Dead Russians
The first time it
happened, Chris came across JC in some back alley in
The second time, Chris
found himself in a big, wide, open field, full of green, green grass, and
little white puffs of dandelions. He
walked forward, and nearly tripped over JC, who was lying on his back in the
tall grass, a dandelion between his fingers, poised right above his mouth,
ready to be blown and wished upon. JC
smiled when he saw Chris and extended the dandelion towards him. “Make a wish,” he said. Chris reached out to take the weed from JC,
but it was already gone.
One time, Chris found
himself in an airport. Which was pretty
fucking annoying, considering he’d just won the Indy 500 and was in the midst
of getting blown by a very fetching looking Kirsten Dunst. JC was coming off a plane at the gate Chris
was standing at. “I didn’t expect to
find you here,” JC said, a little vertical line showing up on his forehead,
like it did when he was confused. Chris
sighed, and started to reach for JC’s bag.
“Whatever. If I’ve got to pick
you up at the fucking airport, I might was well help you out.” JC, however, wasn’t paying Chris one bit of
attention. Chris sighed again. “Look, ‘C, do you need a ride or not?”. JC started to laugh. Chris opened his mouth to say something, but
suddenly realized JC was looking past him, laughing at someone else. Oh.
JC started to walk toward whomever he was meeting. Chris couldn’t quite make out a face, but JC
grinned and hugged the person, then walked off.
Chris just stood there, until a flight attendant asked if he was a
passenger on the next trip. Chris
figured what the hell, and got on an airplane.
****
Justin was picking at a
stack of pancakes when Chris came down to breakfast. Before Chris had even poured a decent cup of
coffee, Justin started bitching about the choice of breakfast food at the
hotel. Chris sat down to, “and they
don’t even have cereal, man. What the
fuck is up with that?”
Chris sighed. “Dunno, J.
I bet they’d get some for you if you asked.”
Justin shrugged. “I don’t want to be rude.” Chris slapped him lightly on the back of the
head.
“But you’ll bitch about
it to me anyway, right?”
Justin grinned. “Of course.
And take that ring off if you’re gonna hit me. Jesus.”
The elevator pinged and
JC got off with Joey. “Yeah, man. So I was getting back from this trip to
Chris lifted his
head. JC continued talking to Joey. “This stranger is there to pick me up, but I
knew him in the dream and stuff. I think
Chris was there, but I’m not sure. I
don’t really remember.” JC put some
honeydew on his plate.
“That’s freaky, Jayce,”
Joey said, piling up scrambled eggs on a plate.
Freaky, Chris thought. JC smiled at him as he sat down.
****
Chris got on the roller
coaster, only to find JC sitting in the seat next to him. “Oh, fuck.”
JC smiled at him
easily. “They’re gonna take our picture
down near the end, man,” he said. “Get
ready.”
They got matching keychains made from the picture after the ride was over.
****
Justin was lounging on
the big couch, watching ESPN. His big feet
were almost in the middle of the aisle.
JC was sitting at the kitchen table, his keyboard in front of him,
headphones on. The tip of his tongue was
peeking out from where he had captured it between his lips in
concentration. Chris looked away, and walked
to the fridge to get some water. When he
turned around, JC was messing around with his notebook and a ballpoint pen that
was bleeding a little, leaving small blue streaks on the sides of JC’s fingers.
“So, JC,” Chris
started. He waited.
He ended up having to
repeat himself three times, and thunking the table with the bottle of water
before JC heard him.
“Oh, hi, Chris,” JC
looked up and squinted.
“Hi, JC.”
JC just looked at him for
a minute. Chris sighed. “So. Um.
I wanted to ask you something.”
JC put his pen and
notebook down, and removed the headphones from where they were looped around
the back of his neck. “What’s up?”
Chris suddenly felt
really stupid. And small. And stupid.
“Well. Yeah. You dream right?”
JC nodded. “Yeah, all that time.”
“Good, good. So, anyway.
Well. Lately I’ve been having
these weird kind of dreams.”
“Yeah . . .” JC was still
nodding his head, eager to try to help.
JC reminded Chris of a dog, in that way.
“What kind of dreams?”
“Weird ones.”
“Weird how?”
“Okay. So, you’re kind of in them . . .”
“Hey, I dream about you
guys all the time.”
“Really?” Chris thought maybe JC would bring it up, and
that would save him the humiliation.
“Sure. You know, Justin and I are working on a song;
you and Lance are joking around, stuff like that.”
“Oh.” Chris hesitated. “So they’re not really weird, then?”
JC smiled. “No, not really I guess. I mean all dreams are weird sometimes,
because, you know, they’re dreams and all, but.” JC stopped, and his face got a little red.
“What?” Chris asked, a
little too eagerly to his own ears.
Maybe now JC was getting it.
“Are you? Do you?
I mean. God.” JC kind of trailed off.
“What?” Chris repeated.
“Not that that’s not
natural, I mean. Yeah. Sure.
I mean, we all dream those kind of dreams sometimes . . .” JC hesitated
for a second. “After all, we all have
needs,” he started in. “Even me, once,
Justin and I were getting ready for a show, and . . .”
Chris yelped, which,
thank god, cut JC off. “No. No.
No, no, no, no, no. No.
I mean. Just. God.
No, JC. Not like that.”
JC looked a little
dubious. “No, Chris, really, it’s
okay. I don’t mind.”
“NO, JC. Okay?
It’s not like that.” Chris was
trying to remember the last time he’d been that mortified. He wasn’t coming up with anything.
“Oh,” JC said.
“Okay. So what is it?”
“Nothing,” Chris pushed away from the table.
“No, what’s up
Chris? You okay and stuff?” JC looked concerned. It seemed his forehead furrowed over both
confusion and concern, Chris realized suddenly.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Forget about it, okay?” Chris asked, relieved
to push past the curtain and find Justin still watching ESPN. That meant his head hadn’t exploded after
all.
****
Three nights later, Chris
walked into his basement to find JC doing his laundry. Chris moseyed on up to the washing machine,
where JC was putting in a batch of flannel sheets. He figured if Real Life JC
wasn’t being much of a help, maybe Dream JC had some answers.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” JC said back.
“So, JC,” Chris said.
JC looked up from picking
out the detergent. He’d picked
Cheer. Figured, Chris thought.
“Hey, um, can I ask you
something?”
“Shoot.” JC measured out the detergent and put it into
the machine.
“How come you keep showing
up in my dreams?” Chris had learned the
hard way that with JC, the direct approach was best.
JC looked puzzled for a
second. “But these are my dreams,
man. You keep showing up in my dreams.”
“Yeah, see, that’s kinda
what I mean,” Chris said. “We’re both
having the same dreams, right?”
JC cocked his head to the
side. “I guess.”
“Yeah. Right.
So isn’t that weird?”
JC shrugged. “I guess,” he repeated. “So, do you want me to put bleach in with
these?”
“Sure,” Chris said, and
shook his head.
****
The next morning, JC
squinted at Chris as he poured Special K into a bowl. Chris went right on eating his Lucky Charms.
“Hey, man. Do you need to do any laundry today or
anything? Or you gonna wait until we get
to the hotel?” JC asked him.
Chris moved to Lance and
Joey’s bus that afternoon.
****
Chris was in bed,
sprawled out sleeping on his stomach when he woke up. The room was pitch black, but he could see
the digital clock on the bedside table blinking
“Hey, ‘C.” Chris could see JC’s profile from the
streetlamp, all long and lean.
JC turned his head toward
Chris. “Hey,” he said. “Do you mind if I just sit here for a while?”
Chris let his head fall
back and hit the pillow. He stared up at
the ceiling for a long time. It
shimmered whenever he blinked.
“No, JC, that’s
fine. Knock yourself out,” he said, and
rolled back onto his stomach to go back to sleep. Which was strange, he thought, considering
that he had been asleep the entire time anyway.
****
Chris figured his options
were starting to get limited. So he went
to Lance.
****
They were driving along
after doing some shows in
Lance was sitting on the
couch, reading the newspaper. The New
York Times. Chris was kind of surprised
it wasn’t The Wall Street Journal, actually.
Chris sat down next to him and stretched.
Lance didn’t look up from
his newspaper. “Do you need something?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Lance.
Can I talk to you about something?”
Lance turned the
page. “Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, it’s kind of
important, Lance. Okay. Well, at least it’s weird. Strange.”
Lance folded the paper
and put it in his lap. “What is it,
Chris?”
“Okay, so. I’ve kind of been dreaming about JC. Well.
Not dreaming about him, really.
Just dreaming. And he’s kind of
there. And, um. Um.
JC’s having the same dreams, too.
I mean, they’re his dreams. Too. I mean.
Yeah. They’re dreams. His and mine.” Chris just tried to get it out. Of course, trying to talk about it out loud
only made him realize how ridiculous the whole thing really was. It didn’t make sense, not even to him. Lance was going to have a stroke or something
trying to figure it out.
“You think you and JC are
having the same dreams? Like, you’re
dreaming the same thing at the same time?
Together?” Lance cocked his head
to the side. Chris thought his eyes
looked huge, even though they were probably the same Lance size as always.
“What are Chris and JC
doing together?” Joey asked, coming out of the kitchen with a salami
sandwich.
Chris let his head drop
to the back of the couch and closed his eyes.
For fuck’s sake.
“Chris and JC are sharing
dreams,” Lance told him.
Chris brought his hands
to either side of his head and moaned.
Lance kicked him lightly in the calf.
“That’s fucking messed
up, Chris,” Joey said. “How do you
know?” He sat down on the opposite
couch.
“Yeah, that’s a good
question. How do you know?” Lance directed this at Chris, who brought his
head up.
Chris considered. “Well, it just feels right.”
Lance rolled his
eyes.
“Okay, and, um, I’ve
heard him telling other people about a dream he’s had, and it’s, like, exactly
the same as mine. Like, Joey, okay,
remember that time JC was telling you about the dream he had were someone was
picking him up at the airport, and he thought I was there, too? Well, I was there. Because it was my dream. Or my dream, too. Or whatever.”
Chris waved his hands in the air a little and pointed at Joey to
emphasize his words.
Joey nodded slowly. “Yeah, I remember. That’s fucking strange,
dude.”
“Yeah,” Chris nodded
weakly.
“Have you talked to JC
about it?” Lance asked.
Chris threw him a
look. “Let’s just say he wasn’t much of
a help, okay?”
“But . . .” Lance
started.
“I really don’t want to
go into the details, Lance.”
Lance nodded, and Joey
snickered a little. Chris glared at him.
“So what should I do?”
Chris asked.
Joey shrugged and looked
at Lance. Lance patted Chris on the
arm. “Chris, I don’t know what to tell
you. It’s not like I’ve had this problem
before. Maybe it’ll just go away.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Chris really didn’t think so, but he wasn’t
going to tell Lance that. Lance was only
trying to help.
“You know, though, I have
read about something like this before,” Lance said.
Chris perked up a
little. “Yeah, really?”
“Yeah. In Anna
Karenina.” Chris groaned, and Joey
snorted out a high pitched laugh through his nose.
“Shut up. I read you know.” Lance looked miffed. “Anyway.
Yeah. There’s this part where
Anna and her lover have the same dream.
Or they talk about having had the same dream. Or something.
Something like that.”
“How is that supposed to
help me?” Chris asked. He didn’t think
some slutty Russian woman in, like, a thousand page book, could really help him
with this problem.
“Well, I don’t know. My teacher thought the shared dream was all
about the connection between the two lovers and stuff,” Lance continued.
“Or something,” Chris and
Joey finished for him, together.
“Oh, shut up,” Lance
grumbled.
“You think it’ll help me? Like to read it?” Chris asked. He was
pretty damn desperate, he had to admit.
“It might,” Lance
said. Joey nodded helpfully.
“But JC and I aren’t
lovers,” Chris added. “It’s really not
the same thing.”
He knew he’d try it,
anyway.
****
JC was playing the piano
when Chris walked into the room, a large, richly furnished drawing room with
French doors at one end that opened up onto a large garden. Chris could smell
the scent of roses through the window. JC was dressed in a tuxedo, with
tails. He’d taken the gloves off to play
the piano.
Chris sat down next to
him on the piano bench. He caught a hint
of the melody. It sounded like
Chopin. Neither of them said a word.
JC smiled at Chris when
he played the last note, and took his fingers off the keys.
****
The next day, at
soundcheck, Chris happened to walk by JC on his way to where the water
was. JC was humming the Chopin piece
softly to himself.
****
Chris threw the book down
on the hotel bed next to Lance.
“All that, and she
fucking kills herself.”
Lance looked up from his
laptop. “Well, yes. I thought you knew that was how it ended.”
“800 pages and she
fucking kills herself. By throwing
herself in front of a train.”
Lance nodded and raised
his eyebrows at Chris. “Yes.”
Chris growled. “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Lance chuckled. “There’s not much I can do about it, Chris. Take it up with Tolstoy.”
“Fine. I will,” Chris said. “So, according to this, the only thing for me
to do is to throw myself in front of the bus.”
Lance laughed. “Maybe.”
“Fucking goddamn
Russians,” Chris yelled as he left the room.
****
Chris found himself
sitting on a beach, the water lapping up to lick his toes. The water was warm, but refreshingly cool in
the heat of the
“Hey,” Chris said.
“Hey,” JC said back, and
sat down next to Chris.
They sat in silence for a
long time, until Chris woke up.
****
Chris walked past the
others in the hotel lobby the next morning.
He raised his arm and waved at them.
“If anyone needs me, I’m
going to go throw myself in front of the bus.”
****
Truth be told, Chris
ended up getting used to it, at least most of the time. He didn’t dream with JC all the time, and
when he did, they were good dreams. JC
was usually quiet in them, and there was usually music, which was nice. Sometimes, Chris looked forward to them,
even. They made him feel peaceful.
****
One night, Chris came
upon JC backstage after a concert. He
was wearing the “I Heart You” t-shirt, and the smile he always did after a good
show.
“Hey, ‘C, good show,” Chris
said. He wasn’t sure it had been a good
show, actually, but he figured from JC’s smile that it must have been.
“Yeah. It was really fun out there tonight,” JC
said.
“That’s great, JC,” Chris
smiled.
“You were really good
tonight, Chris,” JC added.
“Thanks,” he
replied. Since he hadn’t actually
dreamed the concert, too, he took JC’s word for it.
Chris started to move
past JC to the dressing rooms, when JC reached out and touched him on his
forearm, feather light, but Chris felt like the touch was heavy and hard enough
to bruise. “Hey, Chris,” he said so
softly, Chris thought it was likely he might have whispered it.
Chris stopped, and
turned. There was that profile
again. “Yeah?”
JC turned his head, and
he had a light in his eyes that Chris hadn’t seen in a very, very long
time. It made Chris’s breath hitch. “Why not, Chris?”
Before Chris could
answer, JC disappeared.
It occurred to Chris that
JC must have woken up.
****
Chris found JC in his
hotel room, rifling through his closet.
JC smiled at Chris when
he came in, and pulled out two shirts from the closet. “What do you think? The black mesh or the blue glittery one?” He held them in front of him for Chris to
see.
Chris pretended to
consider. “I think, JC, that if you want
to tell me something, you should just do it, and stop raiding my dreams.”
JC’s face scrunched
up. For a second, Chris thought he might
cry, and he immediately regretted being so harsh. He had just thought, well, that direct was
best. Plus, he was pretty pissed off
right now. He hated it when JC cried,
though.
“What the fuck, man?” JC
asked, putting the two shirts down on the bed.
“It’s just that, well,
you know we’ve been having the same dreams, you know. And I’m starting to get tired of it. And I kinda figure now it’s because there’s
something you want to say to me, and well.
Yeah.” This wasn’t going as well
as it had in his head. Damn it. “Yeah.
Well. In Anna Karenina . . .”
“You read Anna Karenina?” JC interrupted.
“Yes,” Chris answered
through his teeth, exasperated. “But
that’s not the point, here, the point is . . .”
“When?”
“A few weeks ago or
so. Maybe a month. Anyway . . .”
“Really?”
“Yes, goddamnit JC, I can
read!” Chris nearly shouted. “I have a
college degree and everything.”
“An Associates.”
“Jesus! That’s a college degree! It is.
Christ! That’s not the fucking
point, anyway, okay?” Chris huffed out
an angry breath. “The point is, is
that. Well. The point is.”
“Yeah?” JC asked, a little too calmly, it seemed to
Chris.
“The point is. Okay.
Fine. Remember that dream last
night?”
“The one with Carson
Daly?”
“No, not that one,” Chris said.
“And, ewwww.”
“It was a TRL
appearance.”
“Whatever.” Chris waved his arms a little. “No.
The one that was after a concert.”
“Huh?”
Chris looked around to
see if there was something he could throw.
Something heavy. The lamps were
the kind that were bolted to the table.
What the hell was this, a Holiday Inn?
“JC. I know you have these
dreams, too. It was after a
concert. You asked me about. You asked.
About.”
“I asked you about
“Yeah. I guess.
Pretty much. I mean, you asked .
. .”
“I asked why not.”
“Yeah.”
JC shrugged. “I still don’t what the big deal is,” he
said.
Chris blinked. What the?
Jesus. “You don’t see what the big
deal is?”
JC shook his head, and
put the blue shirt back in the closet.
“Look, I’ve been having the dreams for a long time. Or, okay.
I know we’ve been sharing dreams for a long time. Just ‘cause you’re
having them, too, all of the sudden, or know that we’re sharing, all of the
sudden, doesn’t
mean much.”
Huh? Chris wondered how he had managed to become
the confused one, here. “Huh?” he
repeated aloud.
“Look. Chris.
I’ve been sharing dreams with you for a long time. I mean, practically forever. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? No big deal?”
God, he hated it that the more upset he got, the higher his voice
got. He was pitched at a squeak right
now. Pretty soon he’d be up to “what
only dogs can hear.”
“Not all of them. Just.
Sometimes. It happens. You get used to it.” JC shrugged.
“I. Okay.”
Chris shook his head. This was
news.
“So, you coming out with
us tonight?” JC asked.
The change of subject
practically gave Chris whiplash. “That’s
it?”
“What’s it?”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say on the subject.”
JC closed the closet
door. “Look. It happens.
It’s been happening to me for years.
You get used to it. End of
story.”
Freak, Chris
thought. He wasn’t sure if he meant it
about JC, or himself. “But, look, JC, you
asked me . . .”
JC sighed. “It was a dream, Chris; it doesn’t mean anything. Let it go.
You coming out with us, or what?”
And that, Chris knew from
long experience, would be that. He
wouldn’t get any more out of JC tonight.
“Or what. I think I need to go
lie down.”
****
Chris woke up to find JC
sitting on the end of his bed. He
blinked a couple of times. JC was still
there. He looked at the clock:
The room was quiet, so
quiet, he could hear JC breathing. It
was the cheekbones that made JC’s profile so sharp, he decided. He wiggled his toes.
“You really are awake,
Chris,” JC said, his voice soft and low from the end of the bed.
“I know that,” he said,
but he pinched himself just in case. Ow.
“I’m sorry I snapped at
you before,” JC said.
Chris thought back to
earlier in the evening. “Hey, that’s
okay. No harm, no foul.”
More silence. Chris thought for a minute, then sighed.
“Hey, JC. You wanna lie down or something?”
JC turned and looked at
him, but answered by scooting back on the bed and lying down on his back, on
top of the covers. Chris rolled over
onto his side so that he could see JC.
He thought that might be important.
It was definitely the cheekbones.
The cheekbones and the nose.
“So, it was kind of
stupid.” JC said.
Chris didn’t answer. He thought this might be some kind of
personal best, to be silent in face of JC like this.
“I mean, to ask why
not. I know why not. I knew why not. I just.
Couldn’t help it.”
“I know, JC,” Chris said.
“And. You were right. Are right.
Were right. It wouldn’t have been
good. It was stupid. I was stupid.”
“No, JC,” Chris began.
“It’s true. A mess.
It would have been a mess. I was
too young. The band was too young. If we’d have broken up, it would have been a
huge mess. We wouldn’t be here right
now.” JC rambled on until he ran out of
steam.
“You mean the band
wouldn’t be here or we wouldn’t be here?”
Whoa. Good question, Kirkpatrick,
Chris thought.
JC shrugged. “Either.
Both.”
“Mmmmm.”
“It’s just that,
well. When you started sharing the
dreams, too.
Chris nodded hard, so
that JC would be able to feel it way over on his different pillow. He waited for JC to say something else. It was a long time until JC came out with:
“It was just one night.”
Chris didn’t say anything
to that, because there was nothing to say.
“So, in this Anna Karenina book, this chick and this
dude have this completely illicit and tawdry love affair, but it’s so
passionate and the sex is so good, I mean, really good, I mean, fantastic
even, and . . .”
“Chris?”
“Wait. So, yeah.
They have this affair. And it’s
this big scandal. But they can’t stop,
right? Because it’s so good. And maybe they love each other, too. Or whatever.
I’m not sure. But anyway, things
are starting to fall apart, and then one night Anna, that’s the chick’s name,
she has this dream right, and it’s kind of a horrible dream, and it scares her,
and she tries to tell her lover about it, his name is Vronsky, right, but get
this, he’s had the dream, too, so he already knows all about it. And stuff,”
Chris finished lamely.
“Chris?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you talking
about?”
“Anna and Vronsky, they
shared dreams, too.” Chris explained
patiently, as if this was self-evident.
“So?”
“So, well. Lance said they did that because of the
connection they had.”
“Lance said?”
“Yeah, Lance said they
had a connection. That’s why they were
able to have the same dream.”
“So?”
“Well. Maybe we have a connection, too.”
JC turned his head,
finally, and looked at Chris. “You think
so?”
“Yeah.” Chris licked his suddenly dry lips. “I think so.
I think so.”
“What kind of
connection?”
“Well, Anna and Vronsky
were these great lovers.”
“Yeah?” JC asked.
“Yeah.” Chris slid his hand over, and ran his fingers
along JC’s stomach, right under the hem of the mesh shirt. Chris ran his
fingers back and forth, back and forth.
JC’s eyes fluttered closed.
“Hey, JC,” Chris
whispered.
“Yes?”
“Just promise me you’ll
never, ever throw yourself under a train.”
JC’s eyes remained
closed, but he smiled. “I promise.”
Chris kissed him.
