1 Chapter 1
Run Like a Girl
That identifiable skin over Jaye Cooper’s bones, I knew it, studied it, cared for it, and loved it. The way he flaunted his muscles in it, sang in it, drank in it, and was funny and whimsical and wise and caring and faithful and perfect in it—always.
I missed him. But who really didn’t in my circle of friends? The way he laughed or smelled like grass—the kind we used to smoke together, the stuff we grew out in the vineyard, next to the place where Mrs. Watermaker’s poodle took a shit—or the way he spread peanut butter on a slice of toast. Lost skin. Gone.
How easy it was for the epidermis of Jaye’s life to vanish.
One snap andpoof!…he had simply vanished.
And all of us around him—Cane, Bill, Z, and Marty—we really didn’t know that he was going to disappear so quickly.
Running Jaye. Huffing and puffing Jaye.
Shame on us. For shame.
* * * *
Lady Gaga played in Jaye’s room inside the apartment on Melbourne Way. Sometimes the radio just came on by itself. And I felt/knew/believed that he was in there, listening to “Edge of Glory” or “Poker Face” or…
“Jaye, you’re here.” I fingered the Sony Alpha NEX radio and turned it off. “Where the fuck are you, man? We have things to do together. Where did you run off to?”
He turned the radio back on. Or something did. Or someone.
I turned it off.
The fucker turned it back on. Typical Jaye. Hellraiser. Selfish again. I loved him because he was difficult.
“You win. Congratulations. I’m going to the gym to sweat. You want to come with me? You’re looking a little flabby. You should come.”
Nothing answered. No one answered.
Again, it was just me. Simple me. Lost.
My therapist loved my grieving and made a fortune from me. Cunt. Bitch. Whore. I fucking hated her, and yet she was helping me.
* * * *
“Don’t go in there!” I snapped at Z. He needed a ball cap and was about to enter Jaye’s bedroom, which was off limits. No one was allowed in there. No trespassers. The bedroom was a shrine…just for my use. An emotional and biochemical war zone. Contamination would have occurred had any of them—Z, Cane, Bill, or Marty—entered that private and abandoned bedroom. Any of them could have strayed to wherever they wanted to in the small apartment, but not in there. Never. I wouldn’t have it.
Z looked at me and copped an attitude. “Really?”
He had wanted me to fall for his almost-amber eyes a while ago, before I met Jaye at The Coffee Field, but I never did. Z was simply a friend and always would be, nothing more, of course. Never would I sleep with him, but I knew he wanted to sleep with me. “Really,” I said, staring his Bradley Cooper looks down.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“What does your therapist say about this?”
“Fuck my therapist, Z. Listen to me and don’t go in there.”
He stormed out of the apartment, but he shouldn’t have. And all of those fuckers followed him like a train.
I was left with the cat, Vixen. She was on the center of the sunroom table again, cleaning herself. Jaye flipped out about that, shooing her away, scolding her. And the fucking cat, a short-haired American feline, just happened to give him a look that clearly said: Seriously. Are you talking to me? I don’t think so. Fuck you.
* * * *
Z called my cell phone later that night. A storm had seized the city: thunder, lightning, and heavy wind. He said, “I overreacted. Shame on me. I need to buy you breakfast or something. You love breakfast, right?”
“Jaye made me breakfast all the time.”
“Eggs, right?”
“And toast.”
“I can handle that. You name the place, Brian. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“Only if Cane, Bill, and Marty can go with us. I need you guys around me. You all are my moat. It’s almost a year now and I’ve been thinking about Jaye a lot.”
“I can arrange that.” He sounded confident, not a waver in his voice. “I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
* * * *
I found Jay’s diary of lyrics again. He used to write music all the time, but he never performed any. I flipped a random page open and fingered the words that read:
“But somebody has to listen.
Somebody…today.
Or we’re all just going to go away.
And no one wants to die.
No one, man.
So hold your chin up.
Hold it high.
What happens to those who don’t cry?”
* * * *
Vixen twirled around my legs again, missing Jaye. She wasn’t my cat. She didn’t own me like she owned Jaye. She wasn’t about to replace him with me. Cunt. Bitch. Whore. The feline didn’t play that game, and both of us knew it.
