Without You, Who Am I?

Memories and reflections in a red car.

Originally published in the zine, Dangerous Lives, Dangerous Visions 3.

He ran his hand over the hood of the car as the red paint shone in the mid-day sun. It was exactly the same, from interior to exterior: candy apple red with a white stripe and black bucket seats. He remembered that car well, having driven it so many times that he could re-create every pop and click it made as it went around tight corners. In that moment, the years began to melt away and he was back to a time when he was young and fearless. He was on top of the world back then, always happy, and excited to go to work with his best friend at his side. Countless hours spent together, building a relationship that would take them through good times and bad. He enjoyed the job, the company he kept, because it was a good life for a young man to have. That was before life took the detours that it had.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” A voice interrupted his thoughts.

He looked over at his partner. “Just like old times.”

“Even got the clothes to prove it,” the blond said, picking at the letterman jacket he was wearing.

“Like déjà vu all over again,” he joked, looking down at his own clothes. Leather jacket, tennis shoes, and even the coins that he wore around his neck were the same as before, the same as when he was younger and more naïve. He had been so clueless back then, thinking that he could make the world perfect if he just tried hard enough. That was never going to work, but he didn’t know it at the time. He was so young, so determined to make everything work out, but fate had a way of turning that plan on its head. It wasn’t enough that he could put on the clothes one more time and pretend he was the same man who’d worn them so long ago; he could never really be that man again.

“Hey.” The voice drew him out of his memories again. He looked into the eyes of the man he had known for more than thirty years. “It’s not supposed to make you regret, you know?”

“It’s not regret.”

“Then what? Second thoughts?”

“We’re just not the same people we were back then,” he reminded the blond.

“No, we’re not, but since when did that stop us?”

“Never, I guess.” He felt his partner’s strong arm drape over his shoulder, pulling him closer. “I thought we had given this up.”

“You had to give it up. I accepted that it was part of the past and tried to move on, but neither one of us could really give it up for good. We could never leave it behind because we’re tied to it.”

“I tried; kept running away like I was trying to escape who we were,” the brunet said.

“And I was just trying to escape who I’d become.”

He looked at his partner. “It’s not been all bad. We’ve had a lot of happiness in our lives, you know? That’s what counts.”

“A thousand bad memories can be erased with one good one,” the blond said. “But a lot of the times, it’s like it’s the other way around.”

He sighed, gaining his strength, and motioning the other man to join him in the car. “If we’re doing this, let’s do it.” His companion followed suit as they both resumed their old, familiar seats and were taken back to a time and place that they remembered well.

His partner was the first to break the silence, giving a little laugh. “It is a little weird, though. We’re the same, but we’re not. I mean, I’ve got enough wrinkles and missing hair to prove that, right?”

“You look good,” he said, looking directly in the pair of blue eyes staring back at him. “Better than you have in a long time.”

“Together… I’m always better when we’re together,” the blond admitted. “I’m a whole lot happier, too.”

“Because we don’t have to pretend?”

“Because we don’t have to pretend,” his partner agreed.

“I love you no matter what, you know that, right?”

“It’s the one thing I’ve always known,” the blond said. “It’s something I tried to capture so many times before. All those people, they never loved me as completely as you do.” The blond reached up to cradle his partner’s cheek in his hand. “You look at me and see someone you can be with, no matter what. They looked at me like someone they could change.” He let his hand drop back down to the seat. “You’ve saved me so many times I’ve lost count.”

“You’ve saved me a couple of times, too,” he admitted. “When I thought I’d lost everything, you saved me.”

“It’s what we do; it’s who we are,” his partner said, reaching out and joining their hands together. “This is what it’s all about when it comes down to it, what exists between you and me. That’s what really matters in all of this.”

Looking down at their hands, the rings on his finger glistened. The gold and silver had resided together so many years before, but he had left them behind when he left the job. His partner looked down, too, squeezing just a little to let him know that he knew.

“They look good, back again where they belong,” his companion noted.

“I never thought I’d be wearing them again. Never thought I’d be doing any of this, but I guess time has a way of bringing you back to the beginning, huh?”

“Just because we’re older doesn’t mean we’ve lost any of the stuff that made us who we are. We’re still us.”

“Everything we did, everything we are, brought us back to this place. For that, I can’t be sorry.” He raised their intertwined hands to his lips, placing a soft kiss on them before separating. Looking into his partner’s eyes, he asked, “You ready for this?”

The blond looked over at him and smiled. “Always.”

The brunet put the key into the ignition and turned the switch. The roar of the engine was just like he remembered it. It was all the same, the sounds and smells that joined together and made the past bleed into the present so much that he didn’t know which was which anymore. He had changed, they both had, but the changes on the outside never affected the bond between them. There had been rough times, he knew that, but it was a vow they had taken to be there when others turned away. When the world was without meaning, they could find solace in each other. With one last glance over at his companion, he shifted into drive and sped forward into a rehashing of their youths.

But too quickly it was over, the trip back in time ended by someone else’s wishes. If it were up to him, to the both of them, they’d probably keep on driving and never stop. Because as long as they were in the car, in the moment, they could pretend that they were thirty years younger and still fearless. If they drove fast enough, maybe they could erase all the pain they had gone through, all the loss they had experienced, and become those thirty-year-old guys again.

They exited the car, trying to leave behind the characters once again, but it was never to be. They had ceased to separate the characters from who they were too long ago, always joined in a melding of Paul and David and Starsky and Hutch. They were always connected, always revolving around the same relationship. And no matter how much their outside lives pressed in, how rough the path got, they always ran back into the safety and knowledge that they could rely on one another. That love, that trust, was not tarnished or lessened by the years’ toll of age. There would be many more days together, many late night talks, but not a whole lot of new confessions. They had made those long ago, lived by them over all the years.