-1Hey guys, sorry this has taken so long. It's been crazy here at school with the year winding down and shows opening and closing at the theatre and what-not. I feel very guilty for having neglected this story.
Did I mention that I had the opportunity to see the RENT tour here in Chicago twice while it was in town? AMAZING! Nothing will ever compare with the original cast, or the first time I saw it in NYC, but still… it's a show that no matter who's playing what part it'll touch the audience. It was wonderful.
Long story short, here's the next installment. I hope you like it!
My respects to Mr. Larson, who created this world and owns the people. Much thanks for letting me borrow them for a while to play in mine.
Ready For The Fight
(Mark's Perspective)
Well, Roger and I have hit an all-time low in our friendship. He hasn't spoken to me in almost a week and he only talks to Maureen to piss me off. I don't know what to do here. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know why I'm still trying.
The only normal- well, normal for Roger, that is- thing that he's doing is incessantly playing his guitar. It's like he's on a quest to write the perfect song. The perfect expression. The perfect… epitaph? I don't know. I don't know a lot of things.
I'm not sure what to think about the fact that he's actually writing and playing in front of us. In the past he was always so secretive- we wouldn't even hear a song until it was finished and ready to perform.
"Are you hungry?" I asked him, trying once again to get him to acknowledge me.
Roger ignored me and sang:
Frustrated and neglected
Tormented and abused
I sit here dying
Leftover and misused
I'm sobbing into pillows
I feel like only half a man
Hiding in the shadows
Trying to live the best I can
But I'm feeling so downhearted
I'm feeling so confused
That ever since we parted
It's like I'm a man consumed
With every little thing
All that I can remember
About your face, your laughter
About your grace, what happened after
I try to write it down, get it out,
And purge myself of you
But all that really happens
Is that I fall again too soon
And I'm sobbing into pillows
I feel like only half a man
Hiding in the shadows
Trying to live the best I can…
But I can't
I can't
Get over you
Get over you
Get over you
So I turn my pen to anger
I turn my pen to hate
Exploring all the other things
That made you not so great
Like addiction and pain
Like the way you hate the rain
How about your sadness, your rage
And all the wars you'd wage
I try to write down, get it out,
And purge myself of you
But all that really happens
Is that I fall again too soon
Too soon
Too soon
Too soon
And I'm sobbing into pillows
I feel like only half a man
Hiding in the shadows
Trying to live the best I can
But I can't
I can't
Get over you
Get over you
Get over you
Maybe I don't want to
(Get over you)
Maybe I just want you
(Get over you)
But I can't
Have
You
"Roger- that was amazing." I said. No response. I was about to explode on him and make him talk to me when he said quietly,
"That's pathetic. And a lie."
"What is?" I asked, treading the waters very, very carefully.
"I don't want her back. I don't think I ever really wanted her in the first place." Roger said, laying his guitar on the floor.
"You don't mean that."
"I mean exactly that." He returned, finally looking at me. "I just wanted someone. She was there. Yes, I loved her. I had to. We were the only things keeping each other from… well, you know." What the hell is he talking about? Wasn't I there for him? As if Roger read my thoughts, he added, "You couldn't stop it or help me because you weren't in it to begin with." He took a deep breath. "April and I found comfort in each other's dysfunction. It was like we took turns playing 'Who's Life Is Worse?'" Pause. "April was the ultimate champion." He ripped up the music in his hands and got up to throw it in the garbage. "That's why that song was bullshit."
(Roger's Perspective)
"Maureen! Will you please SHUT UP?" Mark groaned from his place on the couch. Mark had wandered from one room to the next trying to get away from her and rest. He's told her three times that he has a headache and doesn't feel well but she just keeps on after him, following him around to get him to listen to her latest protest- a commentary about Arbor Day that for some reason involves maracas and a cymbal.
"I need you to watch this, Mark!" Maureen whined.
"Maureen, I will listen to it. I will help you with it. I promise. But right now I do not feel well, so please just let me be!" And he walked into their room and slammed the door.
"What a jerk." Maureen hissed through clenched teeth. Typical. Insensitive.
"He doesn't feel good, Maureen. Have a little compassion for your boyfriend." I said, annoyed that she would dismiss him like that. He's not serving her purpose, so he's a jerk. She's a bitch.
"Whatever. I'm leaving." And she stormed into their room, said a few heated things to Mark, and stormed out of the loft.
"Hey." I said from the door to their room, which Maureen had left open.
"Hey." He said, his eyes closed and his jaw clenched.
"Do you need anything? Water or aspirin or-" I asked, making a sort of peace offering. He and I haven't been having the best week, friendship-wise.
"No. I'm just gonna try and get some sleep." He said quietly.
"Ok. Well, if you need anything…" I trailed off and he nodded.
------------------------
That bastard. That fucking jerk! I was so angry I almost took the door off its hinges. He pretended to be sick and have a fight with Maureen just so I'd feel bad and take him to the clinic. He tricked me into going there so that he could have the doctors check me out.
"Don't talk to me." I snapped to him when I got back to the waiting room. "Don't you dare even look at me." I threw the door open and stalked out, Mark on my heels. "How the fuck do you expect us to be able to pay for this-" I looked at the prescription in my hand "-AZT? Did you think about that when you lied to me?" He raced along after me, saying,
"We can pay for it. It's fine. Here, give it to me and I'll go fill it-" But before he could get his hands on it I shoved it deep into my pocket. "Roger, come on."
"No. Fuck you, Mark." And I didn't speak to him the rest of the way back to the loft. Once inside, Mark said,
"Be mad at me all you want, Roger. I don't care. You needed to go." I slammed the door in response.
The next morning a bottle of AZT with my name on it was sitting on the kitchen counter. I had calmed down enough to realize he was right, so I took my first dose. He didn't say where he got the money and I didn't ask him how he'd gotten the prescription out of my room. We left it at that and got back to normal.
As normal as it could be. It turned out that he really hadn't been feeling well. It turned out the fight between him and Maureen had not been made up. It turned out that he'd seen a doctor himself when I'd been in seeing mine. It turned out that Maureen didn't come back for four days.
(Mark's Perspective)
I tried to pretend that I wasn't waiting around for Maureen to reappear. That the fact that she's been gone this long isn't out of the ordinary. That I haven't called the numbers of every person she might be with. To my knowledge. Every person, to my knowledge, that she might be with.
I tried to focus on other things. Roger, for example. He and I have come to an understanding of sorts. He's talking to me again. He's taking his AZT. We're ok. We played chess yesterday. We haven't played chess together in over a year. So, that's something.
I tried to pretend that he wasn't feeling sorry for me.
(Roger's Perspective)
"Get that out of my face, Mark." I sighed, frustrated.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." He replied with a grin. I closed my eyes briefly, praying I wouldn't snap at him, and gently pushed his camera away.
For the past week it seems like every time I look up that lens is focused on me. I have tried to be patient and I have tried to stay calm. He's freaking out about Maureen. He needs something to do. I get that. I know how it goes. But enough is enough.
"Stop trying to document every move I make, Mark. It makes me feel like each time I do something it's the last time." I told him.
"That's not what I'm trying-" Mark began, but I spoke over him,
"But that's what it feels like."
"Oh." Pause and he stopped filming, setting the camera gently down on the table. "Sorry."
"It's ok." I turned away from him and picked up my guitar, heading over to the window to watch all of the life rushing by on the street below. Sunset was flooding the view as I clumsily picked out an old song on my guitar, and I sensed Mark reach for his camera once again, then hesitate and draw back his hand. Good.
I played a soft, imperfect melody in our otherwise silent loft for a few minutes, the notes that would have made the song beautiful escaping me before every measure.
All that was left of the song was an ugly harshness, an honesty, but even that wasn't what I was searching for. My fingers struggled in vain to find the right song.
"I'm gonna go film a little. Want to come?" Mark asked a little while later, after my tune had once again died out.
"No."
"Ok." He didn't push the issue. By now he knows not to. I haven't left the apartment since we went to the clinic a week ago. Tests and tests and tests and that drug called AZT. Experimental. Not proven. No cure.
Mark left the loft and we both pretended he wasn't going out in search of Maureen.