THE SETUP
Cian has come to his older brother Vincent for advice about Cian’s new relationship with Andrew.
Vincent is less than thrilled about Andrew’s former line of work, as a prostitute.
Vincent is also less than thrilled that everyone spends so much time worrying about his younger brother Cian, but no one seems to be concerned how Vincent is doing.
Both brothers are still reeling from the untimely death of their friend Byron – Vincent’s best friend since childhood, and Cian’s unrequited love.
Though Andrew cleaned up his act in response to an act of kindness Cian once did him, Andrew is finding his attempts to court Cian frustrated by Cian’s ongoing devotion to Byron, and his spirit, still very much present.
Byron’s ghost visits Cian, while Vincent is left to struggle with just fading memories of his best friend.
(Three monologue posts are pulled out of this larger scene, two for Vincent – “It’s a Sick Joke. God is Sick” and “Just the Way I’m Wired” – and one for Byron: “My Whole Body Knows when Vince is in a Room”)
“I want a part of my life that you can’t get at. You’re like a cancer.”
CIAN
Vince. I need to talk about Andrew.
VINCENT
Why don’t you ask your pal Caspar, the friendly ghost?
CIAN
I want your opinion.
VINCENT
My opinion? Run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Unless you want to join Byron.
CIAN
But he’s —
VINCENT
I’m not doing this. I am not getting sucked into this.
CIAN
Sucked into what?
VINCENT
It never changes. Everyone always worries about you.
When you came out, it was like for Byron I suddenly didn’t exist. He worried about you, too. Wanted to protect you, spare you the really nasty stuff. Whenever we got together, you always came up, even if he’d just seen you. “How do you think he’s doing?” My girlfriend worries about you. Hell, even Byron’s ghost worries about you. Still.
I want a part of my life that you can’t get at. You’re like a cancer.
CIAN
So, OK, think of Andrew as the solution to your problem. Help me out, one last time. Help me work this out and I’ll go off with him and stop obsessing about Byron and doing movies with Gabby and I’ll leave you alone. I just need to talk. I just need to hear that I’m doing the right thing, I guess.
VINCENT completes the journey to CIAN’s stoop during the following —
VINCENT
Do you have a death wish? Are you so possessed by Byron you want to join him?
The guy was a prostitute. What if you get infected?
I didn’t sign on for this. Nobody warned me.
I wouldn’t have bothered.
I didn’t sign on for Byron dying at 32.
His mother and my mother happen to be neighbors whose husbands happen to impregnate them at the same time. They’re pregnant together, they raise us together. We go to the same school, the same bus, the same teachers, the same lunch period. Of course we’re going to be friends.
But it’s a set up. God’s up there pulling the strings and saying, “Oops, did I forget to mention, he comes with a limited warranty? You can’t keep him. Hope you didn’t get too attached.”
It’s a sick joke. God is sick. I’m the butt of his joke and Byron’s the punch line. That’s it. I quit. I refuse to believe in that.
And you. My little brother. He’s setting it up all over again, but I’m not falling for it. Go ahead, be gay. Date a prostitute for all I care. Just don’t expect me to stick around for the final chapter. I can’t do it. I’m not built for it.
CIAN
So you don’t blame me. For not being able to show up at the hospital.
VINCENT
Of course I blame you. How many Byron’s do you get in one lifetime? The fact that you weren’t there is unforgivable.
But no one should have to go through that more than once. You’ve been given ample warning, you know what he is. If you decide to go ahead anyway, that’s your business.
CIAN
Oh, so I’m asking for it, but Byron didn’t?
VINCENT
He was my friend first. Then the two of you come out of the closet and suddenly I’m not part of his inner circle anymore. Like he was your friend, not mine.
Only when you couldn’t hack it, could I even stand a chance at getting close to him again. It’s like I lost him twice — first to you, then to IT.
CIAN
Are you kidding? I couldn’t have stolen him from you even if I tried. And believe me, I wanted to. No one could. He was so in love with you sometimes, he couldn’t see straight.
VINCENT turns away, slightly embarrassed.
VINCENT
He might have had a crush a couple of times in high school. But by the time we got to college and he met Roger —
CIAN
Uh uh. Not the way he told it.
BYRON appears in another pool of light and CIAN turns to listen to him.
BYRON
My whole body knows when Vince is in a room.
And you know that annoying habit he has of reading over your shoulder sometimes? It’s not really annoying, it’s life-threatening. When I sense him there, so close, just barely not touching me, his breath on my neck — I feel like my heart’s going to burst — I am so happy. When he’s around, I can’t help smiling. And not just because he’s such a funny little straight guy sometimes. It’s ’cause he’s my funny little straight guy.
CIAN
You don’t just smile. You glow. I’ve caught you doing it.
BYRON
Go ahead. Tell him the whole sordid tale.
CIAN returns to VINCENT.
BYRON watches.
CIAN
He blames you for losing his virginity.
VINCENT
I can safely say I had nothing to do with —
CIAN
Ah ah. Just a minute. Jerry Fleming’s nineteenth birthday bash at Pi Kappa Epsilon.
VINCENT
The Pike’s party? In the middle of that downpour?
CIAN
If you hadn’t come in late, drenched from the rain, he’d never have gone up to Craig Fifer’s room.
VINCENT
Fifer? That frat boy? No way.
CIAN
Please. He cruised me at least six times during that visit I made your junior year.
VINCENT
I looked like a drowned rat that night.
CIAN
Byron said you were so adorable he had to go out on the back porch to catch his breath. And then Craig came along, slipped his hand into Byron’s back pocket — he was just so relieved to realize someone else felt the same way he did–
BYRON
Pre-Roger. I was so tortured about every little thing.
VINCENT
Craig’s got a wife and three kids.
BYRON
All of whom look suspiciously like the mailman.
VINCENT
I never heard any of this. I mean, I suspected, sometimes, but I never knew. We never talked about it.
CIAN
Well, of course not. He was terrified.
VINCENT
Of what?
CIAN
Of you. That you’d think he was sick. That you’d stop being his friend. That you’d hate him.
VINCENT
I could never hate him. Do you think he knew that? I could never hate him. But I couldn’t love him, not that way. I mean, when it comes right down to it. The nitty gritty. The dirty deed. I need to have a woman. And my whole life has been so weird — because of you two, I almost feel like I have to apologize for it sometimes, liking women.
VINCENT sits on the stoop.
During the following, BYRON walks over to the stoop.
He sits next to VINCENT, but VINCENT can’t see him.
VINCENT (continued)
I suppose I should be relieved that we don’t have any kind of competition. I mean, we’re fishing in different lakes. I don’t know. Maybe sometimes I wish we were all — that the three of us had been, you know — all in the same boat. Even with all the difficulties. Just to be in the same boat. Just to be there and not need to translate or explain away the differences or say anything — just be. Together.
(PAUSE)
I sometimes wish I’d been able to, you know?
I mean, everybody was already wondering, right? Byron is. Cian is. Everybody’s wondering if Vince is, too. Only natural. Guilt by association. Suspicious of the sleepovers when he and I were kids. Like maybe I did something that caused him to be — even though we know it’s stupid, or should know it’s stupid, we can’t help it. Wondering. Even me.
I often told him, “If you were a woman, you’d be perfect.”
BYRON
And you thought God didn’t have a sense of humor.
VINCENT looks as if he might cry.
BYRON tries to reach out to him but can’t.
VINCENT turns and looks BYRON right in the face but it is as if he weren’t there.
VINCENT is talking to CIAN beyond BYRON instead.
VINCENT
I can’t help it. I need a woman. It’s just the way I’m wired. Why do I feel like I let him down?
Maybe if I’d been able to love him back. To be with him. Maybe I could have kept him safe. Maybe I could have saved him. Maybe.
Hell, who am I kidding? It’s happening all over again. You’re not even letting me save you.
CIAN
(pause)
Maybe we don’t need saving. Maybe things just — happen.
VINCENT
Maybe I can’t accept that. I need someone, anyone, to blame.
CIAN
Does it have to be you?
VINCENT gets up to leave.
CIAN (continued)
You OK?
VINCENT
Sure. I just need some air.
CIAN and BYRON rise.
BYRON and CIAN
Want company?
VINCENT
No, that’s OK. I’ll be fine. See you later.
BYRON
I wish.
They watch him go.
CIAN reaches a hand out as if to stroke BYRON’s hair but the hand stops in mid-air, suspended.
BYRON reaches out a hand in the direction VINCENT left.
Neither of them can quite touch what they’re after.
After a moment, the hands drop.
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