Play It Again

If not for the sound of the sea crashing away to our right and the sand beneath our feet, this brilliant white blankness wrapping itself around us might seem like a shroud. But it's nothing more than sea fog clinging to the coastline, illuminated to glorious effect by the sun of a July morning.

"I often felt the same way," my companion says.

"About the sea mist?" I ask, a little uncertain - have I spoken aloud about how thrilling it is, how strange, to be adrift in this bright, misty miasma?

He laughs. "You madman. We were just talking about how fast time goes by. How many years it's already been."

Oh. But how many years since what? Since we last saw each other? Since we... went to school together? Shared our younger days? Got drunk, burned down a barn, lassoed us a llama? I know I know him, but I don't know from where, or for how long. At the moment, I can't even conjure up his name. That's been happening to me more and more often lately.

At least I still remember who I am: Brian Hastings. I'm the third of six children born to Augustus and Janice Hastings. I grew up in Tallahassee. And...

I look at my companion. He looks back, and offers a smile.

I went to Dorothy Eltern Elementary. Then to Samuel Saugus High. Then to St. Jerome's College in Chico, California, where I planted my oar after graduation and where I still live now, making my living as a draftsman. And...

I glance at my companion once again. I keep waiting for my mental recitation to shake something loose - his first name, last name, nickname. The nature of our association... is he a friend? A colleague? An in-law?

And, hold on now. Was I thinking I was 33? But, no... I'm... in my forties. Wait, can that be right?

"Of course, you always used to say that time was relative," my companion speaks up. "The way a moment can last on and on, or the way years can pass by in a wink - you had a whole spiel about it. I remember at Terence's memorial how you gave that speech..."

His voice seems to be fading. The sound of the surf, too, is trailing away. There's another sound, now, though, and it's growing steadily louder - a sound of music. The tune becomes discernable and I know it all at once... the weekly dance formals in college. I went all the time freshman year. This song was a staple. I learned to swing dance to this number with a girl, what was her name, she was my dance partner every week, and fancier footwork I never did than to escape her many stratagems designed to get me into her bed...

The mist is blowing away now, or thinning into nothing. What's this? How is everything so dark?

But now I see I'm in a room, and as my eyes adjust, I can make out people all around me. I'm on the sidelines in a gymnasium. There's something in my hand, I notice suddenly. It's a drink - wine? And the figures on the gymnasium floor are waltzing, under the dim lights. And she's walking right toward me - Trisha, that was her name. Trisha Saint-Angelou. She's from New Orleans.

"Aren't you going to ask me to dance?" she smiles.

I'm about to respond that I only swing dance when it comes to me that no, of course I waltz. Of course I do! I learned that at these formals, too. Setting my drink down on a table at my elbow, I take her in hand and we scoot right out onto the floor. We're laughing. I see everyone: Scott and Johnson, Libbin and Stokes. And there's Andrew, waltzing with a happy, sharp strut, a greedy smile on his face as he looks down at his date - Lisette. I remember this particular night, when he and Lisette began their affair. I had to listen to Andrew for weeks as he related the most incredible details of their rutting. Those stories left me blushing and breathless and appalled, virgin that I was. It was Andrew I liked, not the girls at St. Jerome's, and certainly not Trisha.

I remember that it's Trisha in my arms at this very moment and I switch my gaze to her. She's smiling at me wisely.

"You know, you could just come out and tell me," she says, as the music winds up and finishes with a flourish.

"I would, except I haven't figured it out myself yet." I take half a step back and bow. She curtseys nicely.

Then the mist is back: Thick and bright as before, obscuring everything. Was I wearing a tuxedo just now? Somehow, it didn't occur to me to look at my own clothing and body. Was I really in the past? Was I really nineteen years old for the space of a single old song - a song that defined a period of time before I quite knew who I was, when I was in love with Andrew, when it was Andrew who would grab me and pull me into him in the quad and show me the moves to the waltz? Four steps, this is how you do it - one, two, three, four. And he showed me how to swing dance, too. It was delirious fun, being spun by him, having his hand slide along my arm and then grab me; and I'd whirl around into his grasp, tucked next to him for the next set of steps -

"Youth is a peculiar time," my companion tells me. "Everything, the world around you, the world inside you, everything, it's only sort of a sketch. It's thrilling to put the pieces together and realize you've understood... even when the news is bad."

"Bad news?" I ask him.

"Like when you realize that people die and there's nothing you can do about it. Or people fall in love with you and you wish they hadn't. Or you fall in love with someone else, and he's another boy."

Music again... faint and growing louder.

"Things are better now," I remind him.

It's a rock and roll song. Or did they call it pop, or house, or something else?

"Things are better now," my companion agrees. "But what good is that to us?" I can hear him, but I've lost sight of him; the mist thins again, and I'm still not seeing him, but once more it's darkness and I can't see much of anything...

Blue neon, swiveling lights in sparkling pinpoints splashed across the walls - and there's a band playing at the head of the room, and it's really fucking loud. I'm dancing with a girl, again, and this time it's not Trisha. I know this girl, though. Her name is Sabrina. We work together. It's Conrad's birthday, so we've all come here to celebrate... here being... being...

Topaz! The club on Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. Seven and Seven, we used to call it. Club Topaz.

And holy shit! It's a Monday night - unofficial gay night! I'm feeling wild and sweaty, and I've been dancing for hours. I hear from people that I look like a scarecrow, flopping around on the floor like I do, but I don't give a fuck. It feels good. I'll be dancing for hours to come. Sabrina has a look of amusement on her face; she's not dancing with nearly the energy I am. I make a stupid face at her and get her to laugh. It feels good to see her laughing. Sabrina's a good friend... well, she will be. We don't know each other too well yet but after tonight we'll hang out more and more often. She was my best friend for, God, years. Until she met that Belgian guy and he swept her off her feet, across the ocean, and away. Well, good for her. Samael, that was his name. Her husband, Samael. They had three children. It's funny, too, because we always joked that she and I should have had a pack of kids to call our own...

And this night, Conrad's birthday, is the start of that wonderful friendship. And I'm 24. And in a week or two she'll proposition me and I'll have to explain that I'm gay, but she'll get this look and say, "So what?" And I'll get caught up in the spirit of the moment and we'll fuck! And it'll be such fun, such a friendly, fun thing. Oh, how we'll laugh about that, my one heterosexual night, for years to come.

That same salacious look is coming over her even now, but the song is bleeding into something else, some other driving beat, some other melodic line, and a new vocalist is singing a very different song - and this moment, like so many moments to follow, handily changes shape and color and becomes...

White. Brilliant. Mist.

My ears are still ringing.

"And it's strange," my companion is saying. We're standing still, now, standing facing each other as he makes his point. "How food smells wonderful and tastes better, and sex is so electric that it shivers your timbers through every nerve ending, and there's a feeling inside you for every season, and there's even a deep stamp, a glitter and a keening warble like bird song, for every important idea. Even when you re-read your journal and you see that you had the same big idea a couple of years ago, but you forgot: Well, there it is! Glittering and keening anew!"

We resume the walk, sand passing under our feet. Bare feet, I notice, when I was wearing boots in the club just now. Boots that trapped body heat so that my socks were drenched with sweat. Now my feet are cool and covered with damp sand. Is this sojourn along the beach another memory?

"But then - and you really don't notice it until long after it's happened - all of those sensations diminish," my companion is saying."How does everything fade? The spines of books, where sun comes in the window. The fabric of furniture. Family photos. Not just fade, but wear out - from nothing more than erosion from dust motes, I guess. Because did you ever sit on that blue sofa much? I don't think I did, but remember how tattered it got? The thin spots in the upholstery, and finally the long thready rips..."

I don't recall a blue sofa, no. But I do recall the notes of the song, another song starting up, starting soft, then gathering together and swelling, becoming jazzy and taking on a melancholy hue. Yes, that's something blue that I recall.

I remember to watch the mist closely, but I still don't quite see how it happens; then I don't care, because it's not dark this time when the mist thins away. It's bright and sunny. There's an expanse of green stretching off from a spacious patio, and everyone's dressed up their best. My family. His family. Friends made in common, friends we brought with us to the relationship. A smattering of exes.

Including my companion, who hasn't disappeared this time. His rust-red hair is sloppy, and I can't believe it: I'm so pissed off I'm laughing. "You're a mess!" I cry, brushing him down. I'm definitely wearing a tuxedo now, and so is he, but his has something all over it... lint, or more likely, hair from that cat of his. That white, long haired, beastly, shedding cat. He's been petting and playing with Winter! In his tux! On our wedding day!

"Jesus Christ, Russ! I'm gonna need a sticky roller thing just to get you cleaned up. I'm gonna need two or three... look at this! What were you thinking?"

He's a rock of imperturbable calm. I want to throttle him. "Just calm down, Bridezilla," he says. "The next song is supposed to be our dance. So take a few deep breaths..."

"I'm not dancing with you, ya slob!" I laugh, angrily, but my irritation is turning into something very different, something that brings tears to my eyes.

"Hey, hey," he soothes. He pulls me to him and cradles me. Now he's getting that goddamn cat hair all over both our tuxedoes, but I don't care. I can't believe he married me. I'm so happy I can't stand it. I think I'm gonna faint, or have a haemorrhage.

"I missed you, Rusty," I gasp, using the nickname he won't tolerate from anyone but me.

And the music is only an after-impression. But Rusty's arms are around me in the still and brilliance. We had thirty... forty?... years together. My husband has been dead now for... for...

"How many years did you say it was?" I ask, rubbing my damp cheek to his, nuzzling him. He smells the same. It has to have been a long time...

"More than twelve, less than twenty," he says. "Anyway, a long time. But I'm here now."

"Did the music bring you?"

He laughs, or maybe sighs, looking at me with a smile. "No. We've been walking here for quite some time. The music is new. I think it's helping you some. I think that's the idea."

I don't understand what he means.

"It's music therapy, Brian. You remember we talked about this when my mother was in her last few years?"

"Yes, and you played her songs that you knew she liked..." I freeze, choking on realization.

"They're doing the same for you, Brian. My Brian Boru." Rusty gently disengages, steps away from me now. "Music jump starts the mind. Pulls all sorts of different neurological regions together, allows senile brains to organize and coordinate again. That's what her doctor told us when he suggested we make a playlist of all her old favorites. And remember how my sister and I sat down and talked about it for hours, putting together a list of the music she had listened to when we were kids? That playlist brought us as many memories as it sparked for her..."

"And she actually started talking to us," I say. "She literally came to life. And she remembered so many things. Cooking to one song, sewing to another... playing bridge..."

"Then she went and told us about giving my dad a blowjob in his car while the radio played," Rusty giggles. "I just about pissed myself!"

There's another song starting up. I know this tune like it was a tattoo on the inside of my skin. I don't even need to hear it to recognize it. It's our song.... Well, one of them. We danced to this song on our wedding day. It's Neil Finn, bless him. Rusty wanted Rachel Garlin, but he saved her for later in the day and gave me Neil for our dance.

"Some day you'll find that some things things travel faster than light," Rusty sings along to Neil. "In time you'll recognize that love is larger than life."

The mist isn't thinning out into some new moment from my past. It's getting brighter, warmer. The sound of the surf, like Rusty's voice, is still present. Our song is rich to the ear, thrilling to the heart, triggering all those intense sensory and emotional responses Rusty was talking about before. I feel young. I feel... ready.

Rusty, retreating into the mist before me, is still singing. He looks back. He looks delighted. He's inviting me.

I am glad to follow.