Rain.
It starts when they're six years old and Vince was about to get his ass kicked by one of the older kids in the neighborhood and a mouthy redhead named Eric showed up to defend his honor. It's sharing matchbox cars stolen from his older brother (Vince) and letting him hang out whenever his own house gets too crowded (Eric) and finding the best friend he would ever know (both of them). It's splashing through mud puddles on the way home from school and throwing snowballs at each other when the first big snowfall hits New York and sneaking into the pool on summer nights when it's too hot to even breathe. It's innocence at its best and somehow knowing that friendships like this didn't come along every day and finding the person you would lay down your life for before you could even write your name in cursive.
They're thirteen and it's the first time they've smoked a joint on E's roof after his parents went to bed and they're both feeling a little reckless as they trip over each other in the dark. It's a mess of gangly limbs (Vince) and the first prickles of facial hair (Eric) and racing hearts that just can't seem to catch a break (both of them). It's first kisses that they will never speak of to anyone else and the first hint of something more than friendship and questions that don't really have a right answer. It's nervousness and exhilaration and everything in between that can't be defined so easily with words.
It's seventeen and the night after high school graduation and they're both feeling a little nostalgic for the days that are behind them now. It's the hope of a better life in California (Vince) and the promise of making more of themselves than their fathers did (Eric) and sadness that this could be the last time that they're together like this (both of them). It's the last kisses that have to last them and the last thing either of them could ever picture being permanent and those last worries that they could never say aloud. It's the fear that they won't fall and the knowledge that they already have and the frustration that they can't make this work.
And then it's twenty-three and they're separated by three-thousand miles and neither of them has felt like themselves in far too long. It's the emptiness at the end of the night when he crawls back to Johnny's alone (Vince) and the way he misses his best friend when he's closing up the pizza shop (Eric) and how this isn't how it was supposed to end up (both of them). It's the late-night phone calls when Eric walks the darkened streets of Queens and the early evening hours when Vince is crammed between two girls in the VIP lounge and how it's the only time the distance doesn't seem to matter. It's whispered promises over telephone lines and reminders that this doesn't have to be forever and being scared shitless that maybe it will be.
It's twenty-five and stepping off the airplane into the salty beach air and seeing the only person they need standing right there in front of them for the first time in way too long. It's a long hug that he hopes his brother will think is just friendship (Vince) and a nervous glance around the airport terminal in case his best friend is recognized (Eric) and the easy way their arms find home around each other as they walk in the warm California sun (both of them). It's Vince's eyes that are dark and wild as lightning illuminates the room behind him and the storm giving Eric just enough light to see what he's grasping at as he tugs his best friend down by his tattered Ramones tee and the relief that they finally feel when they are back together as one again. It's how Eric won't walk away this time and how Vince needs him to stay and how they're finally going to do this for real.
They're thirty-two then and they both have careers that mean they should matter to the world and they're still hiding behind girls too pretty to draw attention to what's really going on. It's hands on thigh under dark tables during business meetings (Vince) and revenge kisses pressed against the dirty wall of a bathroom stall (Eric) and going home together at the end of the night in their oversized mansion where it finally feels normal (both of them). It's playing house while the rest of the world thinks they're just best friends and only letting a few select friends see what's really going on behind the curtain and the constant threat of being found out hanging above their heads. It's the idea of finally coming out and Eric being scared that it will ruin everything for Vince and Vince convincing Eric that, hey, this really is the best idea.
And then it's forty-eight and they have been together for thirty-five years and they finally have enough courage to do this, to lock it down and make sure that it will last forever. It's the brilliant smile as he thanks his partner after winning his second Academy Award (Vince) and a champagne toast to his fiancée as he celebrates taking over the city's largest management firm (Eric) and the adoring looks as the most perfect little girl is born into the world (both of them). It's late nights up with their daughter in the nursery and being too tired to make love after a long day of negotiating contracts and how neither of them could ever imagine being this happy with anyone else. It's having someone to come home to at the end of the day and someone who understands you even when you don't understand yourself and someone who has been by your side since you were just a kid.
It's sixty-four and a lifetime of hit movies and huge deals behind you and staying in together on a Saturday night to watch movies they loved when they were six. It's teaching their daughter to drive even though he's still not a great driver himself (Vince) and questioning the first boy that comes to take their little girl away from them (Eric) and waiting up until she finally comes home (both of them). It's how after almost sixty years, there is still no one else who knows them better and how life has thrown a lot of rain at them and the way that they have always managed to find the sunshine at the end of the proverbial rainbow. It's still being best friends with the guys that came up with them in the neighborhood and sharing the Hollywood dream with them forty years after you came out to California and watching your daughters gossip about their lame fathers with smug smiles on their beautiful faces. It's a family that is stronger than most are given biologically and bonds that have endured miles and years and births and deaths and a connection that has sustained not just the two of them but everyone around them for so long.
They're eighty-nine and the disease has spread and the doctors say that this is finally it. It's the hum of a ventilator in a sterile hospital room (Vince) and the constant beeping of a heart monitor attached to his chest (Eric) and the shrill screech of a flat line as life leaves the room (both of them). It's how they had done everything together their entire life and how they would leave the earth on the same day and why neither of them could imagine living even an hour without the other. It's tears that their daughter will cry as she tries to console their twin grandsons and the comfort she will find in knowing that they had each other and all the memories that they've built together over a lifetime. It's rain falling and the clouds parting and the sun coming out as the world spins on without them.
It's nine decades of friendship and love and complete contentment. It's finding a best friend at six and a lover at seventeen and a husband at forty-eight. It's finally coming home at twenty-five and watching their daughter grow into a woman at sixty-four and all the many moments in those years between. It's being scared of losing everything at twenty-three and knowing that's not possible at thirty-two and realizing that fear doesn't much matter at eighty-nine. It's more than either of them could have every imagined and all the things that they could have hoped for and it always felt like living the dream.
It's more than all that. It's a life. It's everything.
