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Whizzer reaches out- his hand clammy and his body failing him. He grabs Jason- beautiful, small, young, snarky, shitty Jason who resembles Marvin in so many tragic and terrible and wonderful ways - he grabs Jason and whispers thank you . He has not the strength to say all the things he wants to- thank him for inviting him into his terrible tight knit family and not hating him for ripping it apart, wants to thank him for taking pity on him as he died and letting him win stupid games of chess, wants to thank him for reuniting Marvin and him because Jason was clever and Whizzer was not but he still knew that Jason invited him to that damn baseball game because they were both spiraling and misery needs company and somehow they managed to lift each other out of their self-dug graves-
but Whizzer says none of those things. He says thank you and then shuts his mouth because Jason doesn’t need to see him nail himself to a cross like a martyr in the image of a man none of them believe. Jason merely needs to live and smile and Whizzer wonders if Jason’s death will somehow be intertwined with his own because once youth is dead, whatever remains in a husk in some respect. Maybe he’s giving himself too much credit- Marvin and Trina were never spectacular parents. Maybe their whole fucked up little family unit destroyed it’s youngest together already. Whizzer supposes he’ll never know- he’s dying, after all. He won’t be around to see whatever happens next.
Jason- beautiful, sweet, fantastic Jason - grabs Whizzer’s forearm in his terrible, swift, Marvin-like hand and grips it like a lifeline and Whizzer knows it will bruise- attribute to both his current fragility and Jason’s harshness. Jason squeezes his arm and says no.
“No. You aren’t allowed to die at my Bar Mitzvah.”
Jason spits the words like they’re poison in his mouth- like if they stay in he’s the one who dies tonight.
“You can’t. It’s- it’s a breach of the social contract- it’s poor etiquette. You aren’t allowed to.”
Whizzer laughs- is consumed in a terrible laughing fit- a giddy seizure the likes of which have never been seen before, bigger and worse than any Marvin ever threw. Whizzer laughs so hard that he thinks he might die-
but he doesn’t.
Instead, Marvin and Charlotte help him to his bed as he shakes with bursts of laughter. His eyes catch on Mendel and Trina- hands latched together desperately and fearful. He wants to apologize- makes a good attempt to but the apologies are broken apart by bursts of giggles. Jason starts laughing too- though everyone can tell by the sound that he can’t tell what was so funny. Cordelia has a hand over her mouth, making gentle huffs of laughers and there are tears in her eyes but Whizzer knows that she isn’t crying over Jason or anything happy- she’s crying over the fact that Whizzer is tap dancing the line between life and death and there isn’t anything anyone, not even her doctor, can do to save him.
Whizzer is at peace with it, he thinks, as the laughter subsides and Marvin pulls the covers back over his skinny form. He is okay with dying- what he is not okay with is destroying this stupid little family more than he already has. Whizzer is like an atomic bomb- he flew in uninvited and unwelcome, but there nonetheless. He blew up- desecrating Trina and Marvin’s marriage and the stability of Jason's life simultaneously, Mendel flying in like foreign aid that’s too late to prevent the harm already done. And now Whizzer is residual radiation, an unseen but somehow expected result. He is seeping into their bones and changing them- ruining their hope and dreams. He is their downfall. And now he is dying, ripping away what they are used to- the unfortunate circumstance that has become a part of their lives.
Maybe he is giving himself too much credit. Anyone could have been Whizzer Brown- could’ve been Marvin’s lover- could’ve gotten caught sitting on Marvin’s lap, mouths colliding with passion in the wrong location, caught ass-handed, per say. That could’ve been anyone- any gay man in this godforsaken world could’ve ripped apart Marvin’s family. Any man could be here, in this hospital, dying, life slipping from his fingers.
But it was Whizzer.
What the hell any of it means, Whizzer hasn’t a clue. He settles into the bed, exhausted, his stomach aching from his fit. His skin is sweaty- Marvin’s hand is entrapping one of his tightly and he doesn’t have the energy to squeeze his hand back but it’s the thought that counts and he hopes Marvin knows that, had he the strength, Whizzer would do anything for him. Now, he curls into his blankets while watching Jason finish reciting his Torah. He finishes and Whizzer can feel himself drifting. Jason walks over and takes Whizzer’s free hand, smiling softly and ingeniously in a way so unlike Jason. Whizzer smiles back- genuinely- and that seems to take the last of his energy. He closes his eyes and enters the blackness of a dreamless sleep.
///
“Is he..?”
The room is silent as Marvin asks- silent as Charlotte delicately presses her fingers to Whizzer’s throat and swallows thickly.
“No, no he’s just. He’s just sleeping,” She promises, and they know it’s true because while Charlotte is their friend she is also a professional and knows that false promises do nothing good. With that in mind, Mendel walks over, dropping Trina’s hand.
“How much longer do you think he has?”
He hears Trina stifle a sob- he looks back at her sadly. He mouths ‘I’m sorry’ though he knows he’s done nothing wrong.
“I don’t know, we don’t know enough about… whatever the hell this is to guess.” Charlotte has tears in her eyes, her hands on her hips. Cordelia walks over, wrapping her arms through the gaps and pulling her lover close.
“I.. I wouldn’t,” Charlotte’s voice breaks. She stops and regains her composure, then looks to Marvin. “I don’t that he has long.”
Marvin nods solemnly- the unspoken words ringing in his head loudly. Marvin knows now- really, he should’ve always known- that Whizzer will be the death of him. He knows that, deep down, whatever the hell Whizzer has he probably has too. So either the sickness gets him or the grieving gets him. It doesn’t matter which does it- but he knows- really, they all know- that when Whizzer dies time won’t bother to carry sad little Marvin with it.
Jason drops Whizzer’s hand and then curls his own into a fist. He punches the hospital bed, clenches his teeth, begins to walk to the door and kicks the frame on his way out. He lets the door slam behind him.
Trina calls after him, looks desperately to Marvin and then Mendel and then Whizzer- seems to notice her mistake- then back to Mendel. Mendel and Trina move out quickly, out the door and into the hallway, trying to track Jason’s trail of destruction.
In the room, Marvin climbs onto the bed next to Whizzer, tears bursting from his eyes no matter how much he wants to stop them because Jason is gone and if he is not being strong for Whizzer’s sake or for Jason’s sake, he is not being strong at all. Cordelia sits next to him, rubs sad circles into his spine and promises that they can get through this together and Marvin bites back the urge to tell her to shut her damn mouth because there is no way in hell Whizzer doesn’t die and if Whizzer is gone then they didn’t make it at all. He doesn’t say that- instead, he lets a cry loose- raw and guttural. Cordelia and Charlotte embrace- tears running down the formers face and the second only an inch from being in a similar state. Life stops in the room- nothing exists except tears and soft breathing and sobs. Whizzer Brown is alive, but what is life, anyway?
///
Mendel leads, Trina only a step behind him. They’re close enough to hear Jason yelling now- nothing coherent, just noise and anger. They see him now, sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees, his head resting on his arms. His body is quaking. The hall is mostly empty- probably why he chose it, Trina thinks- and it’s painted the same blinding, stale white that the rest of the walls here are. He seems to sense them and fall silent.
Trina and Mendel both drop to their knees in front of Jason who does not acknowledge them.
“Jason,” Mendel starts softly. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”
Jason glares at Mendel over his knees, shooting daggers and not saying a word.
“Okay, stupid question. You’re not. Can we talk about it?” Mendel moves his body, shifting from his knees to crossing his legs. They’re blocking half of the hallway but no one cares.
Jason is silent for a moment, ducking his head back into his arms, hiding his eyes.
“Is this therapy?” His voice is quiet and shaky- somewhat horse.
“Do you want it to be therapy? I can be Dr. Mendel if you want. If not, I can be Mendel. Or I can be dad.”
Jason pauses, considers this in silence.
“I want Mendel and Mom.”
Trina lets out a shaky breath as Mendel nods, then he asks; “Do you want to be here?”
Jason doesn’t answer. Trina knows this to mean a bitter, harsh, this is fine . She reaches out, slowly, allowing Jason to tell her to stop if he wants to because sometimes Jason doesn’t like to be touched and sometimes he loves it but usually, usually, he hates it. He stays still- not moving at all either away or towards her. So Trina, who is brilliant and also awful, drops her hand to the floor. It lands with a soft sound that seems to resonate loudly throughout the silent hall.
Trina and Mendel wait, trying not to stare at him because Jason hates it when they stare. Jason peeks his head out from his arms. Trina can see his eyes now- just his eyes and their accompanying brows and he looks awful. His eyes are red and his cheeks are red and his brows are scrunched up, pulling worry lines out of his forehead that Trina fears he will have etched into his skin forever. Jason, her sweet, stupid, genius, Marin-like son who she wishes she could’ve given the world but she knows that she and Marvin and Whizzer- her brain screams at her. She knows that she and Marvin ruined Jason life. She is not here to forsaken a dying man.
“Whizzer is dying,” Jason says and Trina is annoyed because she fucking knows that.
“Whizzer is dying,” He says again. “That’s what Charlotte told me. The rest of you won’t say it. But he is. He’s dying.”
Trina bites her tongue. Mendel looks sad, but Mendel is smart, Mendel knows how to deal with Jason even though Trina has known him longer. Trina was never good at this- her own emotions take the wheel. Mendel and Jason both see the world in this little way that she doesn’t understand.
“Whizzer is dying,” Mendel says.
“Whizzer is dying,” Jason says back.
Trina doesn’t know if she’s supposed to say it. She freezes up, they’re both looking at her. Mendel shakes his head and Jason frowns but he seems to understand.
“It’s not fair,” Jason says. “All the other Jewish kids get to have Bar Mitzvahs where everyone is happy and laughing and strong enough to lift a chair. If Whizzer tried to lift up a chair he’d probably pass out. Or keel over dead.”
“It is unfair,” Mendel agrees. Trina wants to say she tried her best but Jason already knows that.
“I want them all to have bad Bar Mitzvahs. I want them to watch their dad’s friend die.”
“Jason that’s-”
“I know,” Jason interrupts Trina. “It’s wrong. I don’t care. I want them to have to suffer. It’s not fair that I have to and they don’t.”
Trina wants to cry but she stops herself for Jason’s sake. Mendel juts his hand out, holding it near Jason. His hand creeps out from under his chin and he holds two of Mendel’s thick fingers.
“Unfortunately, a lot of life isn’t fair. A lot of growing up is realizing that. That’s what a Bar Mitzvah is all about, right? Growing up?”
Mendel looks too Trina as he speaks and she nods hesitantly, unsure of this being the right thing to say.
“I didn’t want a Bar Mitzvah. Trina and Marvin wanted me to have a Bar Mitzvah. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to grow up.”
Trina unintentionally grimaces when he says her name.
“Mom and Dad wanted you to have a Bar Mitzvah because they thought it might make a good distraction for you. And them.”
“They’re selfish.”
“So am I. So are you,” Mendel says this matter-of-factly and it seems to throw Jason off. He considers this as Mendel adds, “We wanted your Bar Mitzvah to be nice for us, not just you. You wanted Whizzer to stop dying so your Bar Mitzvah could be okay-”
“I care about Whizzer!”
Jason looks mad, his fingers tightening around Mendel’s so that his fingertips start to purple. He seems unbothered.
“You do. I do too, but we’re all a little selfish. Mom and Dad wanted your Bar Mitzvah to be nice for you, not just them. They care about you.”
Jason eyes Trina then seems to regret it. Fresh tears spring to his eyes and he nods.
“They care about me. So do you. They care about me and I care about them. And you.”
Mendel smiles, Jason’s grip tightens again and then goes slack.
“Whizzer is dying,” Jason reminds Mendel.
“Whizzer is in the process of dying. But he is living.”
Jason looks shocked, then he nods a little too quickly. Trina has very little clue what the difference is, but it makes Jason- and, by extension, Mendel happy and so she plays along and smiles with them.
“Whizzer is Schrödinger's cat,” Jason says. Trina doesn’t know what that means. Mendel nods gently. “He’s dead and alive at the same time.”
“Yeah, he is.”
Trina wants to say something so she does.
“It’s awful that this is the way things have to go. I’m sorry, Jason.”
He nods, seems to appreciate the gesture even though she is saying things he already knows. They are silent for a long moment. It is comfortable. Jason starts to unfurl his limbs from their hiding spaces. He moves to stand, Mendel and Trina joining him a second later. He doesn’t start to walk.
“Will Dad be okay?”
There’s a long moment where Trina debates saying yes but Jason is too smart. Mendel picks up the slack.
“We don’t know, it’s up to him.”
Jason nods, frowning.
“I spent too much time hating Marvin. Hating dad.”
Mendel smiles, knowingly.
“Everyone hates their parents, it’s okay.”
Jason smiles back, sniffles, and takes Trina’s hand without thinking about it. Trina smiles and takes the gesture to be a pleasant, “Sorry I hated you, too.”
Together, they slowly make their way back to Whizzer’s room. The stark white of the walls seems to dull and become less abrasive as they go.
///
Trina takes in the pathetic picture she sees as they re-enter the hospital room; the holding place of Jason’s Bar Mitzvah. The picture is this;
Marvin and Whizzer in the bed, both with shut eyes, their breathing synced and pained. Charlotte is there, scanning over papers in a clipboard that she has likely read a thousand times- concreted to memory as they are unchanging but she still looks for a different prognosis, foolishly, because it’s Whizzer but she knows more than any of them what happens next. Cordelia is gone, but her piles of Tupperware remain like a ghost of her.
The decoration, flowers, candles, and curtains; this is supposed to be a picture she finds beautiful. She should think it is lovely, and she does, in some superficial sense. But, how can anything be lovely when a man is dying? The flowers make up for the lack of color in Whizzer’s face, in the walls and the sheets. The candles mask the scent of cleaner and death and bleach. She likes to think it doesn’t bother her but the undercurrent of these unfortunates always ghosts the back of her mind, laying in wait for a moment her guard slips.
Mendel steps into the room past her. Jason seems to want to follow- pulls her by her hand but she daren't move. She is trapped in the doorframe, wanting to run. Trina was strong but never this strong. She is trying, but she is breaking and she has no right to. That’s not her lover- hardly even her friend. No; to Trina Whizzer was nothing but a nuisance. She could have written a sonnet about how much she hated him- how much she wanted to hate him- if she were good with words. Trina is, instead, good at crying and good at cooking and good at feeling, but she is not good at words or coping or hating.
Cordelia appears behind her and then beside her, also trapped in the doorway. She looks green- sickly, and she shouldn’t dare to because Whizzer is the one dying and who are they to intrude on that? Trina catches her eye. Cordelia smiles- half-heartedly. So they step past the doorway together.
“This is a family,” Cordelia notes softly- looks shocked when Trina glances at her as if she had thought it and not said it.
“It is,” Trina says, then starts to pack up the decorations because it’s getting late and she loves Whizzer but he should rest and she also is tired, she doesn’t want to be here anymore.
Mendel helps her. Jason does not. Cordelia starts to pack up her Tupperware. Charlotte comes over and snatches a container from her hands, picks up an hors-d'oeuvre and pops it in her mouth with a smile and Cordelia’s face lights up and it is so bright that Trina thinks it alone should revive Whizzer.
Whizzer, who is not yet dead.
Jason lingers by the bed, his eyes focused intrinsically on his father and his father’s lover, both of whom he adores unreasonably. Trina tries not to think about it as Mendel helps her disassemble Jason’s Bar Mitzvah.
When they leave, Jason comes with them. Trina can tell he doesn’t want to but the party is over and she doesn’t want to stay- doesn’t want Jason to stay, by extension- mourning a living man. Where Trina goes Mendel usually follows, but she can tell right now he is following Jason more than he is following her but he is following nonetheless and that’s what matters.
So they leave, waving goodbye to Charlotte and Cordelia on the way out. Against her better judgment- perhaps just out of instinct, motherly or otherwise- Trina leans down and plants a delicate kiss on Whizzer’s forehead, and then Marvin’s. Their lips quirk into smiles, so Trina smiles back, even though neither are awake to see. Mendel waves at their sleeping forms without thought.
And that’s goodbye.
Jason doesn’t say goodbye. They leave.
Charlotte, after looking over Whizzer’s blood work for the hundredth time that night and still coming up with nothing, sets down the clipboard and helps Cordelia finish cleaning the food.
The room is back to basic; white walls and white sheets and closed blinds and two lifeless bodies in bed and nothing worth a wit. Charlotte thinks, silently, that they should be thankful; so many people have lasted far shorter times than Whizzer has, and they died alone. At least they have this; a little family, broken and small and tightly knit, no thanks to Marvin. At least they are spending the time together.
Cordelia and Charlotte approach the bed, quiet.
They say goodbye to bodies that don’t hear them.
And they leave, head home to a house that no one at the hospital knows they own together.
///
Marvin wakes up to Whizzer hitting him at five am. He groans out of instinct, tries to roll away but doesn’t have that kind of space. He realizes Whizzer is wheezing- he hears the heart monitor beep sparsely, too quickly and too slowly and too inconsistently. Marvin pushes himself from the bed, opening the door and screaming for a nurse, then rushes back to the bed, dropping to his knees. Whizzer’s palm- far too cold and ever so clammy- grabs at his face. Marvin has tears in his eyes- Whizzer has tears pouring down his face, snot dripping from his nose.
“Please, please hold on, just a minute,” Marvin begs. Whizzer isn’t listening- doesn’t look lucid enough to hear Marvin.
“I’m dying, Marv,” He says like Marvin doesn’t know. “I..” Whizzer wheezes- chokes and then gathers himself. Marvin panics- where is the nurse, where is the nurse, and his palms a sweating.
“I’m sorry, Marvin,” He whispers. “I.. I love you. You know that?”
Marvin nods like a madman, the tears in his eyes pooling over and cascading downwards.
“I love you too,” He promises- repeats like in a mantra. “I love you, I love you. I love you.”
Whizzer sobs, suffocates, closes his eyes and Marvin lets out a cry that rips his vocal cords to shreds as Whizzer’s hand starts to fall from his face. He grabs it, holds it there. He feels Whizzer’s fingers tremble- grip his cheek again softly.
“You can’t die on me,” Marvin pleads as if Death gives a damn.
“I’m sorry,” Whizzer gasps. “Tell everyone I’m sorry..”
Whizzer stops, face balled up for a moment.
“And that I love them,” He adds, as an afterthought.
It’s too late when a nurse opens the door. Whizzer and Marvin have already made their goodbyes.
///
Charlotte invites Trina over at six am, tells her to bring Mendel and Jason and Trina feels nausea sweep over her. But she turns off her brain and makes Mendel get up, doesn’t tell them where they are going but he follows, still in pajamas, carrying a sleeping Jason in his arms.
Cordelia opens the door, still in sweats and a white tank top, looking as confused as Trina feels. They enter, settle in on the couch.
“What’s going on?” Mendel asks but he seems to know suddenly. Charlotte doesn’t say anything, just shrugs. Cordelia answers for her.
“Marvin told us to all be together.”
Trina feels herself gag. Jason is still asleep somehow.
There’s a knock at the door, and she knows. Cordelia answers it. Marvin stumbles in, looking like a specter- his skin pale everywhere except his cheeks and eyes, both of which are bright, bright red.
“It’s over,” he mumbles as he enters, lifeless. “He’s gone. It’s over.”
Marvin walks, falls on the sofa next to his son.
That’s all. That’s goodbye.
Whizzer dies early in the morning the day after Jason’s Bar Mitzvah and his family cries.
Jason wakes up at some point, glances around, and doesn’t ask why they are crying, just joins in. He knows without them spelling it out to him.
He becomes a man then.
He wonders distantly if he is alive. His mind is empty. He is Schrödinger's new cat- trapped in a box of grief that Whizzer built for him unwillingly.
He puts a chess piece on Whizzer’s grave.
That’s goodbye.