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I took them off shortly after Labor Day of last year, placing them on our red dresser, next to the card Billy made with a poem he wrote etched into the heavy bronze stock. He constructed a pocket that held the rings, and on bended knee with tears in his eyes he read me his poem and slipped that ring onto my third finger left hand.

I’d worn them just shy of twenty years. I cried when Billy first gave me mine in Montreal and then again when his was returned at the end of January of 2002 from the Coroner’s office, I cried even harder, sobbing uncontrollably as the woman with a smirk behind bulletproof glass dropped it through the slot. I put it on immediately, doubling over. Dixie, Billy’s oldest sis, was with me. I signed whatever I needed to sign. We left.

Twenty years today.

I’ve lived an entire other life, really, one completely unexpected. I reinvented my career. I’ve traveled the world. I lived in Washington DC for two years and I lived in NYC for over five. I bought three houses, one in Saint Elmo right down the street from Billy’s high school. I’ve had three dogs since I lost our Bob Slobbers when I lived in DC, still got one left.

The puzzle that’s tangled my thoughts so often over the past two decades is thinking of all the things Billy missed. He never saw an iPod let alone an iPhone, never had a Facebook account, didn’t get to love those three dogs. Or live in DC or NYC. Or dance again.

It’s possible, even probable, he would’ve met someone else, a man who wanted children. And that was one of Billy’s biggest dreams. He loved kids and having them was never going to happen with me. Billy’s goals were modest, yet there were those dreams he’d tell me in a halting whisper, almost afraid to say them out loud.

Through the past twenty years, when people spied the rings on my finger and asked me if I was married, I deflected the question quickly by saying it was a long story for another day. It always felt like I just kicked Billy’s can down the road but telling the story behind the rings I wore would be long and it would end in tears. So, I just punted.

I met someone in Paris this past September, someone for whom I care deeply, and every time he’d hold my left hand and stumble on the rings, I felt dishonest or crippled maybe. And they started to weigh like lead. I took them off. The rings.

It was time. Twenty years.

These silver bands go on and on,

Just like our love.

We will see thru the same eyes,

We will see time pass the same way.

Clouds float into eternity,

We are one of those clouds.

You are my love –

Always, Bildoe

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I don’t remember exactly how we got it to our Venice bungalow with its separated upstairs loft in the backyard, but that’s where it landed and for years, we lounged and played and cuddled on that thing before I found Billy dead on it at 8:45am on January 21^st, 2002. It was MLK Day that year.

After his funeral, Billy’s family went back to the loft so they could figure out what they wanted, pieces of Billy, the things he loved, stuff that they would cherish and remind them of him. Chris chose his substantial vinyl collection. Matt took the electronics. Amie, his niece, wanted the couch, and had it moved to Saint Elmo, Illinois, the tiny town where Billy grew up.

I’m not sure what happened to it after it left the loft, but I know I was glad to never see that fucking couch again.

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The next day I called him. I was a little nervous. I hadn’t really ever made a date before. “Would you want to go to dinner tonight?”“Sure!”Relieved at his instant response, we set it up to meet at Baja Cantina, a Mexican place near the boat in the Marina that I was living on.

There was really no turning back after that second night we spent together. It was nine-and-a-half of crazy roller coaster years before he was gone. In an instant, without warning.

And I’m a better man for knowing and loving Bill Ledbetter

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I may not hear you coming up the front stairs, even with that broken oak plank of the fourth tread just before the landing. My bedroom door will be closed, the air conditioner on, the TV at a soft volume, but once that Klonopin kicks in, I won’t hear you creeping up those front stairs. You’ll be disoriented, anyway. It’s going to be dark.

Say you make it to the top without tripping. You’ll look around the dark hallway and see all of the upstairs doors closed. Which one am I in? You won’t know. Your first instinct might be to your right, but that’ll only lead you into the upstairs living room and with its deep dark blue paint, you’ll fumble around.

I still won’t hear you.

You’ll back out of that room and head toward the other end of the hallway. You’ll try the next door, but it only opens to a large bedroom, and the bed will be empty. No luck, buddy. Now you have a choice—one door leads to me lying asleep in my bed, and the other guarantees you, at the very least, a lifetime in a wheelchair.

Which one are you going to choose?

I’d bet my next paycheck you reach for the knob across the hall. Stupid move, sucker.You’re standing close to the door, your ears tuned for any movement, but the timer I set for the TV has already done its job and no matter how hard you try you’ll not hear anything. Not a peep. Your hand grips the worn brass knob and you slowly move forward.

You didn’t have a prayer. Your hands flail to grab onto something and one of them might even make it to the rickety handrail, but your feet are out from under you and it won’t matter if your butt hits the first or the second stair or if you’ve managed a comical swandive, because you’ll end up at the same point—at the bottom of the eleventh step, right where it takes a ninety-degree turn.

I hear the commotion, sit up in bed, shake my head, and laugh. Caught another one. Steve is barking and I’ll tell him to hush up, open my door, and walk across the hall. I’ll switch on that bare bulb that you didn’t know about, and stare down at your wreckage. Are you still conscious? I can’t really tell and I don’t much care. I just see you’re not moving.

Maybe I’ll call the police, maybe I won’t. One thing’s for sure, though. You’re going to be there for a while, so you just make that twisted body of yours comfortable.

Shit, you’d have gotten through the DMV line quicker than I’ll help you out.

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When I landed In NYC mid-afternoon yesterday, I listened to the dire voicemail from the vet, so when the car dropped me off at the vet, I was on the people-mover forcing me toward something bad, real bad.

The vet’s receptionist, instant sad eyes when I told her who I was, brought me into a room. The doc followed behind her wearing the same mask of regret and concern. She explained that Eddie was bleeding internally and in extreme pain. And then she carried my boy in along with a polka dotted fleece blanket for the floor.

I laid next time him, doing the familiar rub on his impressive ears, the rub I’ve been doing for twelve years, looking into his eyes and wondering what he saw back. His panting was fast, desperate. And I just talked, saying those same words he knew, over and over, and we didn’t break eye contact. The doc peeked in the window of the room and I nodded.

She laid down with me and two shots later, I held Eddie’s paw for the last time, kissed that beautiful nose, and rubbed his eyes closed.Eddie slept in the same bed with me longer than anyone else in my life ever. Twelve years. My Eddie. Jim’s Eddie. Stephen’s Eddie. He took care of us all. I’ll tell the story of how we met sometime later.

WRITTEN 02/09/2019

*********

DAYS LATER:

A deep purple shopping bag made of strong stock met me when I opened my apartment door last night. Eddie’s ashes. Jim’s daycare brought them when they dropped off the little girl. I peeked in the bag, looked over at Jim jumping her signature jump, squeaking every time she reached her apex.

After kissing her warm paper-thin pointy ears, I put her running feet onto the floor, she gained purchase and bolted into the kitchen for dinner. I followed leaving that purple bag where it was. After she’d eaten and I put some chicken in the over, she curled up on the beige sofa, the one she shared every night with Eddie.

I opened the bag a little more and saw Eddie’s collar. I just wanted to hold it. I plucked it from the top of the wooden box that anchored the bag. When I did, his dog tag, the one Eddie wore for twelve years with engraving almost completely worn smooth and invisible, tinged. Just twice.

Jim popped up instantly, eyes fixed on the door, her expression of hope and expectation and where-the-hell-have-you-been and well, longing. The longing for her keeper, her best friend, that expression.

I clenched the tags in my fist to quiet them, put them down so they wouldn’t make that sound again, and scooped her up, holding her as tight as I could without breaking bones, her ears righteously kissed, cooing how much I loved her. She was warm; she let me sway her. I put her back onto the couch cushion where immediately she sniffed her butt.

You see, every time Jim receives affection, she sniffs her butt. Don’t ask. I have no idea, either, but it’s the way she came to me and that’s just fine.

WRITTEN 02/14/2019

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The surgery was ten days ago. They reattached my muscle to the tendon to the bone. The first things that I remember when I woke from my propofol Neverland were the soothing lights and an anvil attached to my right arm. I looked down at the armpit-to-fingertip plaster cast. It weighed eight pounds. I know. I weighed myself later when I got home, groggy and itchy-faced from narcotics.

I swam in and out of consciousness for four days on so much dope that I couldn’t follow the plot of House Hunters. A lighter, yet still unforgiving rigid plastic brace is now my constant companion, extended into a casually bent position, a little McCain-ish, although he seemed to have more mobility. It’s almost jaunty, if actually I knew what that word meant. And only seven more weeks!

I’ve learned that I have the dumbest left hand in the world. Simple things–brushing my teeth, pulling on pants, bringing a fork to my mouth–are slapstick. I now eat in shame as food is always at arm’s length and when my wobbly leftie brings a bite toward my mouth, my food flops to the floor or onto my lap.

I should be put in a striped tent with a hood over my head, traveling from town to town, my handler selling tickets to watch me. Instead, I’m taking my act to Rome for a few days.

Pain’s gone. Just constant annoyance, so no fun sock-pic-on-the-footrest today. Just this. Arm.

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Sure, there’s just enough Homelandiness with sprinkled razor wire and heavily armed forces filling open-air Humvees to make you pay attention, but the people there don’t even notice. That’s just me and you watching too much 24 and Bourne.

The city has giddy gleeful romance.

The streets are alive with music and laughter and art and a sense that nothing could possibly go wrong even with the headline news that meets its borders. It is safe to go. I met many Americans. Beirut is a beautiful bubble of great food, sultry air, and the timeless hope that this tranquility will last forever.

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