“First things first,” Paul said into the microphone. “Happy Birthday to the Man.” He bowed to Doug, who was sitting in the front row, off to the right. The audience clapped and Paul waited until they quieted down before he continued.
“It's such an honor to be here tonight. And I need to say thank you to Doug, not only for asking me to be a part of this extraordinary evening, but for giving me so much more than I could ever express with the appropriate level of gratitude.” His voice was shaky. “I know I'm not the only one here who feels this way, but there's been so many times in my life when I didn't have anything except one of Doug's songs to help me make it through the night…He's been a friend, a teacher, a shoulder to lean on…”
Paul took a drink of water and I noticed his hand trembling. I had never seen him so nervous on stage.
“Shit. All right. Enough sap.” He cleared his throat, rubbed his palms together and said, “God knows where I'd be right now if I'd never discovered this song. Or maybe it discovered me, whichever the case may be.”
I was surprised Loring hadn't pouted over Paul's choice of songs. He knew how much “The Day I Became a Ghost” meant to me and could have easily claimed it as his own. As Doug's son, he would have received preferential treatment, but he'd made the mature decision, selecting “Son of Mine” instead—a little ditty Doug had penned as a sixth birthday present to his firstborn.
Paul dove heart-first into the song, and I did everything in my power to stay detached, but my arms were covered in goose bumps before he even started singing.
Ten goddamn seconds.
The difference between the real stuff and the crap.
And the more I heard of the song, the farther back it spanned into my history. The deeper it reached, the more intense the feeling, turning over every experience I'd ever associated with it, swirling the past in with the here and now, moving it toward the future, and yet remaining so timeless that a belief in the infinite nature of things seemed obvious, if only in those brief moments.
By the time Paul got to the end of the second verse, tears were fighting their way down his cheeks and I was sure he was feeling it, too.
I was sitting in the third row, dead center, willing him to look my way. Something told me he knew exactly where I was, but he never glanced in my direction.
Paul finished the song and stood still for an inordinate amount of time. Then he took off his guitar and sat down at the piano.
This was another first. I had never seen Paul play piano on stage.
“I recorded this next one about a month ago,” he said. “It was going to be the title track on our new record. It's called ‘Save the Savior’ and it's a little long so bear with me, or feel free to go to the bathroom, get a drink, whatever blows your hair back.”
I was afraid to hear the song, but I couldn't seem to move or run or, at the very least, plug my ears.
The melody was poignant and overly sentimental right from the start, like an ultramodern, atmospheric version of one of the ballads Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote for the Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy record. But the voice and the conviction was all Paul, and it came out of him like an efflux of flesh and blood and, ultimately, of what I could only describe as surrender.
I'll say this much for him
The guy knew when to quit
But Jesus had more guts than me
He carried his cross
And cried to the boss
Who deserted him to set him free
And for what?
The crowds that now gather
Pretend it matters
But the infidels get the last laugh every time
So much for deliverance, right, angel?
Save the savior, she cried
But as she bowed her head and stared at the sky
She left me alone
Left me to die
Judas has nothing on you, babe But I guess it's not as easy as we thought it would be
A bastard was bound to falter
When even love couldn't erase that scar
On your wrist or in the stars
Or in the sacrifice I'm leaving at the altar
I still think about those nights
Living warm inside of you
Never wanting to say goodbye
Now all I can say is, God have mercy on my soul
The sweetness of the flowers always fades with time
Nobody zoned out. For seven minutes and twenty-two seconds every heart in the theater was ripped wide open, their contents spilling themselves at Paul's feet.
He stood and the audience stood with him, clapping like a rainstorm. Even Doug got up and applauded with his hands above his head.
By then I was racing down the aisle, hoping to catch Paul before he disappeared into one of the dressing rooms. At the backstage entrance I was halted by a security guard and wasted a minute digging through my purse for my pass. When I finally found it, the guy made me peel off the backing and stick it on my shirt before he would let me go in.
I rushed down the corridor in search of the room with Paul's name on it, but stopped when I felt a hand on my elbow.
” We need to talk,” Loring said.
“In a minute.”
“Now.” He steered me into an empty bathroom and waited until the door closed on its spry hinge. “You didn't even see me, did you?”
I looked back at the door, imagining it had sealed shut. Airtight. To abscond was no longer an option.
“I was standing to the left of the stage during his set, forty feet away from you. At one point, I swore you looked right at me but you didn't even see me.”
I was reminded of Phillip Oxford. I thought about how he put his hand on the emergency exit so as to flee the burning plane as soon as it came to a stop. I slid my hand behind my back and tried to reach the door handle. It was too far away.
“I can't do this anymore,” Loring said. “I can't pretend that someday you're going to look at me the way you look at him.”
I covered my face and shook my head, a dual action born out of self-loathing. Not even when I'd slit my wrist had my self-loathing been so strong. But I hated myself—first, for what I'd done to Paul, second, for what I was doing to Loring, and third, because I had been so unbelievably wrong about everything.
All the decisions I'd ever made were screaming inside my head.
“Eliza, say something.”
I knew what he wanted me to say, but I couldn't pretend anymore either. “I told you I couldn't do it. I told you I was incapable of giving you what you wanted.”
Loring banged his fist into one of the stall doors and it flapped violently back and forth for a good ten seconds.
I was staring at his shoes, trying to remember which foot his birthmark was on.
“I give up. I'm done,” he said.
I took in my surroundings with a heightened sense of awareness: the urine smell of the bathroom, the fluorescent lighting that made even Loring's lustrous skin look sallow, and the leaky sink that sounded like the thrust of a jet engine every time a drop of water hit the porcelain.
This is what it means to be in the middle of love, I thought. Being in the middle of love is like being in the middle of a war zone.
I stood there contemplating how long I had to wait before I could run off, find Paul, and tell him everything.
Twenty more seconds, I decided. I started counting them down in my head. Nineteen Mississippi, eighteen Mississippi, seventeen…
Then the door behind me swung open.
“You've got to be kidding me,” Loring said.
I wasn't facing the door but I could see Paul in the mirror. He had a backpack thrown over his shoulder and that stupid orange hat still on his head.
“Shit,” Paul said, sounding as though he felt foiled by the two people he'd happened upon.
Loring's eyes followed Paul to the sink.
“Hey, don't look at me, Sam. You wanted her, you got her. She's your goddamn headache now. I
just need to wash my hands.”
Paul silenced the drip by turning on the cold water. Behind his back, Loring snarled, “Fuck you, Paul,” and left.
“Damn, he sure is crabby today,” Paul said. “What's the matter? You get caught making out with Eddie Vedder or something?”
I tried to meet Paul's eyes but he wasn't playing that game. He seemed to be doing everything in his power to avoid looking at me. I watched him let the water run over his fingers, press the soap dispenser, rub pink goo between his palms, rinse off the soap and then shut the tap so tightly the whole room was as quiet as the inside of a coffin.
He was at the door when I turned and said, “Wait.”
I could sense his hesitation, but eventually he rotated to face me.
“I have to go,” he said, adjusting his falling backpack.
I took a small step forward and spoke just above a whisper. “Do you think maybe we could find someplace to talk?”
“Talk? You wanna talk?”
“I'm on my way to Michael's. I'll be there all weekend watching the dog. If you have time, maybe you could stop over.”
“I don't have time.”
“There are things I need to tell you.”
“Tell me right here. Tell me now.”
My eyes were on his hand. I saw him tighten his grip on the door. His knuckles were bloodless around the handle. Like Phillip Oxford, he was ready to pull, ready to run.
“I messed up, Paul.”
“Holy Hell, you have no right to lay this shit on me now.”
“I never meant to break your heart. You have to believe me. All I ever wanted was—”
“Hold it!” He let go of the handle and his fist exploded into a shape that reminded me of a spider web. “Break my heart? Is that what you just said? I have news for you; you didn't break my heart. My heart's fine. My heart's in the best shape of its life. You know what you did to me? You took an AK-47 and blew my soul open. So fuck you and your fucking talk because nothing short of a miracle could take back the last nine months of hell you put me through!”
“I know I can't take it back. I wish I could. What I can do is tell you the truth and hope that—”
“Shut your goddamn mouth. You don't know the meaning of the word truth.” He took another step back. “You know what I wish—I wish I'd never met you. Better yet, I wish you'd bled to death in your bathroom twelve years ago instead of living long enough to move to New York and assassinate my soul. That's what I wish—that you'd never fucking made it here.”
I didn't even bother trying not to cry, but to retain some self-respect I pulled my shoulders back and lifted my head high. “No one has ever said anything that awful to me. Ever.”
But I was seized by something I saw in Paul's eyes. What lay beneath his gaze didn't match the hate in his voice. There was a trace of regret. A cry for help, maybe. I made one last-ditch effort to hang on whatever it was.
“We need to talk. Later tonight, tomorrow, two months from now, whenever you're ready, okay? I'll wait.”
He began to quail, like he was being pulled backward against his will, like someone was yanking him by the sleeve.
“Don't hold your breath,” he said.
By then he was standing in the hall. He let go of the handle, the door shut in front of him, and he was gone.
A plastic T-bone steak, a yellow ducky, a red fire hydrant, a furry hedgehog. Fender had more toys than a kid, all strewn across the floor like squeaky landmines, and I stepped on every one of them, not because I wanted to play, but because without the noise, the silence was unbearable; without the day to let light in, the house felt like a morgue.
I was alone with nothing to do but obsess over the contradiction of Paul's cruel words against the look on his face. It was I wish you were dead versus Save me.
I told myself I would feel better when it was no longer dark outside. And Michael and Vera would be back on Monday. The minute they returned I would go straight to Ludlow Street, climb the stairs, use the key that still hung on my chain to unlock the bleeding door, go in, and make Paul listen. And afterward, if he still didn't want anything to do with me, fine, I would accept that. But not until he'd been given the facts.
Vera had made up the sofa bed with one of Aunt Karen's afghans. The smell was too much. I stuffed it in the closet and put on one of Michael's sweaters to keep warm.
At some point during the night, Fender began pawing at my arm. The dog's leg looked like a furry chopstick. I figured he had to pee, and I got up to let him out.
It was early October, the weather had been chilly and rainy all week, and through the front window I could see drizzle illuminated by the light of a street lamp.
I opened the door and my eyes were instantly drawn down.
Paul was sitting there, heels on the ground, his toes erratically tapping against each other like two shutters in the wind. His arms encircled his knees, his head was lowered, his back was to the house, and he still had that stupid orange hat on.
I whispered his name and he leaped up and turned around, giving me the impression I'd startled him even more than he'd startled me. He had the dizzied look of an amnesiac, one who didn't know where he was or how he'd arrived there.
Fender scurried out from underneath my legs, jumped on Paul, then darted down the sidewalk and lifted his leg on the neighbor's garbage. Michael had asked me to make sure I wiped Fender's feet before I allowed the dog back inside, but when he came home I let him go right past me.
Paul leaned to the left and peered into the house. “You alone?”
I nodded. “How long have you been out here?”
“A while,” he said, monkeying with the zipper on his sweatshirt. “Trying to decide whether or not to knock.”
I opened the door a little wider—my way of inviting him in without having to say it—but he stood in place, chafing his palms together as if they were wood and he was trying to start a fire.
“Eliza, about what I said to you at the theater—”
“Forget it.” I made a shooing motion with my hand. “I deserve it.”
“I just don't want you to be thinking back on us someday and believe that's how I really felt. I just had to say that to you, all right?”
I didn't like the way he said us, as if us was lost forever.
“All right?” he said again, desperately.
My mouth was dry from sleep. I let saliva collect around my tongue and then nodded in simultaneity with a deep swallow.
Holding the door open, I walked back into the house and, in a completely calculated move, lowered my chin, widened my eyes, and blinked until Paul's face showed signs of collapse.
“I can't,” he said.
“Just for a minute.”
He looked over his shoulder, surveyed the sleeping neighborhood, then stepped inside and shut the door behind him, but with a noticeable disinclination to do so.
I reached out to touch his chest, moving slowly to see if he was going to flinch or jerk away. He did neither. He set his palm on top of my hand, lifted it up, and slid it underneath his sweatshirt, placing it directly over his heart. My hand was colder than his skin and he trembled. Then he closed his eyes, and I began edging forward until I was standing so close to him, the back of my hand was pushing into my own chest.
“I shouldn't be here,” he said.
Everything happened so fast after that. Within seconds we were kissing and fumbling onto the bed. Then we were undressed; Paul was above me, inside of me, and he was violent, though not in the act itself, but in the intensity with which he performed it.
“Paul…”
“Shh.”
I opened my eyes and realized he still had the stupid orange hat on. I tried to take it off but he grabbed my hand.
“What's the matter, you get a bad haircut?”
“Something like that,” he said, but his voice contained no trace of good humor.
I wrapped my legs around him and felt him tense up before he came, was able to let go just
as he let go.
Moments later I was staring at the shadow of a cross on the bedroom wall, cast by two power lines outside the window. “There's so much I have to tell you.”
He dovetailed himself around my body, drew me in, and said, “No talking. Not tonight. Just let me hold you, okay?”
When I woke up I knew, even before I turned over, that Paul was gone, and the first thing I did was call and leave him a message asking him to call me back.
I put the couch back together and then brought the phone into the bathroom in case it rang while I was in the shower. As I was getting dressed, there was a knock on the door, and I rushed to answer it with a towel wrapped turban-style around my head, hoping to see Paul waiting on the porch with coffee and breakfast. I got Loring instead.
Loring stepped inside, looking around. “Michael and Vera aren't back yet?”
It was an odd way to start the conversation considering how our last one had ended. “No. Not until Monday. Why?”
Loring perched himself on the edge of the couch and sighed heavily, his eyes trained on some invisible spot in the carpet. “There's something I have to tell you.”
I took the towel off my head and felt droplets of water dampen my shoulders. “There's something I have to tell you, too.” I sat down next to him. “It's about Paul.”
“Paul?” His whole body bent toward me as if pushed by the force of a wave. “You mean, you know?”
“Know what?”
Loring's face went limp. “Eliza, what are you talking about?”
“Paul was here last night,” I said, using a penitent tone, implying there was a lot more to the story.
Loring immediately put his arms around me and cradled me the way he cradled the twins when they cried, rocking me back and forth, kissing the top of my head. And had it not seemed so out-of-place, I might have described his behavior as the utmost in piteous compassion, the likes of which I hadn't seen so intensely since the day I returned to my high school classroom having lost two parents in a plane crash.
Fender started clawing at the door. Seconds later Michael and Vera staggered in looking like two scarecrows weathered by a storm. Michael and Loring exchanged somber glances, and Vera's eyes were red like she'd been crying.