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The long ride to the top of the tower makes your ears pop. One side is all glass and you can watch the other tall towers slide away, watch the sky spread like a picnic blanket above. It's a crowded ride. Even with the AC blasting, everyone is sweating a little. Your camera, small as it is, take up space. You need to shift and adjust it now and then, to keep it from pressing into some tourist's hip, or stomach. Everyone in this elevator is a tourist to this city, except for us.
It's a beautiful day. Lean a bit and look over the gray-blue expanse of Lake Ontario and maybe you'll see the clouds gathering. You've seen them already. You've been here before. You can't believe you're here again.
Keep the cameras safe and unobtrusive. You never have a permit. Over the headset, you can hear the boys. Matt, talking. Jay, breathing.
Jay's been quiet all day. That's not so strange. Jay's the follower here. Some days he keeps quiet, listens to Matt, plays the piano. But there's a weight to his silence and we can all feel it. We don't know what it is. These two and their little ecosystem, this strange world that exists between the black lenses of the cameras, it's a delicate one. It's shut off from everything else, like the systems people read about in National Geographic that spring up in a deep crevasse, or in some cave somewhere. Any change to it is remarkable, possibly catastrophic.
There's a shifty, glassy look in Jay's eyes. He's leaning close to the windowed side of the elevator, angling his head to track the clouds, squinting at the sparkle of the lake that never stops churning. The surface of it always rough and the light moving with it. You make sure the camera gets his face, gets the flex of his fingers, stretching out and pulling back into a fist, over and over again.
Matt senses something is amiss, probably. But he'll chalk it up to something else. Probably, that Jay is scared of what they're about to do—.
Jay is being such a pussy right now. He always gets like this. He's always whining and mumbling and wincing and shuffling with his head ducked like it could hide the fact that he's like twelve feet tall. He wants so bad to be a little guy but he's stuck in the body of a big guy and he's clumsy about it, like a scarecrow in a brown blazer, until you get him in front of a piano or behind a drum kit or put a guitar in his lap. Just a complete pussy.
Matt can read the nerves on him. Jay's limited inner world was a book Matt had memorized years ago. The trick was to keep him from taking a step back, because like a scarecrow in a jacket, he is easily swept up by something forceful, the momentum of a plan. The trick behind that was to talk and not stop. Fill not just the silence but the whole world with the sound of his voice. This is a trick Matt's been practising since before he even met Jay (although in these last few decades, he was the guy he used it the most on, to the most effect). Probably since he learned to talk. In another life, he would've been a great salesman. Or a conman.
Fill the silence, fill the world, and most importantly, fill that space between Jay's ears until he can't think for the sound of Matt's voice.
(The reason this works so well on Jay is that Jay doesn't really want to think for himself most of the time.)
They're let out and they're taken into a locker room. They're given bright red coveralls. There's a sheet of sweat between Matt's shoulder blades, under the parachute pack, which is under his jacket. Their guide, a nice man who shoved a waiver and a dying pen at them before he even let them in the room, was doing Matt's trick: keeping up a stream of friendly patter to stop people from thinking too hard about what came next.
It's not going to work on Jay. Jay needs Matt's voice.
Jay's not saying anything, which is weird. He's been quiet all morning. At this point of a plan, Jay would usually start his verbal hedging, mumbling his I don't thinks and Maybe we should justs, and the other false starts he comes up with when he knows he shouldn't do something but wants to be pushed into it.
Matt pretends to check on his gear, pats his chest down, flaps his arms a bit to test mobility, but what he's really doing is watching Jay. He won't ask if Jay's okay. If he asks that, gives him a pause, Jay might scramble a thought together and Matt'll have to sweet talk or bully him back around, and really they don't have time for any of that. The door's about to open.
The air is thin and cold, even in July. It's like the top of fucking Mount Everest, with the wind like the hand of God slapping their mics, ruining the audio. The sky above and around them, bright and so, so blue, that it hurts to look at.
This is why, Matt thinks, he is alive. There is nothing in this world like a well-executed plan, and this part is Matt's favourite. The precipice, the last leg, the part where the audience holds its breath, waiting for the prestige. There's a special frequency that Matt's thoughts start vibrating at in moments like these, like he's got the hum of the universe in his head, and his whole brain is blasted clear and white, a landscape after the bomb dropped and took everything with it. Matt can't explain it to anyone. The closest he's ever come to experiencing it was the time in high school when Porno Tom's locker was about to get searched again and he needed someplace to hide the pills, and Matt palmed three adderall into his mouth to help his buddy out. He'd spent the rest of the day with his thoughts sandblasted from behind his eyes, his heart drilling in his chest. He'd made Jay ditch his gay-ass grade six RCM piano lessons after school so they could go swimming at Humber Park, even though it was April and the lake was freezing.
(Jay, who was just relearning to move with intent after another growth spurt, and was at that time the second tallest guy in their grade. He'd wanted to keep his shirt on in the water, even though it was so fucking lame to do that, because what are you a girl whose tits just came in? Afraid I'll snap your bra, Birdie? And a thatch of dark hair was just starting to sprout on his skinny chest, and on his arms and his legs, and a weak streak of it on his top lip, which made him look like a total pervert, like the kind of guy who went into the beaded door section of Queen Video, who offered to buy the grade nine girls whatever they wanted from the Beer Store. He looked like the shadow of the man he was already, even then, becoming.)
They're on the ledge of the world, the whole lake front at their feet, and their guide's shouting to be heard over the wind, but Matt can't hear him, wouldn't listen even if he could.
"Okay," he says. "Okay, I think this is—." Breathe. "I think this is it. We gotta go. We gotta—." He swings around, ready for the next part of the plan, which is always 'talk Jay into doing the last part of the plan with me', expecting to find Jay looking pale and wide eyed and overloaded with terror, staring down at the oblivion waiting for them at the ends of their toes.
But Jay's not looking down, or up, or at any of the beautiful, terrifying things around them. He's looking at Matt like he'd just been shot. Eyes glassy, like he's just finished crying or is about to start, face flushed, mouth trembling open and close.
"What?" If he's talking, Matt can't hear him. Maybe even Jared and them can't hear him. The wind slapping the sound out of the air.
Jay's mouth closes. His brows are creased. And yeah, those are tears. None of this is right. If Matt were in any other situation, and if this were any other person, he might feel a bit panicked.
But this is here, and that is Jay, and Matt is untouchable, and he knows what's happening and what to do next, always. He screws his face up, a patented Really, Bird? look he has saved for moments like these.
"Come on," he says. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet on me now." Nothing from Jay except that gutted look on his stupid face. "We don't have time for this, okay? We gotta go, we gotta—" Matt's voice trips over itself and he fumbles for the cutters. The grip is slippery in his palm and the steel cables don't cut easily but they do give. He cuts Jay's first. "We've got this, okay? It'll be easy. Nothing's ever been easier. Just a little jump and then, you know, a pull—"
Jay grabs him by the arm and tugs him close. His mouth is moving, he's saying something, but their guide has noticed that's something's going on and the other walkers are looking at them.
"Jay, what the fuck man—!"
"I'd do it too, I'd do it too," Jay is saying. Repeating. Looking at Matt like Matt's about to die or disappear or something stupid. Tears slide down his cheeks and something is really wrong here. "You have to know that. I'd do it too. I'd pick you too, Matt. I would. I did. I'll keep doing it."
All the euphoria from earlier drains out of Matt's head and his chest. Fear pitches his voice up too high and he can hear a crack in his words when he starts yelling.
"Jay! What the fuck! Are you talking about! Are you dying? Am I dying? What the fuck are you talking about? What the fuck are you—?"
Jay closes the distance between them. He kisses Matt.
Oh, it's a mess. There's no finesse to any of it. It's like being hit in the mouth with his best friend's mouth. Except that when you get hit in the mouth, the other person doesn't usually hold the weapon against your lips for a long time, but that's what Jay is doing. With his mouth.
And then he's done. He looks into Matt's eyes. He's not crying any more.
"I just needed you to know that," he says. Shouts, actually. That's another ridiculous thing in a line of them, the two of them shouting at each other just to be heard.
"Nn…" Now Matt couldn't think. When has Matt ever been struck dumb like this? He could count it on one hand. Add another finger.
"Nnnnknow that?" he manages. "Kn—know what? Jay, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why—?"
"Oh shit," Jay says, speaking over Matt's warm up to a full verbal meltdown. "Oh fuck."
Someone outside their bubble is trying to get their attention. "Guys? What are you guys—?"
"We gotta go. We gotta—Matt, we gotta go right now." The wires are cut and he's tugging Matt towards the edge. Matt still isn't caught up, his thoughts no longer made of burning white crystal, and his brain no longer like the landscape of the Gobi at sunrise. Everything's fuzzy and static.
"Fuck fuck fuck we gotta, right now, we gotta—!"
Jay's hand in his. He pulls Matt to the edge, and into the air.
Their hands are ripped apart instantly but Matt swears, he could still feel it, the whole drop into the Dome. He could feel it.
Two issues with the plan that you could've mentioned if anyone had asked you:
- There's no microphone on the field of a baseball game. There are cameras but the cameramen aren't going to rush them like reporters on the scene. Without any way of amplifying their voices, nobody had any idea why two men sky…dove into the Dome.
- Athletes don't always have the greatest sense of humour or whimsy about things and there are a lot of baseball bats within easy grabbing distance if anyone of them became annoyed or confused or angry about the interruption.
There are a few other issues, but they aren't as pressing. Let's be real, you knew that it wouldn't work because it never does, but you also knew that it didn't matter. They wouldn't suffer consequences for any of it. Just like last time, the emergency responders just seemed exasperated and amused.
A lifetime ban from the Rogers Centre and a hefty fine they couldn't afford later, they were set free again.
They wander north, past Union, up on University, meandering through the city's streets, their steps taking them to Queen and Spadina. It's another groove they've made, their shared life together full of them, carved out after two decades living in each others' pockets, in the same neighbourhoods. How do they keep finding these houses off of Queen? Every time they're forced to go looking, they find the one house that hasn't been marked for condo development tear down or off-campus unofficial student housing, full to bursting with half a dozen UofT undergrads. It's really not worth looking too closely at any of this.
It's not raining yet when they come home but the clouds have gathered, waiting for their curtain call.
Jay's walking a bit ahead. He's looking dreamier than usual, which is to say he looks like he's ambling through a dream he's having.
It's hard to make out Matt's expression. The camera keeps looking for him but he's not doing much with his face. He'd been lively enough when dealing with the police but he's shrugged off that manic energy like a coat.
The storm's on its way. The pressure's in the air.
It's a delicate ecosystem and something new has definitely been introduced. At the house, Jay makes a beeline for the piano like a child crawling under their blanket to hide from the sound of thunder.
Matt doesn't follow him inside immediately. He stands in the yard. He looks at the front window, warm amber light and, now, the sound of a song being coaxed to life, spilling forth.
He looks at you, eyebrows raised. You don't know how to read him beyond the broadest strokes. It's not up to you to decide what he means. You just shrug, camera jostling. He looks at the other you, who feels the same as you, and does the same thing.
Matt takes off his hat. He palms his forehead and rubs his hand into his hair. He tugs on a few stray curls. The song from within their house has come to life, finding its voice, getting confident.
"That fucking thing costs a fortune to move," he says. "You have to let the movers know about it in advanced and it's like an extra two hundred bucks. And then it gets all fucked up during the move anyway and you have to pay a guy to come and re-tune it. It sucks."
You know all this. Jay doesn't know how to tune it himself. Very few pianists do; they can just hear when it doesn't sound right. A guy has to come out and do it for them, even though Matt never likes it, never likes strangers in the house, barely tolerates you sometimes. But if they don't do it, Jay sulks.
And maybe you don't know everything about this fragile little world with its thin barriers, and maybe you're just a fly on the wall most days, but you've been around long enough and seen enough to know that, despite all his bluster and bullying and pranks and insults and occasional rough housing sessions that slide into actual violence… at the end of the day, Matt's number one priority in the world is to keep Jay happy. Or, at the very least, keep him entertained.
Matt puts his hat back on.
"Don't follow me," he says.
Fine. You can make do with peeking in through the window. It's not the first time you've done it.
Jay's playing without accompaniment or an audience. It's not weird, exactly, but it's not an everyday occurrence. Jay will sit at the piano with a far-away look in his eyes, with his hands on his lap or motionless on the keys, and only start when Matt whirls into the room. Matt is usually around at least, to hear what Jay is playing.
Or maybe Jay is always playing, and Matt's just always around.
Jay doesn't look around when Matt comes in. The song he's playing is familiar—a video game, maybe Chrono Trigger? But it's shifting, the melodies changing as a tune catches Jay's ear and his attention drifts, and the song he's playing is really a bunch of songs stitched together. Final Fantasy VII chasing Megaman 2 chasing The Smashing Pumpkins tripping into The Cure sliding into Mario RPG and so on. Matt can't see Jay's face but he can see the bend of his neck, the curl of his hair around his ears, the movement of his shoulder blades under the layers of clothes, and he's seen this often enough to know what expression Jay is wearing anyway.
Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't know Jay that well after all. Does he even know Matt's in the room with him? Matt wants to think he can always tell when Jay is around, even when he went blind for a bit. He could feel it. Don't ask him to explain it.
Matt picks up a cushion from the couch and whips it at the back of Jay's head.
"Ow!" The song crashes to a stop. Jay spins around, face pink with anger and confusion. "Wh—?"
"What did you do." Matt's voice comes out flat. "What did you do up there. What did you do."
Jay's gaze skates over him and away. He turns until he has both of his stupid long legs on the other side of the bench and puts his hands between them. He's making himself small, which makes Matt want to grab his hair or ear or the back of his neck and just start twisting.
"I was doing the plan." Oh, you little bastard. This asshole. "Like you said." He peeks up at Matt. Those long, thick lashes. "Were you scared?"
Fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him —.
Jay sees something in Matt's expression, if the widening of his eyes is any indication. He swallows. "Are you mad?"
Matt can't put a word to how he's feeling. Maybe there isn't one.
Okay, wait. A long time ago, grade nine or something, Matt was not paying attention in class. His Gameboy SD had been confiscated first thing. His teacher wouldn't let him doodle during class, thought it distracted him. So Matt cracked open his English textbook and read under his desk, this short story. It was this Stephen King story about this hit man who was hired to kill a black cat. And Matt can't remember the specifics about it but he can remember, with aching clarity, the climax, where the cat jumps into the man's mouth, claws its way down his throat, and burrows.
"Did I…" Jay rubs his face with both hands. His tired face. The bags under his eyes. "Matt, did I ruin things?"
Matt feels like that cat. He knows how that cat felt, one second before it jumped.
"Oh, yeah," he says. "Yeah, Jay. Yeah. You fucked it up."
He jumps.
Jay goes easy. He braces himself as Matt's hands land on his shirt and he yanks him upright. The look on Jay's face is ugly and it hurts a little to look at—but it feels good too. It always feels a little good, to know that he can put that expression on his face, that he can hurt Jay. Matt doesn't like to dwell on it.
He hauls Jay over to the couch and shoves him down. Jay is practically unresisting, although he's starting to protest, like he's expecting Matt to start swinging. Like he can't tell where this is going, where it was always going to go the second he planted one on Matt at the top of the world. Maybe where it's been going for a lot longer.
He probably doesn't know, because Jay isn't good at planning. That's why he has Matt.
Matt climbs on top of Jay.
Oh the look on his face. This is better than the big, wet-eyed please don't hit me look. Jay is a man without guile and everything shows up on his face. Matt uses both of his hands to hold that face still, and he kisses Jay.
It's much, much better this time. Partially because Matt didn't just punch him in the mouth with his mouth, knocking his big rabbit teeth against his lips, Jay. But also partially because Matt has been thinking about this, more or less on a constant loop, since grade eight track and field day, when he first really noticed how long Jay's legs were.
It's much nicer like this, without the wind boxing their ears and slapping their faces. Nicer when they have time and no audience, and Matt can hear the quiet noise Jay makes when his mouth is coaxed open. Things are a bit clumsy at first—Jay's hands flutter at Matt's waist, his lap shifting under Matt's legs—but like in everything else they do together, they find a rhythm. It's weird one second and then it's perfectly natural the next, like they've been doing it their whole lives. They kind of have.
It's sweet, tooth-rotting stuff, what they're doing. Soft touches, soft mouths, very PG. And then Jay's breathing starts to change and his hands are under Matt's jacket, fingers tugging Matt's shirt from his waistband. He's going to cop a feel, Matt realises with a giddy thrill. Matt does what he always does, and adapts to Jay, follows him until he's outpacing him, and in the lead.
Soon Jay's on his back with Matt still on top of him. Matt's shucked off his jacket and his shirt's undone. He's trying to strip Jay of his blazer but the position they're in restricts his efforts and he only succeeds in shoving it down Jay's shoulders. His mouth is on Jay's neck, using one hand to pop Jay's shirt buttons open one by one in a move so smooth it should earn him a gold medal in the making out Olympics.
The room feels hot and crowded. Jay getting noisier, breathier, his hands all over Matt. Was he like this with his girls? Matt could never bring himself to sneak around and find out because it felt like too much although everything Matt felt for Jay was too much. He just thought about it, Jay and his musician hands, and those girls he'd pick up from the Dance Cave or whatever grimy, shitty club they'd ended up.
Now they're too old for that sort of thing. Now it's been years since any one of them brought anyone else home. One of Jay's broad hands lands on the back of Matt's head, fingers twisting in his hair, as they kiss and kiss and kiss.
The room is hot and close when Matt finally, finally pulls back. He doesn't know why he stops, why would he ever stop, except that he's a little afraid that if he doesn't stop now, something will happen. Something else, something bigger, something they could never turn away from. Like he'll start biting and won't be able to bring himself to stop.
Jay, of course, looks beautiful. Slow blinking, like first thing in the morning, his lips wet, pink, and parted like an invitation. Matt doesn't want to think about how he looks.
He should say something. Jay's not going to say anything. He's started this but what else is new? Jay starts things he doesn't know how to finish all the time. It's why he leaves plates of food on the counter, why his songs always take a little bit too long to end.
"If you wanted to ruin a friendship with a kiss," Matt says. "That's how you do it."
"Oh." Jay seems to take this in with a furrow in his brow. "Is it ruined?"
"Pretty thoroughly, yeah."
"Oh." Jay wilts a bit at this. He puts his hand on Matt's arm, slides it up and down like he's trying to soothe Matt. "So… what now?"
God, Matt could just shake him. Strangle him. Drop him down a mine shaft. Cherish and keep him for the rest of their lives.
"I mean, if things are ruined anyway," Jay says. "We could… go upstairs? My room? Or yours, I don't—."
Matt's on his feet before he can finish talking, pulling Jay's arm like a leash until he's up and following. Matt leads him upstairs confidently, like it was his idea first.
You wait around for a while. You didn't actually peep in through the window the whole time. You turned away when Jay was on his back and they were battering at each other's lav mics in their attempts to strip each other. Did they even notice the mics?
You can hear them upstairs, which is a bit embarrassing. One of them—Matt, you're guessing, because right now Jay doesn't look like he would notice a firecracker going off in front of him unless Matt told him about it first—pulls the wires and the mics go dead.
The rain starts. You go to the RV, which is the same as it was before everything happened. Except now nothing has happened. No one is a murderer and no one committed suicide. The rain sounds nice in here.
After an hour or so, you figure the coast is clear and you're back inside. You can't hear anything. They might be asleep. You move quietly, mindful of every creak on the stairs, the camera on your shoulder serving as your third eye. The lights are out in Matt's room but there's a sliver of it coming out of Jay's, the door just slightly ajar. You angle the camera and zoom in, take in the scene.
It's like this: Matt is shirtless and sitting up in bed, his modesty preserved by the flat sheet pooled on his lap. His bare legs are kicked out. He's jiggling his ankle. Jay is sprawled on his stomach, half buried under the sheet, his face mashed into his pillow. Matt is talking, talking. Without the mics, the sound is worse, but you can still make out his voice.
"—ruined as in, like, everything is different now. Not like I'm saying it's bad. We'll have to figure out, figure some stuff out, but that's not a big deal. I might have to tell my parents. Before Thanksgiving, I'll have to say something to them, and definitely to my sister, and my brothers, but they've already called me a—I mean, I don't think anyone's going to be surprised." Matt frowns. His hand rests on the back of Jay's head like a pale tarantula, his thumb running up and down the curve of Jay's ear. Jay's eyes are closed. There's zero tension anywhere in his body; he looks like he'd been dropped from a great height into a meringue. Like Matt's anxious, neurotic ramblings are a lullaby which he periodically hums along to.
Matt stops himself. He swallows, looks out the window (you shrink back further into the shadows of the hallway, just in case), and then at the far wall.
"What did you mean before, Bird? At the top of the tower. What did you mean?"
Now there's tension. Jay opens one eye, a stitch of concern wrinkling his forehead.
"Um," he says and it'll be the best he can come up with on short notice.
"You kept saying too. 'I'd choose you too.' 'I'd do it too.' What is 'it' and when did I do it?"
"Oh uh." Jay lifts himself up on one elbow, revealing the rest of his expression, which is a tactical error. Jay can be a surprisingly gifted liar if he doesn't think about what he's trying to hide, or think that he's hiding anything in the first place. But in other situations, like this one—post-coital with his best friend—he's hopeless.
"I was just… thinking about a dream I had," he says.
"What dream?"
"It doesn't matter."
This flat delivery sends Matt sputtering. "It doesn't—! Are you joking? You were crying like a little baby at the top and then you—and it's something that doesn't matter?"
Jay's shoulders hunch up to his ears. "Can we not talk about it?"
"You literally started it."
Jay rubs his hand over his face. "If I give you a blowjob, will you drop it?"
"Deal, yes absoultely," Matt says before Jay has finished speaking. "Now? Doesn't matter, yes, I agree to your terms. And conditions."
That's your cue to leave.
You return to the RV where it's quiet and sleep to the sound of the rain. The thunder.