I have never written a one-shot before. Weeeeird. Uh, I was taking a bath, and then it realized to be how often in conversation with Rentheads I've used that one term, and...well, Mark started talking in my head, and he was saying interesting things, and I wrote it down. Odd, yet surprisingly therapeutic. The Mark that lives in my head has been needing to say some of these things.
Dedicated to Chris, my beautiful girl. I love you, baby.
(And Jess, this isn't my way of saying I hate you. I just reread it and thought that it might be read as such, so...disclaimer; love you!)
Oh, right, a real disclaimer. Show of hands; WHO thinks I'm Jonathan Larson? Yeah, didn't think so. If only worship made us our beloveds, but...alas. Alack.
"Before April." Those words used to have a completely different meaning. They used to mean 'before she came into our lives.' Back when it was just Mark and Roger, before she had to go and fuck everything up with her...I don't know, her smile, and her hair, and her smack. Okay, technically I've always known it was Roger's smack first, but that's never really mattered. "Before April" meant we were living together, happy, both working, feeling free, and there was a chance. A chance for the little blond boy who was always picked on in school to actually go after something, someone he wanted.
Maybe it never would have happened. Maybe we'd have gotten bored with each other, moved out, moved on. Maybe there was never a chance for me after all. I could have stayed like that forever, though. Days, weeks spent holed up there, just writing, both of us. He'd play me his songs, I'd read him my screenplays. He got a crazy idea once that he'd be great as an actor...filmed an audition and everything while I was in the shower one time. Fortunately, he got over that one quickly enough.
We were close. Really, really close. Closer than most men can be with each other. He's always craved touch, no matter how afraid he is to say that. It took me fifteen years to figure that one out. It shocked the hell out of me the first time he sat down next to me and pulled me close, nonverbally asking me to rest my head on his shoulder. He was tense, like if I said anything he'd laugh and turn it into a wrestling match and deny all claims of vulnerability. But of course, I didn't say anything, didn't push him away. I could never push him away. He loved sitting like that, enjoying human contact. It's why he fucked around so much. Not enough hugs when he was little, Benny used to tease him. Well, teased him once, before he got punched. Violent temper, my Roger has.
My Roger. Not really, he isn't. Used to be...before April. Those same words again. And that's how I mean them, their old meaning. Before she wandered into the Pyramid Club one night, looking so small in the middle of everyone. Roger was onstage, and I was by the bar. I was watching him, and all of a sudden, he just...smiled into the crowd. The kind where you knew he was looking at someone specific. Since I knew him better than anyone, it took me about five seconds to figure out who it was, pick out the cygnet from the chicks. At least that's how she looked that night.
He went home with her. I probably shouldn't have been surprised. Yeah, we were supposed to be going to a party at Collins' boyfriend's house, but he's never cared about a commitment when it's come to her. For a year, that's how it was. He and I'd make plans, she'd come over and wiggle her hips at him, and I wouldn't find out he wasn't coming until I waited for an hour or so. Not the most considerate of people, when it comes right down to it. Not when it came to me. They'd fuck in the next bed to me, if they thought I was asleep. Hell, if they thought I was drunk they'd fuck in my bed, next to me. They have once that I know of...the other times I was actually drunk, so I'm not sure.
She could get him to do anything. Angel marveled at Mimi's power over Roger? She should have seen him before. If Mimi said, "Let's go out tonight!" he'd bitch and moan, then take her out. If April said "Roger, go get me fingernail clippings of Janet Jackson," he'd say, "With nail polish, or without?" I'm not saying he was her bitch, it's just that they fed off each other. One would say a single silly word, and they'd both be in hysterics for hours. Alone, they were somewhat rational (or at least reasonable) people; when they were together, nothing was off-limits. Once they stowed away on some boat in the harbor for laughs, just to see where it would go. Of course, a few days later I got an utterly confused and slap-happy call from London, wondering how long it would take me to pick them up. He made her daring; she fueled his imagination.
That was before 'before April' meant something different. Before April took it into her head to purge herself of her tainted blood. Before she turned everything upside down with her fucking sense of the macabre. It wasn't enough to kill yourself, was it, April? Not enough to leave him a note? Not enough, was it? You had to spill your blood everywhere, had to create the perfect fucking image. Had to do it in our home, had to do it in his face. You couldn't even face him, fucking coward that you were. Couldn't even tell him how badly you two had fucked up. You took the easy way out, April, and you dragged us into the chaos you left behind.
Now no one remembers before April. Because we're not allowed. If someone says those two little words, the room falls silent, and every member of the company sees her ominous note on the walls. They hear an ellipses, the unfinished sentence of her life. April only exists in her tragedy to them. Some people remember that before she wiped out hope, before she wiped out his life with a flick of a blade, Roger and April were happy. They remember how full of life she was. No one ever remembers before April existed. No one's allowed to. That would mean it's possible to live without her, and Roger's never believed that. He'll never admit that I used to make him happy, that I was the one he went to, before she came along.
He hasn't let me touch him since, not the way I used to. It was so easy for us, a hug, even a kiss on the cheek. Maybe I wanted it to be more; maybe it could have been. But now he's cold, locked in his memories. Now he's trapped in April's tragedy. He knows her death lives in him, waiting to strike. Collins blames the HIV for his coldness, Maureen blames the drugs. But it isn't shock, it isn't withdrawal. It's loss, pure and simple. But instead of grieving like a normal human being, he has to do it her way, the hard way. He lets it eat him alive, never healing. It consumes him, because he's grieving for himself in advance. I keep dreading the day he'll paint the walls of another room, making one more place I can't enter without shuddering.
I wish he'd let me touch him again. I want a second chance, even though I never really had one to begin with. I wish he'd let me open him up, let me love him like I know only I can. Only I would. Because as much as everyone cares for him, everyone knows that no one can win against her memory. Hell, even if he and Mimi had gotten married and moved to Suburbia, his heart would still belong to that girl from the club.
So I watch him. I watch as he eats himself alive, mourning before he's even dead. It's my job, after all; to watch. It's what I do. I watch Collins collapsing, racing to join Angel. It's a different sort of deterioration; Angel didn't leave a hole, just an empty space. He made sure Collins stored up enough love until they could be together again. April...she took Roger's breath with her when she left. She crippled him.
I watch the rest of them, and everyone new who wanders into the loft. Musical roommates is hardly a new thing for us, after all. And I watch the room go silent as someone says, "Remember when we all went camping? You know..." they'll say softly, "before April..." Everyone'll shift, someone will clear their throat, and Maureen will jump in with a chipper comment to break the tension. She's avoiding it herself, I know. She grieves in the normal way of a friend who lost someone close, yes. But grief is grief, and it hasn't gone away quickly for any of us.
I don't want to live in her fucking shadow anymore. Not all of us were in love with April the WonderChick. They all think of before, and their before is when Roger and April were happy. My before is when Roger and Mark were happy. We were, once.
Before April.