And I still don't own any of them, by the way.
***
Entropyen·tro·py
-The sensation experienced in the body due to heat, such as exposure to fire, the sun's rays, etc.
-Animation, as in discourse; ardor; fervency.
-A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.
-A violent action unintermitted; a single effort
-Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.
I.
Mark collapsed onto his bed in exhaustion, sighing slowly. He had spent the entire day helping his girlfriend Maureen move into his apartment, hauling boxes and suitcases over six city blocks and up seven flights of stairs. His roommate Roger had conveniently disappeared well before his usual Saturday morning noon wake-up and had not been seen since. And for the first time that Mark could remember in quite a while, there was no one else currently living in the loft. It was generally the home to at least one or two of Mark and Roger's drifting friends or folks in need of a place to sleep for a night or two nights or two months. Makeshift walls and beds were often constructed in the open, nearly empty common area that made up the majority of the loft. Only Mark and Roger's bedrooms and one bathroom were separated by doors. There was a second bathroom in the loft, attached to Roger's bedroom, but they never used it anymore. Mark's bedroom door was slightly ajar, the sounds of running water from Maureen's shower trickling in to where Mark lay on his bed, surveying the damage.
Frankly, he was amazed at just how much stuff she had. The boxes had been steadily piling up all day long, completely obscuring one wall and drifting into other corners, creeping into the living room and across Mark's mattress. He didn't have a clue what was even in half of them. Clothes, books, photo albums; different labels were scrawled across the sides of half the boxes in Maureen's messy, loopy handwriting. She began to sing some eighties pop tune over the sound of the running water and Mark laughed softly, grabbing a pillow to rest his head against. He turned his attention from all of the Maureeness in his room to the patch of sky he could see through the window, over the top of the building across the street.
He suddenly missed April. The realization was unexpected and crushing, forcing the air out of his lungs in a long, hard sigh. It always came on like this, seemingly out of nowhere. He felt lonely, and he grasped at mental images of her smile in attempt to find some vestige of comfort in her memory. He thought of how she used to sneak up behind him and hug him when he least expected it. Somehow she always knew when he needed that, even if he didn't. If she were here now, that's what she'd do. He would be lying here, looking out of the window, when he'd feel her weight plop down on the mattress beside him. He'd smile slightly just before she wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his chest and looking up at him searchingly.
"Whatcha thinking Mark?" she would ask. She never bothered to ask unless she really wanted to know. "You look upset."
Mark had never been one to articulate his feelings, particularly when he was depressed or angry, but sometimes her clear eyes could draw the confessions out of him almost against his will. When he was recalcitrant and quiet, however, she would just lay with him for a few minutes before getting up silently to make him a cup of coffee or a bowl of ice cream.
Mark shook his head, as though
that physical movement could push the memories back into his subconscious where
they belonged. Thinking of April was
never a constructive, healing process.
Better to avoid it altogether rather than let his mind take that
circular path that only became harder and more painful as he progressed down
it. Besides, now wasn't the time to be
thinking about the relationship he had lost, or the one he would never truly
have. Not with Maureen singing in the
next room, with her clothes in his closet and her life in boxes by the foot of
his bed. April was gone, and he loved
Maureen. He was pretty sure he loved
Maureen. That word had become so
confused in his head that he wasn't entirely sure what it meant anymore, but he
knew how important Maureen was for him, to him. She was the only reason he had been able to breathe since
complete silence had descended on his loft, the only noise left in his life. Sometimes he felt her slipping away, dancing
right out of his clutching fingertips, and he was deeply scared about it for
more reasons than he cared examine.
Maybe thinking about April was some kind of sick reflex, substituting
someone he had already lost for someone he feared he was losing.
Mark realized that the sound of running water from Maureen's shower had
stopped, and he turned in time to see her slip through the door into his
bedroom, clutching a towel around her body, her hair wild and dripping
heedlessly, her cheeks flushed from the heat.
She smiled at him, and Mark was sure that she had never looked more
beautiful. She just exuded life, and he
felt more awake from just being near her than he had for a long time. He stood to kiss her cheek.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," she returned, her smile a gentle mocking of his shyness.
"Feel better now? I know how tired and sweaty you must have been after ordering me around all day."
"It's a full day's work," she said, turning to search for her clothes in Mark's closet.
He laughed softly, laying a hand on her bare, warm shoulder. "I'm going to make some coffee. You want some? Roger should be home any time now."
"Sure," she said, her voice impassive. "I'll be just a few minutes."
Mark left his bedroom, closing the door softly, and headed for the over-utilized
Mr. Coffee in their tiny little kitchen area.
His mind was still wearing tracks around Maureen, as it often did. He could almost feel her distancing herself
from him, from this relationship, more everyday. But he could be entirely imagining it, taking her freeness and
wildness for distance. Or he could be
projecting his own issues onto her. She
was living with him now after all, though he couldn't quite figure out if her
certainty about wanting to move in was sincere or bravado. Maybe he was holding onto something that
ultimately just needed to run its course.
She was too reckless and beautiful and irresistible to be held by the
attentions of any one person for long; he never really understood why she had
chosen to stay with him for this long in the first place. Maybe she was holding on for the wrong
reasons too. The pathologies of their
relationship confused him too much, and he usually abandoned the prospect of
trying to work through them, content with the knowledge that he didn't want to
face the oppressive silence of this place without her invasive laugh and
irrepressible voice.
Mark looked up from the coffee maker in surprise when he heard the apartment
door slam behind him. He turned to see
his roommate Roger tossing his leather jacket on a side table in obvious
frustration.
"Hey," Mark said
quietly.
Roger spun to face his friend in surprise, not having seen him there when he
came in.
"Hi Mark," he replied absently, pushing his fingers through his unruly hair as
he often did when he was upset.
"What's up?" Mark asked, gesturing for Roger to have a seat. Roger plopped down on the couch, propping
his feet up on a table as Mark brought him a cup of coffee, black except for
sugar.
"It's nothing," Roger said as Mark sat down cross-legged beside him, turned so
that he faced his friend. "Just the band. I don't know... I get really
sick of their shit sometimes."
Mark only nodded as Roger took a long, slow drink of coffee. Roger's band
mates were notoriously difficult, and for all his tough exterior, Roger was
surprisingly sensitive. The last year
or so had left its mark, though he would never admit it, and he was even more
easily roused to anger or depression than he used to be. Fights with the band had become commonplace.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Mark asked.
"No."
"Okay," Mark replied. He had been expecting as much, but it never hurt to ask. More than anything he wanted Roger to talk to him, but he knew better than to assume that he would. Mark fixed his eyes on Roger's profile as his friend stared down at his calloused musicians fingers, unconsciously clenching and unclenching them in agitation. His features were strong and defiant, but his smoky green eyes gave him away. The sensitivity and idealism he tried to hide beneath the tough, unaffected rock-star never quite left those eyes.
Maureen stood in the doorway of Mark's bedroom, watching the two of them sit
silently together. 'The boys' had a
relationship that never failed to puzzle her whenever she happened to think
about it. For two adults, they were
almost impossibly close. Their deep,
unashamed dependency on each other was exactly the kind of thing that Maureen
had spent her entire life avoiding.
Even at times like this, when there was tension between the two of them,
it was impossible to miss. The way Mark
brought Roger his coffee, how they sat and talked, or how they sat silently as
they were now, the way that one of them was invariably looking at the other when
the other's attention was elsewhere.
Things they probably weren't even aware of. And it was always the same, like the re-run of a television show
the twentieth time you've seen it.
"Hi boys," she said, deciding to speak up.
Mark glanced around and smiled at her, standing to give her a small
kiss. Maureen sat in a chair across
from Roger as Mark went to make her a cup of coffee. Roger looked up and greeted her quietly, glancing into her face
for a moment before turning his attention back to his hands. She and Roger were still not entirely at
ease with each other, though she made more of an attempt to hide it then he
did.
"There was a message from
Collins on our machine today," Mark said as he returned to his spot on the
couch, directing the comment more at Roger than his girlfriend. "Apparently
he's in D.C. Some kind of rally or
protest going on there this weekend."
"Our little activist," Roger said with a subdued kind of sarcasm.
"How's he feeling?" he added, a serious undercurrent to his tired
tone.
"Didn't say, but you know Tom. I'm sure he's fine, but he'd never tell us..."
Maureen sat silently as Mark and Roger talked. She always felt like an
intruder whenever Roger was around, like she was trespassing. She
couldn't participate in their quiet, intuitive kind of communication. Maureen thrived on words, but they had
progressed beyond ordinary speech years ago.
It wasn't until hours later, when they had all said goodnight and she
was lying in bed beside Mark, that she felt like she had the right to be there
at all.
Long after Maureen's breathing slowed into sleep, Mark lay beside her, his arm
curled around her shoulders, listening to the sounds of Roger in the other
room. Roger never went to sleep before
early in the morning anymore. After
April died, he didn't so much as leave the loft for nearly two months, most of
which he spent in stunned silence. He
didn't even leave to go to the funeral, staying shut firmly behind his locked
bedroom door as Mark ironed his only good shirt and left. It was only in the last few months or so
that he began going out again, and he threw himself into the distractions that
New York had to offer in a way Mark had never seen before. He became obsessed with the band and stayed
out all hours partying and drinking and God only knows what else. Most nights he didn't come home until hours
after he thought Mark had gone to sleep.
But Mark didn't sleep. He lay in
bed every night, staring up at the peeling ceiling until he heard Roger throw
the deadbolt on the front door. It was
only then that he could close his eyes.
Sometimes Roger picked up his
guitar after his roommate went to bed, as he had tonight. But he was struggling. The notes - which had once come so naturally
- tripped awkwardly off of his adept fingers as he tried to pick out a melody
that the filmmaker had never heard before.
Roger hadn't written anything new since April died.
"Mark?"
Mark rolled over and opened his eyes drowsily. April was standing beside
his bed, her hair loose around her face and her eyes apologetic. She looked
deeply sad and poetic with the light from the lamppost outside framing her
sweet face.
"Yeah?" he whispered, though he was fairly certain of what she was going to
say. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence.
She bit her lip. "Do you mind if I sleep with you for a little while? Roger and
I had a fight, and I don't think he wants me around right now."
He only nodded and lifted the covers for her. She slipped underneath the
sheets and curled up beside him.
"Thanks Mark," she said softly as he wrapped his arms around her.
"Mmhm," he murmured, his eyes drifting closed. She ran her fingers softly
over his chest in that soothing, unconscious way of hers, her breathing falling
into rhythm with his. In truth, he almost looked forward to the nights
when they fought, as guilty as it made him feel. One or the other of them
invariably came to him for comfort and validation.
"Tell me about your new film?" she said. He could sense the tears in her voice, just beneath the surface, so he told her in detail about the documentary he had been working on with a small production studio in SoHo. April always made sure to ask him about things like that, even if it was to distract herself from a fight with Roger.
He explained every shot and camera angle to her, rubbing his hand across her
back in what he hoped was a comforting way.
Her breath was warm against his chest as she laughed quietly.
"I'm sorry I keep doing this to you Mark," she said. "You must be positively
sleep deprived by now."
"Well, my beauty rest is very important," he murmured, "but not as much as you
are."
"You are beautiful," she returned, propping herself up on her elbows to
kiss him softly, the moment lingering between them.
They both paused as they heard the
sound of Roger's guitar drifting in from the other room.
"He's upset," Mark said.
She sighed. "I guess I should go talk to him. Thanks Mark, I don't
know what I would do --"
Mark was jarred back to the present by the sound of Roger throwing his guitar
violently into its case. Something
inside of his friend was slowly strangling him, Mark could see it and feel it
and hear it. And there was nothing he
could do, he knew that. But that didn't
stop him from carefully disentangling himself from Maureen's arms and walking
into the living room to talk to the musician.
Roger was fully dressed, pulling on his jacket.
"Hey," Mark said, rubbing his
eyes. "Where are you going?"
Roger turned in surprise to see his small friend leaning against the kitchen
counter, his eyes drowsy and each of his hairs fighting to stick up in a
different direction. He knew, instinctively, that Mark had been awake
this whole time again, listening to make sure that he was all right.
"I don't know," Roger replied. "Out."
Mark nodded. Roger's steady descent into things Mark couldn't even
imagine terrified him, but he knew better than to try to stop his obstinate
friend. Part of him hoped, somewhat
desperately, that maybe it would be good for Roger, that maybe this helped him
let go of what had happened. All he
could do was wait and be around whenever he came home.
"Okay," Mark said. "Wake me up when you come home?"
"Sure."
Mark looked at him sadly, hoping that Roger couldn't see the desperation he
felt. The musician must have gotten some sense of it, however, because
his expression softened and he paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"I'll be fine," he said softly. "Get some sleep Mark."
A moment later the door closed behind him.
*
It was hours later when Mark
opened his eyes in drowsy confusion. He
was unsure of what had woken him, and it took several moments for his eyes
adjust to the light. Once they did he
could distinguish Roger's dark silhouette beside his bed.
"Hey," Roger slurred. "I'm home."
"You're drunk," Mark countered softly, very aware of the woman beside
him. He carefully lifted himself out of
bed and took his friend by the shoulders, turning him so that the light from
outside landed across his face. Roger's
eyes were hazy and distant, the blood drained from his lifeless cheeks. "And high. What are you on?"
Roger laughed blearily at his filmmaker, at the pretended knowledge in his
voice. Mark was so naive. Anything that he knew about drugs and death
and real pain had come from him.
Roger began to calmly catalog a list of various club drugs, knowing that
any moment Mark would slip into Mom-mode and take care of him.
Mark took his friend's arm and led him out of the bedroom. Roger was loud and clumsy when he was drunk or high, and Maureen was still sleeping obliviously. When Roger tripped over his own feet halfway across the living room, Mark was ready for it and caught him around the waist. He maneuvered Roger, unresisting but unhelpful, over to the couch and carefully lay him down. He turned to walk away, but his friend's cold hand encircled his wrist.
"Don't go," Roger
implored quietly, suddenly looking serious and vulnerable.
Mark lay a hand over his, willing away the frightened look in his eyes.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said softly. After a long moment, he
gently pried himself loose from Roger's steely, nerveless grasp.
"I'm just want to get you some water," he said. "You're
going to get dehydrated with all of that shit in your system."
As he walked toward the kitchen, Roger punched a sofa pillow in anger.
"Goddamn it
Mark," he said brutally. "I don't need you to fucking take care of
me!"
"Yes," Mark said, not unkindly, as he returned and forced the glass
of water into Roger's hands. "You do."
Nothing about this night came unexpectedly. The two of them had played out this exact scenario at least a dozen times before, and Mark had come to anticipate when Roger's abrupt mood changes - the definitive sign of alcohol in his system - would come. The musician capitulated, swinging from rage and indignation to a morose kind of introspection almost instantaneously as he took a deep drink from the glass in his hand. He turned his head to look out of the window at the building across the street, unable to face the worried, earnest looks of his disappointed friend anymore. This was one of the few things Mark would never understand about him. Mark, who never did drugs, rarely drank, hated the loud, pulsating crowd of a party or club. Mark who just stayed at home, safe in his own fucking little world of films and pert, bitchy girlfriends and denial. Mark who didn't have the image of her last breaths constantly behind his eyelids.
Mark watched Roger's expression
cloud and knew that he was thinking about April again. He hadn't talked about her once since that night,
hadn't even said her name, but Mark knew that he thought about her often. The evidence was in the silence that
surrounded him even when he was talking, the partying, the drinking and drugs. Mark could see all the unspoken thoughts and
emotions inside Roger's head and behind his carefully veiled eyes destroying
him slowly and systematically. He kept
his distance from everything and everyone, resisting even Mark's constant,
subtle attempts to draw him out, despite the fact that Mark was one of the few
people Roger had never seemed to feel the need to push away roughly when he got
too close. That at least hadn't
changed, but he now kept Mark firmly at arm's length. This unresponsiveness was beginning to destroy Mark as well,
because Roger was the only one he felt he could reach out to anymore.
"I miss her too," Mark finally murmured, hoping to elicit some kind
of response from the musician. He couldn't stand to lose both of them.
If he had had the idea that Roger might turn to him with tears in his eyes and
pull him into a fierce hug, the words finally spilling from his incoherent
lips, Mark would have been disappointed.
But he knew better than to expect.
Roger's expression remained the same, hard and impenetrable, his eyes
firmly averted.
"She's dead Mark," he finally said flatly. "She killed herself,
and she killed me. What else is there to say?"
"That you loved her!" Mark said, stung by the cold cruelty of his
words. "That you two loved each other, and it was everything. That it's killing you that she's gone!"
"AIDS is killing me Mark!" Roger shouted
suddenly, jumping to his feet, the world swaying dangerously before his
eyes. "Not.. her," he
whispered.
Mark only stared at his friend,
into his crazy swimming eyes, for a long moment before standing abruptly and
snatching the empty glass of water from the coffee table. He walked to the kitchen and turned on the
tap, refilling the cup and keeping his back to his friend. As if he had to be reminded that Roger was
dying. Every time he looked at the
musician, part of his mind was reminding him that someday he would look up and
Roger wouldn't be there.
The heartbroken anger pulsing off of his silent friend instantly deflated Roger's rage. It left him in a long, hard sigh. He approached Mark, laying an impotent hand on his shoulder in a hesitant apologetic gesture. This wasn't the first time he had flown off the handle at Mark for no reason. He deserved so much for all that he did, and the least of it was Roger's misdirected anger.
"I'm sorry," he said
softly. "I just get so mad sometimes that I forget that you lost her
too."
Roger felt something in Mark relent, and his smaller friend turned and wrapped
his arms around him, his eyes closed.
Roger felt him shaking and pulled the filmmaker closer.
"There's something about his arms. I don't know. He reaches out to you so rarely, but once he does, nothing else really matters."
Mark held onto Roger tightly,
feeling the guilt rising in his throat.
It had become a familiar sensation, one that he couldn't control. Every time he looked at Roger, or touched
him, he felt like he was betraying them both.
But the heavy culpability in his stomach was almost easier to take than
this feeling of shaking in Roger's arms, feeling his fingers run over his
shoulders lightly, comfortingly. He
pulled away suddenly.
Mark stuttered out an excuse as Roger looked at him in confusion. "I-I'm exhausted," he said.
"I really need to get to sleep, and so do you. Can I get you anything?"
"No,"
Roger replied, beginning to shut down again. Mark watched in frustrated
despair as a curtain fell over his face and he withdrew back into himself.
"No, go to sleep Mark."
Mark nodded miserably and began to walk toward his bedroom.
"Mark."
He turned to look back the musician, standing with his hands in his pockets, his eyes deep and unreadable. "Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Mark forced a slight smile and nodded before turning to open the door to his room.
Thanks for
what? he thought. Being your
perfect enabler, watching quietly as you destroy yourself? God, I wish you were here April. I can't do this on my own. I feel so alone without you. I love you.
Sometimes he
realized the irony of this thought, which was a constant litany inside of his
head on nights like this. Because April
was Roger's. They were the ones who
were so hopelessly in love, so inseparable, the ones who spent their nights in
each other's arms. That used to drive
him crazy. Some nights he would lay
alone in his bed and think of the two of them sleeping all tangled up in each
other, Roger's arms draped around her, just to torment himself. Just to see how much jealousy and longing he
could take before he cracked. But he
loved them and the way they loved each other, so he would never have begrudged them
the happiness they had managed to snatch away.
And now I have Maureen. Mark paused in the doorway, watching her
sleep peacefully like he had done at least a million times before. She
looked so sweet when she was asleep; there was no sign of the wild
capriciousness that dominated her when she was awake. Maureen loved him.
Maybe. Close enough for now, at
least. He climbed back in bed beside
her and stared at her for a long moment before running his fingers softly over
her hair. She had never been a substitute in his eyes. He might still want someone who was lost to
him, but that didn't change the way he felt about Maureen. She was his reckless, moody, beautiful companion,
and he had a constant, vague fear of the inevitable day when she would realize
that he was not enough to make her happy.
But when she was asleep, she was still his. He pulled her close, and she moaned lightly before settling against him. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the man in the other room or the other woman who used to sleep in this bed, tried not to think at all.