Microsoft Word - Talkers_Redemption_Lane.docx

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    hospitals?”
    “You don’t like getting to the point?”
    “Jesus! I was just trying to make conversation. I was waiting for
    Henries, if you want to know. He was trying to get the puke out of
    his shoes.” There was a wry twist to Detective Melville’s mouth, and
    Tate got the feeling that if he could have, Melville would have told
    him “Nice shot!”
    Talker sighed and decided to take a risk. “Is there any way I
    could talk to just you?” he asked after a moment. He felt foolish and
    weak, but Melville seemed relieved.
    “That would be fine,” he said. “Do I have your permission to
    record this?”
    Tate looked at Doc Sutherland, who looked uneasy. “He hasn’t
    done anything,” the doc said. “Tate’s a victim. Brian is a victim. I hate
    the way this feels.”
    Oh, God bless the man. Tate nodded. “Look, how’s this: I tell
    you what happened, you decide what we need to do. Because the
    only thing you and puke-shoes got right is that Trev’s not the
    stopping kind, right?”
    Melville put the tape recorder back in his pocket. “I hear you,”
    he said. “Okay, just talk to me. They call you Talker, let’s hear what
    you’ve got to say.”
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    Tate sighed and looked away. In the distance he could hear
    music, and for a moment, he let the taupeness of the sterile
    conference room wash over him, and he hummed a few bars of
    Aunt Lyndie’s hymn, because it didn’t shred his throat the way
    “Jeremy” did. When he spoke, he spoke into a thoughtful silence,
    and he had to jerk his body back in real time.
    He didn’t even notice that he made the other two people in the
    room jump.
    “I was raped,” he murmured, as though he’d always been able
    to say it. “About eight months ago, I went on a date with Trevor
    Gaines, and he thought we were going to do it, and I chickened out,
    and he raped me.” He swallowed hard, because this next thing was
    something Brian knew without words and Doc Sutherland had been
    trying to tell him. “It almost killed me. Not the thing, but….” He
    shuddered, still lost in the taupe of the wall across from him. “The
    fear, the loneliness—all of it. I….” I danced in the morning when the
    world had begun….
    “Tate,” Doc Sutherland said gently. Tate jerked, but the doc
    didn’t look surprised. “Buddy, we need you to focus.”
    “Is he okay?”
    Tate wasn’t sure what he’d been doing when his head had
    filled with Lyndie’s little hymn, but it seemed to have freaked the
    nice detective out.
    “Is Brian here?” Tate asked back, only partially rhetorical. “Is
    Brian here? Is he holding my hand? Is he telling me it’s all good?
    Because if that’s not happening, then buddy, I’m not all right.
    See,”—and suddenly he felt totally and completely focused—“that’s
    what I’ve been trying to tell you. I was not all right when Trev was
    done with me. I was…”—suicidal—“just so fucking lost. And every
    night, I’d come home, and I’d think… I’d think, ‘You know? I’ve got a
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    70

    razor in my drawer. It wouldn’t take very much, and then… then I’d
    just be cold for a while, and it would all be okay.’”
    Doc Sutherland’s hand started rubbing warm, soothing circles
    on his back, and Tate let him. He couldn’t look at Melville—just
    couldn’t.
    “And the only thing that kept me from doing it, from getting up
    and finding the razor, was that I knew Brian would be checking on
    me. He’d check on me every night, you know, because we were
    roommates and he was my friend, and I had no idea he’d been
    breaking his heart over me for months before I just kited off with
    fuck-face-douche-nozzle Trevor Gaines. And even that didn’t matter,
    because he still… just needed to see that I was okay. And because
    he’s the one who would have to live with it if I wasn’t, I just kept
    being okay.”
    Melville made a throat-clearing sound, and Tate turned to him,
    begging him inside to just please, just listen, just… just shut up so
    he could get this out. Doc Sutherland saved him. Oh God, maybe
    no one was around that night with Trevor, but Talker was starting to
    understand that maybe that night had been a fluke. Maybe he had
    people who would have been around if they could have, because
    right now, Doc certainly did ride to the rescue.
    “Be patient, Detective,” Doc said quietly. “He’s getting to it.”
    Maybe Melville was a