Easy Comin’ Out (Hard Goin’ In)

by Ian McDuff

Okay, fine. It’s unabashed songfic. Okay? You made me admit it. Happy now?

The song in question is William Bell’s – and despite a superb Band of Oz cover, it will always be his song. For the beach-musically-challenged, here are the beginning stanzas:

And yes, this is practically a gen-fic. Despite Basezism and Darterosity. And despite it’s being ChrisMonth (as in, ‘Merry ChrisMonth!’ You ho-ho-hos).

‘What the fuck are you two doing here?’

‘Well, howdy to you too.’ The green eyes that stared at him were compassionate, though.

‘I mean, fuck, yeah, hi, come in. I just. Shit. Um.’

‘We’re here to apologize.’ Josh’s face was nakedly earnest.

AJ sank into a chair. James had no patience with that, and bodily removed him, putting him on the love seat between Josh and where James was ‘a-fixin’ to set.’

‘What. Why. Here to do whatdidyousay?’

‘Apologize,’ Josh said. Earnestly.

‘And if J were in any sort of shape to, he’d be here his own self to do it alongside us,’ James added. ‘On account he’s kickin’ himself up one side his ass and down t’other, his part in this-all.’

‘Look. Guys. My fuckin’ fuck-up, my responsibility. Got to take the responsibility myself, okay? Got to.’

‘You do that,’ James rumbled.

‘But,’ Josh said, ‘we have some to take too, man. You kept tryin’ to tell us, dude. And we. Just needy, I guess. Selfish.’

‘We were so frightened about J and CK, we plumb fucked you over, ’s what we did. And we need you to know that, and that we’re sorrier’n all get-out.’

Josh nodded towards the coffee table, where AJ’s water bottle and his increasingly spine-broken and tattered copy of The Big Book lay. ‘Call it amends, y’know.’

AJ sighed, and relaxed fractionally. That was a mistake: it was signal enough for the Bass-Chasezes, who immediately enveloped him in a hug. AJ hated being hugged. It meant too much to him, and he despised the inevitable reaction from his tear ducts.

‘Please,’ he begged. Jamesanjosh knew what he meant. They also knew what he really needed, and hugged harder rather than backing off.

Nick had, for a time, prided himself on not crying, on being impervious, granite; but Nicky had never had anything on AJ when it came to the need to see himself as the master of himself and his destiny, captain of his own soul, a rock that feels no pain.

And his friends knew it. Before he could say it, before he could make a final plea that they back off and leave him with his dignity intact, James spoke, his bass rumbling through the three of them as they embraced, moving the very bones within AJ. ‘You need this, and hatin’ that you actually ain’t sufficient all unto yourself’s what done got you into this mess to begin with, babes.’

Everyone had told him it was a mistake. His sponsor. Hoary, grizzled veterans. Denise – and it was that, more than anything else, that had caused them to quarrel, and led him to cut off his nose to spite his face, and then ever after to resent the whole sordid mess, including himself as well as his mother, including his own childishness that he could not humble himself to admit to – Denise and the guys and all the counselors and all the therapists. Only Howie, sweet Howie, had not voiced an opinion, but he hadn’t had to, any more than it had been necessary, after all these years, for the others to have spoken, as they had, for him to know exactly where they stood on it. Even though they, and his mom, ought, out of all people, to have known, must truly have known, that there was no surer way in the world to cement AJ’s determination than to oppose it. He was the second most bull-headed man on the planet.

Of course, the most bull-headed man on the planet was currently sitting next to him, still holding him loosely as AJ slumped into Josh’s soulful, caring arms: an uninvited and unexpected guest whom AJ couldn’t even manage to resent.

When AJ spoke, his voice was husky, unwontedly diffident.

‘Look. I meant it. I gotta take the responsibility for this myself. Nothing you guys did excuses or even explains what I fuckin’ did.’

It was Josh who answered for them, his lips soft against AJ’s throbbing temple. ‘Oh, hon. We…. Just accept it. We put more on you than you could bear.’

‘And you tried to tell us. We let you down, we didn’t pay attention to what you needed, and we feel right shitty about it. As we damn well ought to do.’

When the next knock on the door sounded, it was James Lance who got up to answer it. Josh held AJ loosely, but too securely for him to get up and answer his own door. And it was in any case clear, and typical, that James had waltzed in and taken charge, uninvited guest in AJ’s house or not. AJ had long since learned, from Kevin, from Brian, and from James, that Southern manners, formal courtesies, could and mostly did coexist with an iron determination to Take Charge, and – however politely – to ride roughshod over anyone and anything that stood in the way of a goal.

AJ recognized the footfalls before ever the other three came into the room. Oh, there was one that was less wearisomely familiar than the other two, but even at that, AJ could almost certainly have recognized that hyperkinetic patter of feet with his eyes closed, anywhere in the world. Unquestionably he knew the other two strides by heart.

When he looked up, it was into the bottomless brown eyes that went with that third set of footfalls. ‘I’m so sorry you fell, trying to help me out of my own mudhole,’ Chris said quietly. ‘Christ, but I’m sorry about that. But mostly … I’m so fucking grateful you gave me a hand up.’ In all the years AJ had half-known Chris, he had never seen him so wholly serious. It wasn’t even shocking, it was somehow the most natural thing in the world, when Chris – Chris: Dani’s ex who would forever carry a torch for her – chastely, tenderly, gratefully pressed his lips to AJ’s. Chris was and would always be Dani’s, just as AJ would always be Sarah’s, even if she never forgave him; but this wasn’t about that. This was a measureless, sudden, unlooked-for friendship that transcended categories, and it shattered AJ’s last defenses.

Knees cracking, Chris hunkered down, loosely holding AJ’s hands in his. ‘Thank you,’ he said, so quietly AJ had to strain to hear it.

They were all right, and AJ knew they were all right. He was giving in to his fears. Hell, it was right there in the ‘How It Works’ section of The Big Book. It was rash, it was rash to the point of madness. To plunge back into his job – particularly his job – was dangerous enough, though if Backstreet were to be salvaged at all, there was no discernible alternative. And while the others told him, with urgent honesty, that it could all go hang if that’s what it took for AJ to be well, that nothing mattered more to them than that, not even the future of the group, AJ couldn’t conceive of being well if this family, this happy few, this band of brothers, the truest and fullest family he’d ever known, were to collapse. So, dangers notwithstanding, he had plunged back into his job.

The other two who had arrived along with Chris did not waste time with gratitude or apologies. Neither needed to be expressed to be understood: not between Nick and Howie and AJ.

‘You are going to get through this,’ Howie said evenly. It was a simple, irrefutable statement of faith – of fact.

‘Because you’re strong enough and capable enough,’ Nick added. ‘I know. You taught me how to be those things. I leaned on you. We’re here to remind you you have us to lean on now if you need to or anything.’

‘It’s your turn, after all,’ Howie said. ‘You can do it on your own, because you are Alexander James McLean. But you don’t have to, because you’re our AJ.’

‘Guys.’

Howie smiled at him, with an achingly beautiful sweetness. ‘You don’t get to play that game, Alex.’ He was as gentle as a stained-glass Christ cradling a Tiffany lamb and preaching to gathered, apple-cheeked, English-bred children in a downtown cathedral window. He was as severe and uncompromising as the Christ who took a horsewhip to the moneychangers in the Temple. ‘You messed up. Bad. But you will learn from this. You will grow from this. You know you will. I know you will.

‘And we all know perfectly well why you messed up, hermano. You haven’t pieced yourself together yet. You’re getting there. But you’re not there yet. And you’re impatient, Alejandro. You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t. And we wouldn’t be us, because – the other side of that coin? It’s your drive, and that drive has helped power us to where we are, and it’s just another reason we love you and owe you.

‘But. You weren’t, you are not, yet, put together again. And you couldn’t wait. You thought Sarah could be the epoxy that filled in the gaps. And when you got really scared you thought Vicodin could. And when you really panicked completely, you found another soul who had just as many pieces missing in her jigsaw puzzle as you do in yours. And, yes, that’s bad. But it’s survivable. And you will survive it.’

‘Sarah –’

‘Is still right here,’ said a voice from behind him. He startled, almost getting away from Chris’s loose grasp and that of the Bass-Chasezes.

‘I’m sorry, Alex, I came in the back way.’

‘Sarah. I.’

‘I know. You should listen to Chris and Howie – and Nick, and James and Joshy.’

‘Um.’

‘I was in the kitchen, Alex. I’ve heard most of it. You listen to them. They love you. Maybe, in some ways, better than I do. Differently. But, yeah. Listen to them.’

AJ was still holding Chris’s hand, was still cradled by Jamesanjosh. It didn’t even cross his mind, or Sarah’s. They had another side of him than ever she would or could, just as she held a side of him they could never know, and she knew, with that deep knowledge of the heart that the mind cannot match, that she had nothing to fear from anyone, was unrivalled and unthreatened; that only he or she could affect what was between them.

‘I meant what I said,’ Sarah said, gently but firmly. ‘I do hate the man who cheated on me. That man hurt me. He hurt the other girl, too. I don’t even want to think what this has done to her and her recovery.’

‘Verdad,’ Howie said.

‘But most of all, Alex, I hate that that man hurt the man I love. When you are the man I love, once more – when you have stopped being, stopped being prey to, the man I hate, the man who cheated on me and who hurt the man I do love, for which I will never forgive him – then, then, we’ll talk more about this.’ She leaned over the back of the couch and kissed his forehead, and with her thumb gently wiped away a rogue tear that had evaded his determination not to show weakness. ‘Meanwhile, we’ll be friends. I’ll be there for you just like they are. I won’t ever stop loving you, Alex. And for now, well, you eat something. Something healthy. I just restocked the fridge, you goofball – why the hell’d you think I came by? And stay off the pastry.’

‘I’ll fix a garden omelette,’ Nick said, eagerly. It was one of the few dishes he could make, and he prided himself on making it well.

Sarah patted his cheek. ‘You’re a love, Nicky. Take care of him, huh? All of you. Please.’

‘We surely will, Miz Sarah.’

‘I know you will, James. Love ya,’ she said, and with that, she was gone, the door swishing shut behind her before AJ could find the words he wanted.

Somehow, though, even as he heard her car start up, he felt that she was more present, closer to him, than she’d been.

He had eaten his omelette, to Nick’s great gratification, and promised to lean on them, to let them in and let them help.

At least the Carter-Doroughs and Jamesanjosh, that promise extracted, were leaving him in peace, if you could call it peace when Chris Kirkpatrick nominated himself to stay in your house, watch the third round of the Nissan Open with you, fix you dinner, and sleep over, in your guest room. As Nick and Howie and James and Josh took their leave, something registered with AJ that had not registered until then.

‘Bass?’

‘Yes?’

‘What the fuck are you wearing under your button-down?’

‘Well, AJ, I’d say it’s right obvious. We have tee-shirts in Mis’sippi, along with indoor plumbing and the tele-o-phone, these days.’

‘Fucker. Is that. That say what I think it says?’

Josh rolled his eyes, and Nicky giggled. Even as Howie shushed his lover, he was smiling.

‘McLean, you may have missed a memo here, but … I’m gay. And old enough to be street-legal. Ain’t no big thing, me to be wearin’ a Pop Rocks! tee f’om 219 Flamingo. Hell, you think it looks good now, wait until tomorrow night.’

‘You wouldn’t. You’re not.’

‘Me, Alex?’ Both ignored Chris’s helpless snickering. ‘Me wear a tee shirt from a New York gay dance club with my tux? At the Grammys? On worldwide TV? What do you think?’

AJ was, for once in his life, speechless.

James leaned in, smiling, and whispered. ‘Alex, darlin’. You don’t always have to say things to put up a fight or make a statement. And, Alex? You may as well get it through your hard head, what with you always makin’ the easy things harder’n they have to be. It’s just like with Sarah, and makin’ things right. Always, always, you can manage to stand up for what matters.’

END

Lyrics snippet as cited; all copyrights belong to their respective holders, and any reference is intended solely under the Fair Use Doctrine.