Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent (34 page)

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ve been very distant since you came back. What’s going on?”

I didn’t answer him for a long moment. My stomach started to burn.

“What’s going ON?” he said, his voice rising.
“Say
something! You’re really freaking me out!”

My heart was thudding. “I…”

“WHAT?!?”

I didn’t know what words I could use to explain or defend what I had done, or what kind of insanity I might encounter on the other end of the phone no matter what I said.

“I
need
you to fucking
say
something!” His breath came fast and heavy. “I’m going to start panicking if you don’t fucking
talk.”

“Todd, I…”

“WHAT?!?”
I could hear him as he swallowed, hard. “What happened? What
happened
?!?”

I stared straight ahead, barely moving, my voice hardly above a whisper. My head felt incredibly heavy. “I don’t know how to say it…”

“Say WHAT?!?” Where were the words? What words could I use? “Did you fuck someone?” he shouted. “DID YOU FUCK SOMEONE?!?”

“No!”
I managed. “I didn’t fuck anyone.”

“Then
what
?”

“I…” I began, then stopped again. Mercifully, Todd waited for me to continue. And somehow, I managed to say, “I just…jerked off with someone.”

“What do you mean?” His voice was low and thick and horrible. “What does that
mean
?!?”

“He’s in California, he’s someone I met in California…”

“WHO?!?”

“He’s in
Rent
there, I met him when I went down to La Jolla—”

“Oh my god,” Todd said. “Oh,
fuck.
”

I was beginning to cave into myself. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“When was this?” he said.

“Just the other night,” I said.

“What
other night?!?”

“The other night, when I was home,” I said.

“Oh, fuck. You’re
sick,
” Todd hissed. “You’re fucking
sick.
In your sister’s house? You fucking did this in your sister’s
house
?!?”

My skull felt heavy, weighing my head down. “Yes,” I said.

“You sick motherfucker. I can’t fucking believe this. You
asshole.
You sick
asshole.
”

“I’m sorry…”

“I don’t know what to do,” Todd said, his voice rising again.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t believe this, I can’t fucking believe you
did
this to me, after
everything,
I can’t fucking
believe
it.”

“I’m sorry…”

“You fucking better be sorry,” he growled. “Fucking sick
asshole.”

I heaved a huge sigh. “I don’t know what else to say…”

“I’ll talk to you later, I can’t talk to you right now, I can’t fucking
BELIEVE
you!” he screamed and then hung up. I sat staring at the phone—it had all happened so quickly, it was out, the truth of what I had done was out, just like that, and now what would happen? Was that it? Had I fucked up so badly that it was over? He was right, what I had done was sick, it was sick and wrong and fucked up and stupid and sick. I began to rub furiously at my eyes, digging into them, trying to find somewhere to put my shame and guilt and rage and exhaustion, and as I was scouring my eyelids into my palms I realized I had seen Mom do this very thing over and over again, endlessly rub her eyes while sitting at the kitchen table, night after night, when she was upset or tired or just weary from laughter, and as I saw her in my mind doing this most familiar thing, I fought off a fresh hot wave of grief that was welling up out of my chest and throat, threatening to engulf me, and I stuffed it all back down, I trampled it, I crammed it away, because in that moment, if I had failed to overcome it, if I had lost myself to it, I really didn’t know if I would ever recover.

Every conversation with Todd over the next day and a half followed the same pattern. I apologized over and over, and he called me sick and fucked and twisted over and over, and when I asked him what else I could say or do, he said he didn’t know, and I knew then that there was no way out of this mess that I’d created, there was no turning back or erasing what had happened. It had happened—it had, it
had
—and our fights continued. And then one of our fights was happening at the Nederlander, in the alley by the wall with all of the signatures on it from our fans and friends and loved ones, and I was sitting there with my head in my hands, and Todd was there because it was the night of Jesse’s last show and he wanted to be there to see that happen, and I so hated that Jesse was leaving, that so many of our friends were there to tell him goodbye, and here I was having this endless fight with my boyfriend, and the alley was full of people—cast members and friends and well-wishers—but there we were, Todd and I, fighting through it all again, but keeping our voices down as much as possible, and as Todd railed at me, I began to feel increasingly numb, almost dead really, just numb, just nothing, and his voice and his rage kept coming at me and coming at me and coming at me, and finally, after Todd had hammered at me once again how sick and fucked and twisted I was, I found myself saying into my lap, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Todd stopped. “What?”

I breathed deeply, staring at my hands, which were clenched into fists. “I can’t do this anymore.” Once again, my voice was tiny. I lifted my head and somehow managed to look at Todd. He stared wildly back at me.

“What does that mean?” he said.

“I can’t do this anymore.” It was all I could say. I wasn’t even trying to say it; it was just coming out of me. “I can’t. I can’t do it anymore.”

He suddenly stepped back, his face all twisted up, and he shouted at me, “Fuck you!” He backed away from me and said, “Fuck you!” again, and then he said, pointing at me, hurling his words at me, “Don’t you fucking
talk
to me, don’t you fucking
write
to me, don’t you fucking
call
me, I never want to fucking
see
you again!” He turned and started to walk away, and the sight of him turning his back on me, of another person that I loved leaving me behind, of one more loss, was too much, everything that had happened was just too much—I had held it all at bay for weeks now, I had managed to just go and go and go and go and
go
—but in that moment, in that exact moment, as I saw Todd stride away from me, something inside of me cracked and fell away. I suddenly had no control over my body, and as I watched myself in slow motion, I leaped up and charged forward, and I pummeled Todd, I punched him in the back of the head, knocking him down, and I saw him turn to me, terror in his eyes, and I punched his head and his arms, and I dimly heard shouts behind me and I felt hands pulling me off him, and I heard Jesse’s voice in my ear saying, “Anthony, Anthony, come on, come on now,” and I heard Norbert, Adam’s understudy, whisper, “Hey hey hey hey,” and together they pulled me off Todd, who was now huddled on the concrete, his hands covering his head, and Norbert’s and Jesse’s hands were strong around my arms as they pulled me away from Todd, but I pressed into the ground with the full strength of my legs and I reached out and crawled with my hands and knees across the concrete, dragging these two men with me until I ripped free of them and charged back at Todd, assailing him with fresh blows to his back and his shoulders, saying, “Fuck you fuck you fuck you!” with each punch, and once again Jesse and Norbert were on me, and once again they pulled me off Todd, and this time he leaped up and dashed out of the alleyway, gasping for breath, and with the sight of him vanishing around the corner, I suddenly came back into my body.

“Oh god oh god oh god oh god,” I said. I looked down at my hands, which were shaking uncontrollably and filthy. I was beginning to hyperventilate. I couldn’t look at any of the faces of the people who were in that alleyway, all of the people who had witnessed what I had just done, and there was nowhere to go, there was no escape. I moved to the fire escape that was tucked in the corner of the alley, and as I raced up the clanging metal steps I heard Jesse call my name, but I couldn’t look at him, I couldn’t respond, and I was sobbing now, really sobbing, terrified of what I’d just done, the full weight of it crashing down, sure that I would never see Todd again, I may as well have killed him, and no, not another loss like this, not another one, no no no no no, how had I fucked everything up so much, how had I done this, how had I lost control of myself? I had completely lost control, I was not there, I was gone, somewhere else—what had I done, what had I become, how did that
happen
?—and I paced back and forth on the landing of the fire escape, horrified at the prospect of ever heading down and facing my friends and colleagues and whoever else had witnessed my insanity. And I stared at my hands, which would not stop their awful shaking; they were black with soot, and bloody, not from Todd, I knew that, but from scraping my hands along the ground as I had dragged Norbert and Jesse behind me. And I knew that this was the worst thing that I had ever done, the absolute worst, irreversible and horrible and shameful and awful and hateful and how would I ever recover from it? How would my life ever return to normal?

I dimly realized that I was terribly thirsty, and I rushed downstairs. Hiding my face, I opened the stage door and huddled in front of the water cooler, staring at the stream as it filled my cup. My hands were still shaking, and now my whole
body
was shaking, and I gulped all of the water down, refilled my cup, and felt a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t look at whose hand it was but I heard Adam’s voice say, “Hey, are you okay?” I heard myself say, “No, I’m not,” and I gulped more water down. I heard Adam say, “Jesse told me what happened,” and I gulped more water down. I said, “Uh huh,” and I heard Adam say, “You gonna be okay?” I said, “I don’t know.” And I still couldn’t face him as I got up and walked upstairs toward my dressing room, my knees almost giving way with the force of their shaking, and there was Crystal, one of our stage managers, standing on the landing. I couldn’t look at her as she said, “Anthony, I need to talk to you for a second.” There was nothing reprimanding about how she said it, there was no malice—her voice was actually gentle—and I stopped and stared at the ground, my breath beginning to come back under control little by little. She said, “I need to know if you will be able to do the show tonight.” And this hit me with enormous force, the knowledge that all of what I had done, all of this had happened on the night of Jesse’s last show, and I almost began to hyperventilate again. I said, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” She said a little more firmly but still gently, “Anthony, look at me.” I swallowed and breathed and somehow raised my head and looked her in the eye. She regarded me very steadily, with compassion and patience, and said, “It’s okay either way. I just need you to tell me so I can let everyone else know.” And as she said it, she was clear and warm and strong, and as she awaited my answer, holding me in her kind gaze, my breathing finally normalized, and my heartbeat finally slowed. I knew then that what I had just done was not a crime to her, I knew that I wasn’t disgusting and sick and horrible to her, I knew that everything was going to be all right. And I knew that I couldn’t bear to miss doing this one last performance with Jesse. I took another deep breath, and said, “Yes, I can do the show.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” She squeezed my shoulder and went downstairs. I knew that I had to go downstairs too, that I had to see if Todd was still around. I had to see if he was all right; I had to see if I had really hurt him.

Jesse was standing right outside the door, smoking, when I emerged into the alleyway. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me right in the eye. “You okay?” he asked. He was asking me if
I
was okay?

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, my voice still feeling far away. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” And he smiled ruefully, shaking his head, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Man…” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Naw, man, it’s okay, it’s all right. What the hell happened to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. How could I possibly begin to tell him?

“I mean, one second, I was standing here with Norbert, just talking and smoking, you know, and then the next thing I knew you turned into Mike Tyson.” He kind of laughed as he said it.

“I know,” I said. “I just…lost control,” I said.

“No
shit,
man. I mean, you were a little scary there for a minute.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry it had to happen tonight, of all nights, I mean it’s your last show…”

“Naw, man, don’t worry about that. It actually kind of helped me take my mind off it, you know?”

“Uh huh.” And then I said, “Um, do you know where Todd is?”