Chapter Twenty-Seven
"They're just excited that you're back is all," Brian was saying the next morning on the plane. We were sitting next to each other, just ahead of the wing of the plane. I had the window seat, and my nose was pressed to the glass as the plane neared Los Angeles. We'd spent the entire flight talking about AJ and Nick and their horrible attempts at jogging my memory. "I promise that what I have planned at least makes sense and doesn't come with a fancy name or anything."
"And what exactly do you have planned?" I asked, my breath fogging the window. I pulled the sleeves of the sweatshirt I was wearing down over my fist and wiped it clean again.
Brian smiled, "Well, you said that the picture of LAX made you feel like you were going home, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well..." Brian said, shrugging, "Exactly."
I turned to look at him. "We're going home?" I asked.
Brian nodded. "You're going home."
I looked back out the window, the blood accelerating through my veins as I waited for the first sight of that futuristic building to creep into sight. I felt like a little kid on Christmas day, like there was a million packages under the tree with the pretty wrapping all with my name. All I had to wait for was the moment when it would come time to open them.
"To the left," Brian said over my shoulder.
I glanced back at him. I'd forgotten he was there. "What?"
"Left. You're looking the wrong way." He reached over and tapped the plane window. "There."
I followed the line his finger made through the sky to the ground where, peeking through the clouds, was LAX.
It was a weird sensation because an overwhelming sense of excitement filled me, though I couldn't quite place what the feeling could be labeled as. It was different than the one that had filled me when I looked at the picture on the computer, but it was still strong. I watched as the plane's wing dipped, bringing more of the city into view. We swung through a holding pattern and I watched as the buildings, houses, rivers of highway, and the ocean rotated below me. My stomach swayed with gravity as the plane slowly lowered and eventually slid down... down... onto the tarmac.
I turned and looked at Brian. "Wow," I said.
Brian smiled, "Welcome home, Cous."
"My favorite part about LAX!" Nick exclaimed, rushing forward out of the gate to a tall brunette a few feet away, who he proceeded to dip into a deep, wildly inappropriate-for-a-public-display-of-affection kiss.
"Who's that?" I asked Brian.
"Lauren Kitt. Nick's girlfriend," he replied. As we walked by them, Brian said to Nick, "When you come up for air, we'll be down by the baggage claim." Nick extricated his hand from the mess of tangled body parts that was the two of them and gave Brian a thumbs up, then returned his hand to wherever it had come from. "C'mon," Brian said, waving his arm, "Let's go."
LAX was crazy-busy and I felt like my senses were on overdrive as I looked at everything and took in all the sights and sounds. People were darting every which way, everyone in need of getting somewhere in a hurry. I followed Brian through the hub-bub, feeling a little less lost than I'd felt in the other airports we'd been to, despite the egnormity of this one. It was a good feeling, something close to familiar.
When we got to baggage claim, we pulled our suitcases off the line (I had to help Brian because his bag was heavy and it almost pulled him onto the conveyer belt), and then Brian led me out of the airport to a rental car company who already had a reservation made for him, and ultimately out into the wide parking lot where we located a sleek blue convertible and climbed inside.
Brian drove, and I continued looking around at everything, taking in the sights and smells and sounds of the city. Everything felt vaguely familiar, and I knew - just knew - that I was going to do a lot of remembering before the day was out. I just knew it. By the time I go to bed tonight, I thought, I'm gonna have memories again.
We got off the highway and Brian started navigating city streets, slowing for pedestrians and street lamps, and rocketing down boulevards, past tall palm trees that reflecte the sun off their majestic branches. My heart was pounding. The way the air smelled of city and ocean at the same time felt right in my nose -- like liberation and independence. It was the smell of freedom.
It happened like a lightening strike, just like the other times. I was riding along beside Brian in the car, and the next moment my mind was somewhere else. Out on the curb - on the curb right there at the spot we were about to pass...
I was walking away from the bus stop on the corner there, and someone was with me, but I couldn't remember who or what they looked like or anything... Only that there was someone there... And I was walking along down the Boulevard, overcome with excitement, nerves, and interest like I'd been since we started hovering over LAX. "Freedom!" I whooped in my memory, "Freedom... Can ya feel it? Can you smell it? I can smell it!"
I shook my head, returning to the real world as Brian took a turn in the opposite direction of where I'd headed in my memory. I turned to tell Brian -- but his face was aglow with excitement of his own. "We're almost there," he said, grinning.
I held my tongue. Whatever it was that I'd remembered, I told myself, it was the first of many things to come, and I just had to wait for the floodgates to open and everything to come rushing back.
"So Kristin's still not here," Brian was saying when I tuned back into him, my mind returning from the lightening strike. His eyes never left the road as he spoke. He was a nervous driver in California - put the brakes on too quickly, giving the seatbelts that wrapped over our shoulders tests as we kept jolting forward against the brakes. "She and Mason are have been staying in New York for the most part," he explained.
"Mason? That's a weird name," I said, looking over, "Is that her boyfriend?"
Brian's lips sucked into his mouth and his grip on the wheel tightened as he flipped on a blinker and turned into a driveway with a gate. A small keypad by the front required a password, which he entered without any hesitation, and the gates parted for us. He drove forward, and the gates closed behind us. The driveway was by no means the long, sprawling length of his driveway, but it was surrounded by lush landscaping, and a yellow house with ivy and other climbing plants crawling all over it. He cut the engine and we sat there for a moment.
"Mason's..." he paused.
"New husband?" I asked.
"Her son."
Silence fell between us, my mind analyzing the words he'd said. He'd said her son, right? So that didn't mean that I --
"Your son," Brian clarified.
The floor had dropped out from under me. My mouth went dry. I reached for the door handle of the car with shaking hands and climbed out of the car, having to move, having to walk, having to escape. My heart was playing ping pong around the cavity of my chest. I desperately wanted something to do with my hands - I stuffed them into my pockets and pulled them out a couple times. I completely could understand AJ's nervous smoking habit now, as if I'd had one I probably would've lit up a cigarette just then, despite the fact that I was morbidly opposed to smoking. I shook my head as I walked.
Brian got out of the car and came over to me. "I'm sorry, I meant to tell you that differently," he explained. "Well actually I meant for you to remember Mason on your own..." he paused. "Say something, Kevin," he begged.
I turned to look at him. "What kind of father am I?" I asked, exploding with emotion, "If I don't even remember my own kid? What kind of person am I if I don't remember my son and my wife?" I paced, "Even when I saw Kristin I didn't remember her, and you mention Mason and instead of instantly being propelled into memory, I question who he is. I can't even remember my own family!" I covered my eyes. I wanted to cry, I wanted to hit something.
Brian hovered silently, allowing the words to sink in as he stared at his toes.
"I fucking hate this," I choked the words out, "I fucking hate that I can't remember."
Brian took a deep breath, "You will though," he said in a desperate voice, "You will."
"What if I don't?" I asked, "I'm going to spend the rest of my life relying on you and the fellas and everyone to supply memories for me? Fuck I remember a goddamned bus stop downtown more than I remembered my fucking son."
"You have amnesia," Brian reminded me, "You didn't just voluntarily forget him because you don't care. You were a great dad, Kev."
I walked up to the house and sat down on the stoop. Brian came over and stood a couple feet in front of me, like he knew I wanted to hit something and was afraid to become my punching bag. He studied me a moment, "You practically raised Nick and AJ," he said after a long moment, "They had such shitty parents, but you were always there for them. So much so that Nick - Nick gave you a Father's Day card every year for the last ten years. He goes to your grave every year on your birthday, you know that? And you take care of all four of us on tour. You're always the one in charge, always the one who knows what's going on in everyone's lives. You left the band not because you don't love us but because you knew it was time for Nick and AJ to grow up. You told me so yourself. You said to me that it was like they were adults still living at home with their parents as long as you were there, and you left so that they could grow up, and they did. They did because you gave them such a solid foundation. And I told you this stuff one night when we were sitting here when you'd called me up panicking to come over because you were scared shitless because the pregnancy test said 'yes' to Kristin and you were having a melt down. You kept saying I'm gonna be a terrible father. But you weren't Kevin," Brian's voice lowered as he finally took a breath. He paused, "You weren't a terrible father. To any of them."
I looked up at him. "But I forgot all of you," I said thickly.
"You didn't choose that," he whispered.
I felt my throat tighten and a single tear escaped the prison of my eyes and slid across my cheek. I stared down at my feet. "I just wanna remember," I whispered.
Brian rubbed my shoulder, "I know," he answered. "It'll come."
After Self by Pengi
