I was fifty two when that boy came into the world. It was a whole ruckus, you see, because that boy did not seem to want to come into the world. He came out kicking and wailing and oh, so slowly, much to the dismay of his mother. Though she didn’t seem particularly excited about his coming into the world, either.
It was as if he seemed to know that this world was not going to be kind to him, so I cannot say I blame him for wanting to stay in the warm safety of his mother’s womb. But we rarely get what we want in this world, and that boy learned this very quickly.
That boy’s birth was the talk of our town for a week or so, but, as all gossip does, he faded into the background rather quickly. His brother was born a year later, and the two could be seen running around the street, chasing each other and giggling madly. I used to complain about the racket they made just like everyone else, but secretly I always found it endearing.
Oh, how the younger one looked up to that boy. When he was a child, that is. I don’t remembered exactly when it stopped, but it did. There came a time when the younger one never really left the house, and eventually he left the town entirety. I suppose that’s when that boy started to change. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t for the better.
Words such as “delinquent,” “trouble-maker,” and “bastard” floated from lip to lip once he turned thirteen. I only ever referred to him as “that boy,” but I did blame the migraines I often got on him whenever he came up in conversation. I was only partially kidding.
He stole and drank, gambled and cursed, yelled and sang. The only thing he did more than speed around on that motorbike of his was smoke. I never met someone who smoked more than that boy.
His parents disapproved greatly, of course. Loudly, too. I attended one of the respectable dinner parties they always held only once; they told each guest there how disappointed they were in him, not hesitating to share all the methods of discipline they had tried. I told them their methods were likely the reason he did all of the things he did in the first place. They turned their noses up and said that he was just a rotten one, and really there was nothing they could do. All the guests around them nodded in agreement, and then the conversation shifted over to the younger one and how good of a son he was, as it always did when that boy was brought up. I didn’t go to any more of their dinner parties after that.
They kicked him out of the house when he was seventeen. I remember the night he spent sleeping on the bench right down the street from my flat, his precious leather jacket the only item with him. I should’ve gone to him. But I didn’t.
Thank God for his uncle. He lived right down the street, only a block away from that boy’s original home. Rumor was it that he was also a disappointment to his family, and that boy’s parents had personally kept him from ever seeing him. So his uncle took him in, and his parents moved away.
For one year, it seemed like maybe he would turn out to be a respectable man after all. His old habits didn’t stop, but they lessened, at least. And he seemed happier. If only for a year. But then his uncle died, leaving that boy everything in his possession. Leaving him alone once more.
He went right back to how he was after that. He might’ve even been worse. I should’ve reached out to him, should’ve offered him a bit of comfort when not a single other person did. But I didn’t.
But then there was a very interesting change when he turned nineteen. That was when the nice one moved in across the street from that boy. The nice one also smoked; perhaps that’s why that boy seemed to take a liking to him immediately. At first, the people of our town worried for the nice one. He walked his large black dog every day and grew flowers on his windowsill and seemed to get a new book from the library every week. A good boy, he was. They worried he was going to turn rotten if he spent too much time around that boy. Instead, the opposite happened.
That boy stopped doing a lot of things he used to because he was too focused on other things—other things being the nice one. He stopped speeding because he wanted to make sure the nice one saw him when he passed by him on the road. He stopped gambling because he wanted to save his money to buy flower seeds and books for him. He stopped yelling because he was too busy talking to him. He didn’t stop drinking or cursing or singing, but he did it with the nice one. He never stopped smoking. They did that together, too.
And then, all of a sudden, that boy wasn’t a delinquent and the nice one wasn’t a good boy. Instead, they were labeled “faggots” and a number of other equally nasty terms. They held hands walking down the street and got spat on. They went to get coffee together and were harassed. The only reason they weren’t jumped was because everyone was still a bit frightened of that boy. But they were isolated and berated and hated. Hated for love. I was the only one that saw that it was love; everyone else couldn’t see past the fact that it was two men.
That didn’t stop them. They loved and loved and loved despite the hate. They didn’t leave, even if it would’ve been better. They held their ground and held each others hands, and I watched them do it and looked back with disappointment on my past self who turned my nose up at that boy for all the things he did. He was just a boy. He was brave. They both were. I had to respect them for that.
I remember when that boy got sick. I believe the father had died of a sickness himself. The difference was that that boy brought it on himself. He never stopped smoking. Not until it started to kill him. It succeeded, eventually. It took a year to do it. He held out for that long. I knew it wasn’t for himself; it was for the nice one. Death took its time in taking him, but when it did, it was quiet. He passed in his sleep, they said. I overheard a nurse say that she’d heard his ragged breathing finally stop, and then the only sound had been the nice one’s sobs.
A funeral was held with only two in attendance: the nice one and the younger one. The younger one came back in town just to bury his brother and left immediately after. The nice one stayed in that old little graveyard for three days. I watched it all from the window of my flat. I should’ve gone to the funeral, even if I wasn’t invited. I should’ve gone to the nice one. But I didn’t.
I remember the day the nice one finally snapped. It had been two weeks, and the nice one had scarcely been seen. He’d gone to the coffee shop in the morning for the first time since the death of that boy. There, the grocer was discussing that boy with the barber outside. He’d said all sorts of nasty things about him; I can’t say I blame the nice boy for breaking his nose. He spent a night in a cell because of it.
After he’d snapped, he changed. He stole and drank, gambled and cursed, yelled but never ever sang. He was a thousand times worse than that boy had ever been. The people shook their heads and talked about how that boy had turned him rotten. I was the only one who knew that wasn’t the case. You see, the nice one was searching for signs of that boy in the places he used to be, the things he used to do. He looked for him in the bottom of a bottle of beer that boy used to drink, at the end of the table in the bar where he used to play cards, in the middle of the street he used to speed down. He tried to feel him in the cloud of smoke that surrounded his head every time I saw him. I don’t think he ever did.
Eventually, the nice one seemed to understand that he was searching for something that was no longer there. When he realized he was never going to feel that boy again, he didn’t stop. He just did it more. He chain-smoked his way through every excruciating moment, hoping every one would be his last. But the alcohol and the drugs and the smoking didn’t kill him. He’d already died with that boy. I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve helped him. But I didn’t.
But, eventually, he came back on his own. The nice one came back without that boy, because that boy was the kind of dead you couldn’t come back from. But the nice one could come back, and he did.
It took two years for the smoke to clear. He learned to feel that boy in other things, like the sleeves of his leather jacket, on the seat of his motorbike, on the stoop of his doorway. He started walking his dog and growing flowers and going to the library again. He went to get coffee alone. He finally stopped smoking.
I was seventy three when that boy died. I never expected to outlive him. I also never expected to care for that boy, and the nice one, but here we are. But I watched that boy grow and fight and live and die, and I can’t help but care for him for that. Our town was too cruel to him. I know that now. There are so many things I should’ve done, had I been brave enough. Maybe I could’ve helped him stop smoking.