to first: spin around, second: lose his footing, and third, and finally, slam his face into the nearby ladder. The one thing you should never expect from liquor stores in the Midwest is that they will have a ladder in the store, which is unexpected.

James falls flat onto his face, after slamming said face into the aforementioned ladder of course. There are copious amounts of blood. James picks himself up from the floor to look at his. He's beautiful, which is to be expected, he’s Regulus he was always going to be beautiful. It was in his name. It was in the way his mother dressed him when he was a child. It was in the way girls looked at him when he was in middle school, it was the way he would look them in the eyes and tell them that the love letter they gave him lacked proper grammar.

James looks at Regulus, and then at the hand, he has held to his nose and bottom lip. It’s covered in blood. And it should be poetic. Him here, Regulus a few feet away, his brother is getting married in a week, and his mother in a grave ten miles away. It should be poetic. But the blood is drying tackily to his face and the paper towel he’s handed isn’t as pretty as a clean white cloth.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Regulus asks, it’s laced with a sincerity that seems foreign. James looks into his eyes for the first time in two years. He nods his head.

“Here,” Regulus passes his more paper towels. “I’m going to see if they have ice,” he walks away. That part feels familiar. James is on his knees in his local Midwest liquor store. Not the lowest she has ever been, but certainly not the highest. He stands and makes his way outside. The bell above the door chimes. The Christmas lights around the eves of the liquor store roof are half burnt-out. The blue and white ‘open’ sign gives off more light. The temperature has dropped as the sun has gone down, meaning the paper-thin sweatshirt James is wearing does little to nothing. The college he went to is threaded across the chest, it’s burning a hole. It’s sure to be an omen of some sort. Maybe if he bikes past the lake he’ll see waterspouts forming.

After Regulus leaves, James walks to the side of the store where his bike sits. It’s a nineties Diamondback with duct-taped handlebars. There’s no kickstand so the bike is on its side. James picks the bike up and stands it upright. He then kicks the bike to the ground. He stomps on one of the wheels repeatedly. When he picks it up again he’s surprised the wheel still turns. He hops on the right pedal with his left foot, pushes off the ground, and starts to gain momentum. After a couple of feet, he swings the whole left side of his body over the bike. He pedals away from the store, bikes four blocks, crossing the highway that runs through town, to his house. his mother’s house, not his house. It’s the house he’s lived in for the last year and a half. James puts the bike in the garage and staggers up the steps at the front. The front door past the front porch is a grand staircase. It has family photos lining up the wall, it’s all very suburban. James sets his wallet on the table near the door entrance, except the table isn’t there anymore so it hits the ground. He doesn’t pick it up. He walks up the stairs and into the first bedroom on the right. He never walks into the bedroom on the left. The bed in the middle of the room is the same bed he’s had since she was thirteen. He lays down on the bed face first. He gets up finally after a long time of nothing. He takes the sweatshirt off and tosses it on the ground and falls asleep on top of the covers. There’s a sticky note on the wall above the nightstand. It’s a birthday card, he doesn’t look at it.

Funeral Blues

April 24th, 2020 8:56 AM

“The service will begin soon, Mr. Potter.” He finds the priest beside him, his hands folded in front of him, a smile on his face. The priest walks away, or maybe he’s the vicar, James doesn’t know. James looks back towards the church, it’s large and unthreatening, to most. Euphemia was religious which was clear, but Catholic she was not. That’s why the cathedral is a bit unsettling. Daniel is standing beside him, he takes a drag of a cigarette.

“The cathedral is a bit unsettling.” He says around the cigarette. James shakes his head at the statement. Everything about this is a bit unsettling. James turns his head back towards the street. He looks up. There’s a crowd of birds perched on the telephone line above the tree line. He begins to count. One, two, three, four…

“Mr. Potter?” The birds have flown away. James sighs and turns back around towards the cathedral entrance, he nods his head at the priest/vicar. Before crossing the threshold he pats the inside pocket of his coat. He feels the hard outline of the Zippo his father gave him when he was fifteen. He thinks about the initials engraved on the side, he doesn’t want to think about the initials. The clothes he’s wearing are uncomfortable, the shoes are loafers his mother bought him for his first adult interview. The pants are tight in the thighs and loose on the bottom, they look like bootcut jeans. James hates bootcut jeans. He used to cry and cry in the department store when his mother tried to get him to try them on. He glances up at the faces staring at her. It’s a myriad of emotions. Some are stone-faced, being brave. Some are glassy-eyed, cheeks wet. Some are just there, existing. And it’s all so infuriating. He shoves his fist into his coat pocket. He reaches the front pew and sits down, sandwiched between his brother and Sirius.

Here’s the thing about Sirius. Sirius will cry at two elderly people eating lunch in a diner. Sirius will write you handwritten notes with his god-awful handwriting because it means something. Sirius will climb into your window and share the bottle of vodka he stole from his mother’s closet. Sirius will put a hand on your knee and slip you a Xanax at your mother’s funeral. James swallows the Xanax dry. It leaves a mildly chalky residue taste.

Funerals that take place in churches are a bit of a sore spot for James. He sits down in a front pew and suddenly he’s eleven again, seeing his father in a casket, and his mother in a black dress. He’s eleven and his brother has stories about how wonderful his father was, even Sirius did. All James has is a story about his father who hated broccoli but would eat it with melted cheese. He has the memory of his grandmother’s friend telling him he would be a great writer one day when the service was over. He sits in a front pew in a church and all he has is an immovable pit of emptiness inside of his lungs. If he breathes deep enough he’s afraid he’ll never get his breath back. So he doesn’t breathe at all.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the priest begins. James rests his head on the heels of his palms. His elbows dig into his knees. It’s a persistent ache. He feels a light touch on her shoulder. He sits back expecting to see Sirius’s eyes trained on him, but he’s looking straight ahead. He turns to his right and sees his brother looking ahead as well but his hand is facing the ceiling, palm up. He grabs it and looks forward as well but not before turning to Daniel. His eyes are dull and they have deep circles underneath them, but there’s a small upturn at the side of his mouth. The priest is still talking when James finally gathers his attention. He hasn’t heard a word.

“If the kin of Euphemia Potter would like to come and say a few words for the departed?” He phrases it as a question. James understands the hesitancy. He and Daniel are not poster children for healthy coping mechanisms, so it’s unlikely that they have a few words for the departed. It’s definitely been over 3-minutes because James can feel the Xanax taking effect. Daniel looks a little better suited but one side of his hair is flattened to his head which is a bit surprising considering his uptight girlfriend. She’s nice though. Daniel stands, and okay apparently they’re doing this. James looks at the steps in front of her. She’s at the end of the pew and he can do it. He can feel a small rock sitting on his chest and it’s liquifying and now it’s spreading across his body floating down to his kneecaps. Damn that Xanax is quick. Or maybe he’s peed himself. Either or. He battles the stairs, and she survives. Daniel looks at him once over at the pulpit. Pulpit? Not his speed, not Daniel’s speed either. Damn, Euphemia.

“I would like to read a poem in honor of my mother.” James prays to everything on the other side of the Milky Way that it isn’t that Auden poem because if it is the dry cereal might come back up. he might throw the communion cup at his brother’s head. Daniel pulls out a crisp piece of white printer paper. He just printed it this morning, it’s the same paper they have in the office at home. James can tell.

“This one is called When Death Comes by Mary Oliver.” Oh? He’s a feminist now. Odd. James listens half-heartedly as the liquified rock makes its way all across his body. He can see the sea, well, more of a pond, of faces in the crowd. It’s been an eternity since she died, moss has grown over his place in this world, and yet she was just here, making eggs in the kitchen yesterday morning. Giving small bits to the dog. James swallows and swallows and there’s metaphorical water taking up room in his lungs and throat. Daniel finishes the poem and looks at James. There’s a tear falling down his face and tears on the paper. James walks up to him so he’s right there, in his space. He wipes the tear off his face. And it’s them, you and I, he thinks. The same then, the same now. He walks up to where Daniel just was. He clears his throat and runs a hand over the side of his jaw. He looks up, he looks down. He looks up.

“I don’t know what to say. I loved my mom and that’s all I know right now. I love her and that’s it. I- ya.” He coughs once. And finally, after one second, too long looks up. Every single head is cocked a little to the side and the tears they had from Daniel’s poem are dried by now. He looks at Sirius. His eyes are tight and there’s a tight smile on his face too. He gives two thumbs up when he catches James’s eye. James breathes once, says thank you into the mic, and walks down the steps. The priest puts one hand on his shoulder, he looks at his hand, he wants to slap the sad smile off his face. What they don’t tell you about the five stages of grief is that anger never leaves, it interweaves itself into everything you are afterward. There’s no getting rid of it.

10:26 AM

He was sure she pissed himself up there. He stares at the back of his pants but sees nothing. He can’t get the angle right. He hears the door open and jumps at the sound.

“What are you doing?” Sirius is staring at him in an accusatory way but there’s a smile behind his question.

“I think I peed my pants.” He walks over to James and catches his eye in the mirror.

“You sound like a toddler when you say pee, just say pissed.”

“I pissed my pants.” Sirius looks down at his pants.

“No. You didn’t. There is a substantial lack of piss on your pants.” James looks down at his pants. He shrugs and then looks back at Sirius. Sirius looks back at his and sighs, so many people sighing today. It’s like the air keeps getting punched out of them, but they’re expecting it.

“There are people looking for you.”

“I don’t want to.” Sirius looks at the ground and kicks his shoe against the scuffed toe of James’s loafer. He knows he has to. He picks his head up and looks in the opposite direction. She stares at the water stains on the church ceiling. They have large brown circles with grayish centers. Some of the ceiling tiles bend with the weight of decay. James understands. He puts his head at a normal level and nods once. He steps one step closer and then envelopes Sirius. One and the same. It feels like eleven, it feels like twenty-one. Sirius wraps his arms tightly around James. Hugging Sirius never felt like hugging anyone else. He’s thinner than James so James takes up most of the hug. But Sirius commands it. Holds you steady, makes you feel like you’re gonna fall over, and then holds you upright again. It never felt like how James felt hugging other boys. Some boys only hugged for a few seconds, or maybe never at all. Sirius never cared, he put his whole being into it. Never cared how long people stared or how long was too long to hold someone like this.

“Thank you,” Sirius speaks but it barely breaks the silence they have in this bathroom. James doesn’t know what he means by that. He doesn’t respond, he just looks up at him. And he’s thankful too. The door bangs open again, a middle-aged woman walks in. She looks at the two embracing and a face of bafflement befalls her.

“Get out!” James may be smaller but his voice fills the whole room.

“This is the women’s room?” The man responds.

“Oh.” The two men look at each other and then break the embrace to leave the women’s toilet. They mutter “sorry’s” to the woman when they pass her.

12:47 PM

The funeral has moved from the church to the Potter house. James sits on the floor of the hallway. His back is up against the staircase and he’s staring at the wall. His head is cocked towards the left. The portrait on the opposite wall is an Ansel Adams from his mural project collection. Not an original, his parents weren’t rich enough for an original. There’s a chip on the bottom left corner of the frame from a young Daniel being chased by Sirius. The portrait is of a pueblo church, two crosses are visible in the print. James stares at the portrait and stares and stares. A figure blocks the frame. James looks into his eyes and for the first time in a week, they aren’t avoiding each other’s eyes.

“Hey, kid.” His father’s father is an unsuspecting man. He looks like many other men and acts like many other men. Has the humor of many other men. The difference is James has forgiven his father’s father when he was eighteen because that’s what adults do. They forgive. And kids trying to be adults do what they think is right. James does not know if forgiveness was the right thing to do. He doesn’t know if she has anything to forgive. The other difference is that James’s father unlike many other fathers knows his children. James’ grandfather did not. James’s grandfather like many other grandfathers doesn’t use words. He reaches a hand out to James. He grabs it, he brings him to his feet. He hugs him. And it’s the same and not the same. And there is so much anger inside of him. He breathes out once more.

1:28 PM

There are still people milling about the house and James is having a brain aneurysm in his dead mother’s kitchen. He’s speaking to an uncle he doesn’t know and an aunt he doesn’t think is blood-related to his is saying something awful about gay people. James feels the Xanax wave goodbye out of the system of his body. He’s flying solo now. He doesn’t sigh, he heaves. A deep heavy thing comes from the base of his spine out of his nostrils. Both the uncle and aunt turned to him. Their eyes widen with concern.

“Are you alright dear?” The aunt asks.

“No, I actually feel quite queer at the moment I think I’m going to lie down.” Both of their eyes widen again. “Fuck you for your concern.” He says it quietly enough that it could be misheard as ‘Thanks’ but they all know it isn’t. He gives them a sly smile and slips away out the back door. The Potter’s one claim to fame in the neighborhood was the backyard pool, complete with the slide by the deep end and the diving board. James sits on the edge of the diving board. The water has been drained. Leaves are piling at the bottom of the pool mixed with mud.

James looks at his hands held open and examines the lines crossing his palms. He takes his right hand and traces the divots on his left. He touches the bump where his thumb joint meets the other bone. The scar you can only see when he stretches his fingers outwards from each other. The freckle on his pointer finger. The nail beds are red and raised from being cut too short. He drops his hands, he swings his feet in tandem.

“I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you…” he says the words over and over again until they mean different things.

He doesn’t hear the footsteps walking up to him. He only turns when he hears his name.

“James?” It’s Julia, his brother’s girlfriend. His very nice girlfriend.

James just turns his head and looks at the woman.

“Daniel is looking for you.” James nods, and Julia nods. She’s nice, she’s very nice. Julia walks away.

A few minutes later the sliding door opens. People should be out on the deck. It’s nice enough out even with the overcast. People probably aren’t out here because the grieving kid is out here. Two grieving kids are out here.

The diving board dips, and he can feel his brother sit down a couple of feet away from him.

“I’m going to marry her.”

James sighs, another sigh. Who’s keeping count?

“You’re eighteen Daniel.”

“We’re in love.”

Less of a sigh this time. More of a chuckle.

“Why is that funny?”

“You’re not in love, Daniel.”

“You’re just bitter.”

He scoffs, “Why would I be bitter?”

“Oh, come on.” James turns at that. Almost loses his balance. Daniel isn’t looking at him, he’s staring into the deep end. Daniel shakes his head and laughs. Neither of them says anything as he gets up to leave. He stays a few seconds longer. Luckily, he makes it off the diving board without busting a lip. He makes it onto the pavement and sees someone moving by the bushes toward the back of the yard.

“Hello?” James tries to squint to get a better look at the figure.

The person turns around. “Regulus?”

Regulus looks like a deer caught in the headlights. his grey-blue eyes are trained on James. He looks caught.

“Um-”, he looks around like something around him will make his presence make sense. “I was, looking for-”, he looks around again. “I was looking for Sirius.”

“Sirius?”

“Ya, I am.”

James doesn’t laugh, he’s not going to. “He’s inside.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“How are you?”

“Please don’t ask that.”

“Okay.”

They’re both standing there. With nothing to do and with nothing to say to each other. It feels familiar and foreign all at the same time. Regulus opens his mouth to say something. James isn’t looking at him but he can hear the intake of breath that lets him know. He also hears Regulus close his mouth and walk away. Not inside, the door doesn’t open. The air is getting colder as the day drags on. James can feel it in his lungs. Time is not moving the same, it never does in this backyard while things are happening somewhere else. The clouds aren’t moving as fast as they were. He wants to go inside, but he doesn’t.