It's raining. Big soft drops falling into the street below, splashing in the puddles. The streetlights look eerie surrounded by the half-fog that drifts in off the water and the headlights from the passing cars seem to waver as they go by. The clouds are thick in some spots but out over the ocean you can see the quarter moon as the mist drifts across.
Nights like this I sit by the window with the lights off. Trying not to think, not feel. Just be. But tonight I can't help think that I'm lonely here without you. I know all I'd have to do is pick up the phone and you'd be here as fast as your car could get you across town. Splashing through those puddles with the headlights wavering in the mist. A rather romantic vision.
I don't know what keeps me from calling you. I know you'd come. Maybe that's it. Our friendship is so precious that I hate to waste it on a simple bout of melancholy. Not when we need it for the big things like gunfights and lost innocence. Life and death. Small things like feeling lonely for your laugh seem rather insignificant when you pit them against protecting each other from the rest of the world.
There's lightning out there on the western horizon. Far away. So far that the thunder is simply a gentle rumbling when it finally arrives. The lightning's rather pretty at this distance. I'm glad it's there and not here. I don't like thunderstorms. I know you'd laugh at me if you knew that. You who's not afraid of thunder. Not something as big and powerful as Mother Nature or Thor or whoever it is throwing thunderbolts around. Not you. My partner.
My hold on sanity.
You who are only afraid of things you can't understand. Like how
people can be so cruel to on another. You who want to change everything
and make everyone happy. But mostly me. How can one person
want to make another person so happy so badly? Make it their life's
work? Maybe that's another reason I don't call you tonight.
You'd try and cheer me up and I just
don't feel like being happy tonight.
Sometimes I sit and watch you when you're not aware of it. Watch
how your eyes squint when you're reading a report. How that bottom
lip pouts out just a little when you're upset about something you've read
in one of those reports. Your face is so expressive. Every
thing you think or feel is reflected in your dark eyes and in your smile.
Or your frown. How I hate
those frowns, even when I'm not the cause of them. I'd do anything
in the world to make it so that nothing ever caused you to frown.
Even keep myself from calling you to come and try to cheer me up.
It's raining a little harder now. It's pelting against the window hard enough to make a sound like tapping of fingers on a table. Like that way you do when you're anxious or trying to work out something. Like the way you were this afternoon back at the station. You just couldn't let go of that case, could you? That kid, the addict that we found dead in the alley. You hate puzzles. Why was he there? What killed him? And what led a good kid from a good home to a life, and a death, on the streets? And why couldn't you have arrived just a little earlier to save him like you saved another addict in a dirty alley once upon a time?
You laugh at me and call me a "White Knight." Saying that I'm always trying to slay the dragons in the world. Well, maybe so, but you're more like Don Quixote tilting at windmills and wondering what you're doing sitting flat on your butt when you've been knocked off your steed. At least I pick my fights knowing that I have a half-assed chance of winning. You don't care if you win or not. It's the trying that counts.
I wish I could be that brave.
The lightning's a little closer now, the thunder a little louder. God, I hate thunderstorms. Reminds me of when I was a kid and we'd have to keep an eye open for bad weather. At least out here there's only earthquakes and the Santa Annas to worry about. And keeping you alive. Something that feels like a full time occupation. A futile one. Another reason I don't call you. I have to learn how to be by myself.
In case.
I don't want to think about that. Not that possibility.
Although I know that one day, it might just happen to one of us.
In a lot of ways, I hope it's me that's left behind. I tried to make
a joke out of it all those years ago. Saying that it's hardest on
the ones left behind. But it is. Whenever I think about what could
have happened - when my nightmares re-run that whole thing over again but
with a different ending - this deep yawning canyon seems to open at my
feet. I wake up shaking and trying not to
scream. Scream your name.
Even to think of you being left alone is frightening to me. I could bear me dying, I think, if it didn't mean that you'd be here without me to watch out for you. No, not watch out for you. You don't need me for that. Not really. It's me who needs watching out for. No, I wouldn't want you here by yourself without me to love you.
Selfish, I guess. Thinking that you need me to love you. You who is so damn lovable. But we've become so close over all these years of our friendship that it's hard for me to think of us as separate beings. I know others often get us confused and secretly I love that. It just proves to me that we're something more than two people going through life the best we can. No, we're beyond that. You and me. Us. Me and Thee.
Yeah, they're only words. Words that can't begin to describe us.
I don't know why I try. I should just be satisfied to say "partner"
and be done with it. That word describes so much about us.
About me. I hear myself using it as a possessive thing - "My Partner"
- like you belong to me. The same way I used to say - "My Wife" -
about Van. God she hated that. But I
guess that's kind of how I think of you. That you belong to me
and me alone. You can't be anyone else's partner because you're mine.
There I go being selfish again.
The rain's letting up again. The thunderclouds have moved back off to the ocean. It must be getting late. The beer can I've been holding in my hand has gotten warm and there're fewer cars on the street. I know the restaurant closed a while ago, but this is one of their slow nights so they often close early. I should have asked you to come over and have dinner with me tonight. I knew you didn't have any plans. Neither did I. But I didn't want to inflict my mood on you. Not tonight.
I wish I knew what makes me feel this way. I've nothing to feel sad about. Not really. I do like my job, even on days like this one when I wonder why I keep banging my head against the wall. I have a nice place to live in. Granted, it's not the best neighborhood but it suits me. And I have you.
I have you.
God, is that it?
That quarter-moon looks lost up there amongst the dark clouds. Sort of sad and lonely. It's too cloudy to see the stars and the moon looks as if it's trying to light the night sky and failing. I don't like the nights when there're no stars in the sky. Oh, Lord.
Is that it? No. I won't even entertain that thought. It's ludicrous. You're my friend, my partner. The person who watches my back on the streets and who I have an obligation to take care of. Nothing more than that.
Really?
Would it be so bad? No. No.
There's a car slowing done on the street below. Oh, God. What the hell are you doing here? Go away.
The lights are out. Maybe you'll think I'm asleep and you won't come up. Damn, you're getting out of the car. Should have known better.
I hear your tread on the stairs as you run up them. Taking them two at a time. Like always. Then, I hear you reach for the key above the door. When am I ever going to learn to move that damn thing?
And suddenly, there you are. The light from the single bulb in the stairwell shining faintly on your rain dampened hair. Raindrops shining like those absent stars amongst the cloud dark curls. Your smile like that moon valiantly trying to light up my night.
I don't know why you're here, but, Lord, I'm happy that you are. And maybe, just maybe, it isn't nearly as bad as I think.
Really.