Crush (36 page)

“You are a firecracker,” Tammy chides me, hoping his smile will enchant myanger away. “You don’t remember what happened to you, Jamie…so anything we said probably didn’t make sense anyway.”

You’re an ass
, I write.
I suppose remembering some creep in a hoodie means nothing to you?
“Oh, Jamie…please don’t be mad at me…it’s so awful…I don’t even
want
you to remember.”
It’s coming back, sorry
.
“I know…and I’ll tell you everything when the time comes.”
Why not prepare me now so I don’t have to be so traumatized?!
Instead, he invites Stacy and Peggy, who I’m going to call Mom---no, Ma, from now on, out to eat with us at the Sizzler-type restaurant. Then he has them stay all evening with us at the house. He rents a bunch of dumb new movies that Stacy thinks will be great. If we were alone, we’d be watching
Father Goose
or
Arsenic and Old Lace
.
I ignore all of them and spend the night silently pouting and petting our new kids, Wonka, Teddy and Pepper, who are crowding around me adoringly. Misty, Sam, Ginger and Tigger sulk over in the corner for a while, then decide to join the family.
Halfwayburied byseven fluffyfelines, I look up everynow and again to see Tammy smiling at me, sadly, hopefully. “I love you,” he mouths.
I snub him.
He begins flicking peanuts, M&Ms, and Crunch N Munch popcorn at me. I bite off a hunk of Red Vine and sling it at him using mygood arm, putting remarkable strength behind mythrow.
“Ouch!” he grins.
I stick myred-dyed tongue out at him.
“Mustn’t fight, children,” Stacymutters.
“Don’t be mad at me,” mouths Tammy, his eyes drilling into me.
I respond bylooking back down at Wonka, who is purring like an outboard motor, snuggled against my breast. I stroke the rich, coffee-brown fur over his face and kiss his forehead softly.
“You know?” Tammymuses boldly. “I wish I was a cat. I wish I was a furry brown and white cat right now. And I wish a certain someone was doing to me what he’s doing to that cat!”
Ma laughs. Stacy grumbles, “Hey, we’re trying to watch a movie here!”
Tammywinks at me, and mymean determination to give him the cold shoulder disintegrates. I smile back at him and shake my head. No fair.
That night he gives me a present. It’s the softest, cuddliest, most luxurious little velour blanket in the world. It’s baby soft as I brush it against my cheeks, and I knead it like a contented cat. In fact, I’m sure the kids would love to confiscate it.
“You can lay on it when your elbows are sore…and when those scars on your back hurt…sheets can be kind of abrasive,” he says gently. He looks a little leery, as if he expects me to lash out at him for mentioning my scars. I grab him and hug him hard, and crya little.
Why are you so good to me?
I ask him.
“Because I want to be.”
I’m rotten. I never do anything nice for you.
“You do lot’s of nice things for me,” Tammy whispers. “Especiallyin bed.”
I mean I never buy things for you!
“Well, then, buyme stuff!”
I don’t knowwhat you’d like. I’m a very un-creative shopper.
“Get creative. Surprise me,” he murmurs, kissing myear. “I’ll love anything you get me.”
I never shopped for Lloyd either. I barely even told him I loved him. I’m awful. I don’t deserve you.
“Oh, shush,” Tammy says into my hair. “You loved Lloyd… and he knew it.”
I think I saw him when I was out
, I write.
I think he talked to me.
He smiles, “Maybe.”

But with myright arm in a sling, I’m in no mood or shape for sex.
“I’m not either,” Tammy agrees. He laughs very softly. “But soon…verysoon…and this blanket…it’s sooo soft…it’s better than velvet.”
I can’t wait…I’d love to laymybare ass on that velour heaven. I want to feel it against the back of myballs while Tammy’s fucking me.
But tonight, we watch an old VHS of
Our Gang
shorts instead, and I comb my fingers through the blankie’s obscenely soft fur while I swallow two Tylenol with Codeine, prescribed for the painful, fragmented mess of bones inside myplaster cast.
Pen and paper are inadequate media…to explain to Tammy that I’m recalling it all now, and that what happened to me in that orange orchard literallyscared myvoice away.
It’s returning to me, swiftly, tumbling onto me, overtaking me, like a rogue wave.

The nightmares are terrible, and useful, and Jamie names Lydia Rocha as the woman in the white sweater who was in that orchard on December 30th. He recognized her voice, he says, and when her apartment in San Ramon is searched, theyfind not only Jamie’s car keys, but his cell phone and his wallet. The dumb bitch didn’t even bother to hide them. Jamie says that someone named “Ray” carried out the physical beating. Ray Battle denies it of course, but Lydia, in hopes of getting a lighter sentence when trial time comes, fingers Mr. Battle none too subtly. As Yvette did with Steve Cantrell, Lydia and Ray turn on each other, each naming the other the “mastermind.”

Yvette and Cantrell both plead guilty to possession and distribution of child porn, but nobody is going to cop to the abduction and attempted murder without trying to reap whatever benefits are available to them. Ha! The D.A. isn’t interested in lightening anyone sentences, for any reason. She’s disgusted with every last party who had any knowledge of, or involvement in, Jamie’s bashing. When Lydia talks, she weeps big crocodile tears about having been in love with me since high school, and how Jamie made her feel stupid for once having a thing for him. “They’re fags!” she sobs. “I liked both of them…and all this time, they’re fags!” Though she pleads “not guilty” to the charge of kidnapping and conspiracy, her statements incriminate her as a bitter, bigoted, bitch who orchestrated this, along with a pair of chicken livers who hate homosexuals.

They all plead “not guilty,” but the D.A. tells us that the evidence against them, along with their hateful, vindictive attitudes about Jamie and me, have pretty much fucked them. Along with kidnapping and attempted murder, they will all be charged with depraved indifference. Whether Yvette came along for the ride or not, whether Lydia struck Jamie with the towel rack or not, they all talked, they all laughed, they all conspired., and they all knew Jamie was going to be attacked that night. Everyone will be indicted: Ray Battle, Yvette Feldman, Steve Cantrell, Lydia Rocha, and Benny Feldman. Mrs. Cooke’s statement has established beyond a doubt that Cantrell is the man in the “puffed jacket” who drove the car that night. Bennymight not have “done” anything per se, but he most certainlyis
not
off the hook. He is guiltyof knowing that a crime was going to be committed, and not informing the police. I’d like to lose myshoe in his ass just as much as in all the others’.

Almost every night following Jamie’s release from the hospital, he wakes up, crying voicelessly. One morning at about two o’clock, I get up to pee. En route, I get distracted by my stomach rumbling, and I stop at the fridge to snack on the remains of one of Jamie’s famous chocolate mousse pudding pies…sex in a graham cracker crust. I am about to resume my original itinerary to the toilet when I see his tiny figure, barely throwing a shadow behind him, in the hallway. He lost a lot of badly needed flesh while he was in his coma, and he looks fragile, adorable, in his white t-shirt and long pajama bottoms.

He just stares…stares at me with those big, lost eyes. I go to him and kneel so that our eyes are level. “Are you okay?”
It’s clear he’s not. He’s shivering.
“What is it? Tell me.”
He moves closer to me, his eyes silently appealing me to touch him.
“Did you have a bad dream?” I finallyask.
He nods, tears splashing on my chest. I hold him. “It’s okay now…”
He shakes his head, still quaking turbulently. His nails dig into the back of my neck. He won’t let go. Whatever he dreamed about scared the holycrap out of him.
I read his mind then. “Did you think I left you?”
He shrugs, his eyes shimmering in the quiet dark. I can
hear
him shaking.
“Oh, Baby…I onlygot up to go pee…and I was hungry…I was eating some of your chocolate pie, that’s all.”
He doesn’t move. His face is buried against mythroat.
“I’ll never leave you alone,” I whisper. “Never, ever…that’s whyI moved in…I can’t have you being alone right now.”
He begins to sob. He’s mute, but I know his thoughts. “What happened to you wasn’t your fault, Jamie…I’m not mad at you. But I’m never leaving you alone again…not even when you insist that I should.” I don’t want him feeling like a prisoner or a helpless child either. “I love you.”
He nods, kisses myneck softly.
“I know you’re afraid,” I murmur. “It’s going to take a while for you to get through this…but they’re not going to hurt you again.”
He lifts his face. He glances around, juts his chin towards the front door.
“I changed the locks, Jamie…
nobody
is coming into this house unless we invite them.”
He sags against me, limp with relief.
“Let’s go pee, then we’ll watch
Our Gang
and go back to bed

affections of pretty Miss Crabtree, Jamie falls fast asleep in my arms. I stare at his beautiful face, stroke my fingers over his cheekbones, through his soft, curlyblonde hair. He’s so pretty…no scar will mar that.

He’s here, he really is…God answered my prayers. I’m so thankful.
But I miss his voice…I miss that so much…I wonder if when we’re able to make love, he’ll make any sound at all. He has no idea how I love the sounds he makes when I’m inside of him. We used to “talk” to each other while we fucked. He’d make the sweetest little squeals and grunts, “Mmm-hmm? Mmm-hmm?” while he rode my dick, our lips fastened together, our tongues dancing, myanswering groans vibrating into his mouth…
I’ll never be able to explain it better than this. It’s like part of him is still missing. I haven’t heard him speak since before he vanished and was found fighting for his life, under a black garbage bag. It’s like his voice is still out in that orchard, trying to find its way back to me. I know it sounds stupid. I know I should be grateful that Jamie is alive.
And I
am
grateful…I’m nothing
but
grateful…
Thank you, God,
I meditate, and then mytears flow.
Oh, God, I
so
appreciate you for letting him live. I really do. You
know
I’m thankful.
But please, let Jamie’s voice come home too
.

I urge him not to think about the ordeal he’s survived, but he scrawls,
I have to deal with it, Tammy. It’s not going to go away. I wish I could forget about it. I wish I could pretend it never happened. I almost wished I had permanent memory loss, but I didn’t want to lose memories of us, memories I love.

Time. That’s something I need practice with. Time and patience.
He’s taken an extended leave of absence from work. One day, he receives a get-well card from his coworkers at St. Paul’s. His friend Marilyn Medrano writes,
Angel, it’s such a slice of heaven working with you on the noc shift. It’s so dull around here without you to make us laugh. I love you, because it’s such hard work but you take delight in it. Hurry back!
“I told you people
love
you!” I say.
He nods solemnly, and writes,
You’re right.
And to our astonishment, Paulina, that crotchety old Nurse Ratchet, writes,
You’re in my prayers
.
What a world
, Jamie writes.
He fills his considerable idle time with writing thank you notes, to every person he can think of who has been kind to him during this mess. He writes cards to me, to Stacy, to my Mom, to Patti and Deanna, to Mrs. Cooke from the bakery, to Mr. Bloom, to the staff at U.C. Davis, and he also tracks down and writes to the four guys who found him in the grove and called 9-1-1.

February arrives, and it takes my proposing marriage to get him to speak, though only in a whisper, and only a few croaking words. He writes that his throat is weak and something keeps getting in the way when he tries to make words. We talk to his doctor again, who reassures us that there is no damage in Jamie’s trachea or voice box.

When I pop the big question, it’s spur of the moment, my emotions coming to a head after nearly losing him. I don’t have a ring or anytoken of commitment, and I feel bad, but Jamie writes,
The angel you gave me.
He pulls it out of his t-shirt and stares at it.
I kept it close to me that night. I thought of you, and it kept me going. You’re my angel, Tammy, not the other way around.

“Oh yes, you
are
myangel,” I saysternly.
OK, we’re each other’s angels.
“Alright, then.”
On every calendar in the house, Jamie writes,
Get

married!!!!!!
We’re not waiting. What’s the point of waiting? I ask him, “Are you
sure
you’re readyto be married?” he nods, scribbles,
I’m sooo ready to marry up with you!

“We’re going to do it for real…we’re going to go somewhere where gay marriage is recognized, and if we can’t, we’re going to have the commitment ceremony with every friend we have to witness it!”

They recognize in Canada
, writes Jamie.
Patti told me. I want her at our wedding. Sylvie is a lesbian, by the way! We could go to Vancouver or Toronto.

“It seems sudden, in a way…but then, we
should
have been together all those years. I love you…I want you…nobodyelse.”
You’re the only one for me, Tammy,
he writes.
There will never be anyone else in my heart. You’re everything to me.
I know, we’re making you nauseous…I’ll stop for a while...

Myvoice continues to elude me. But we tryto get on with it the best we can. I want to get back to living as though nothing happened to me, to us. They almost killed me. They almost took me away from Tammy, and that would have killed
him
. My love for him is undiminished, and I have never been more certain of his love for me. Nobodyelse would put up with the mood swings that grab me out of nowhere, the frustration of not being able to express myself verbally, the irritation of being unable to articulate, the supreme annoyance of having to fucking
write
everything I can’t communicate with nods, shakes or gestures. The spasm in my throat is long gone, but when I open my mouth to try and speak, there is nothing. I don’t moan when I turn over in bed, I don’t groan when I stub mytoe against the coffee table leg. When I sigh, when I laugh, when I cry, it’s in whispers, with no musical qualityat all.