Do You Still Believe I Can Love You Best?

Morrissey stood by the bar as another of the promoters clapped him on the back. He turned to smile, but was sure it came out as more of tight line. He was tired, and everyone buying him drinks and singing his praises were keeping him from his plush hotel bed. Besides that, he could scarcely remember their names.

“Mozzer,” the one with the trendy haircut called, raising his glass, “you nailed ‘Last Night on Maudlin Street!’” Another man nodded in agreement, and Morrissey weakly raised his glass back.

Being on stage was amazing, but everything else that went with touring was exhausting.

“A drink from a fan,” a waitress said, lowering the glass onto the bar in front of him. She was already looking on to her next table.

“Being famous certainly has its perks,” Mark Nevin winked at him. Morrissey sighed and tipped the glass back.

He used to be better at slipping away from the after-parties. But life, he had come to accept, was how it is, not how it was.

“I think the girls are supposed to be better looking in California,” Trendy Haircut said, motioning to the empty seat on the other side of the singer, “wait until the next leg of the tour and you’ll have two girls on your arm.”

Morrissey wondered how these people came to find themselves in his entourage.

“I surely hope not,” he said as everyone laughed. He looked at his watch and decided another ten minutes will have been an acceptable time to have stayed.

Mark began to tell his favorite story of how half of the sound equipment had come to sit out in the rain after a roadie got too stoned to open the venue door. Everyone sat around the table staring enthralled. Morrissey was glad none of them were looking at him. He stared blankly at the two empty glasses in front of him and tried to focus. The rims seemed to be bleeding together into a dizzy number eight.

“Right Mozzer?” Mark called from across the table. But his voice seemed gargled and strange. Everyone turned to look at him expectantly, and he, having no idea what they were discussing, nodded. They all laughed too loud, and the table now joined the glasses in spinning. He wanted to ask for water, but the thought was trapped in his mind, his body unable to connect the need to an action.

Maybe he needed to splash some water on his face. That seemed to be what people did in these situations. He pushed his chair away from the table and focused on the door in the back of the club. If he concentrated enough he could weave a successful line to the restroom through the clusters of people dancing.

He staggered too far to the right and his shoulder caught against the side of a chair almost tripping him. Someone was laughing at him but he continued on, afraid he if stopped that he wouldn’t be able to start again. He pushed open the door and tried to look in the mirror. He leaned forward on the cold sink. Some small part of him knew that he should be feeling concerned for himself, but all emotion had evened out to a flat line.

He suddenly felt very warm and stared at his unmoving arms. He wanted to turn on the faucet.

“Looks like you’ve had one too many,” someone clapped him on the back.

Morrissey opened his eyes, distantly realizing he couldn’t remember shutting them.

“Let me give you a hand getting a cab,” the voice said, wrapping a sturdy arm around Morrissey’s waist.

Morrissey nodded as his head lulled to the side. He wondered if it was someone from the table. Maybe a roadie, maybe it was Mark. They were outside now walking down the soggy concrete. He tried to concentrate on where his feet were going, but he was being carried more than anything.

“In here,” the voice called out to someone else, and he realized they were in a car park, walking away from the florescent lights.

“Dorrissey!” a new voice squealed. Morrissey’s companion dropped him, and he staggered onto his knees. Six legs floated into his field of vision and he wondered if a cab was still coming.

“He’s done this before!”

Morrissey knew this all meant something. But his thought process seemed to be sputtering to a stand-still and he couldn’t ever remember feeling so tired.

“He doesn’t look so arrogant now,” a voice said from above him. He realized that he was pulling himself along the concrete away from noise. A tire appeared in his line of vision as someone grabbed his hair and threw him back to where they wanted him.  

“Look at me!” someone grabbed him and cracked him in the eye. He flew backwards and crumpled onto the cement. He was glad nothing hurt.

“Get him up,” someone said, sounding bored.

He opened his eyes to watch as a man dropped his trousers, but his eyes had fallen shut again. A pair of hands held his shoulders up to keep him from falling backwards while another grabbed his hair and pulled his head forward.

He tried to concentrate on breathing, because that was easy to do.

“You gave him too much,” the man standing in front of him said, kicking Morrissey away from him.

He wished everyone would stop moving him. He felt sick. He tried to remember where he was again, but it was too confusing. It was hard to be awake and the cement was cool and unmoving.

When he woke up someone was shoving him into the back seat of a car. It must finally be the cab, he thought.

II.

Morrissey opened his eyes to the dull gray of early morning. His head was lolled forward and throbbing. He lifted his head up only to let it land with a distinct thud against doorframe he was sprawled in. He heard more than felt the groan that emanated from his chest. From this angle he could just see the tops of the trees at the edge of the yard.  He scraped the fuzziness of his tongue off on his front teeth and felt his eyelids begin to droop.

The door opened and he fell back across the doorway, his head caught by a pair of trainers slightly more comfortable than the ground.

“Shit. Morrissey?” The voice is too familiar. He looks up into Johnny’s brown eyes and regrets it; the small bare-bulb hanging from the entryway already burning a hole in his retinas.

“Johnny,” He said slowly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He can tell he’s talking slower than usual, tongue catching where it wouldn’t normally, and he has to take a breath halfway through. Shutting his eyes he turns his head slightly toward Johnny’s shoelaces.

“Jesus,” Johnny said just loud enough for him to hear. Morrissey felt fingers worming their way into his armpits. The clumsy jostling of Johnny pulling him through his house with his heels dragging against the hardwood and onto his sofa woke him up a bit. He watched as Johnny picked up a phone receiver and wondered when he got so far away.

“No police,” He tried to say, though the words he hears are different, a jumbled mess that isn’t any language he knows. “No hospitals,” he tried again, and from the look on Johnny’s face Morrissey imagines he’s heard him that time.

“You clearly need medical attention,” Johnny said, running a hand through his hair. “Your face-“ he made a general wave around his own face as if that explained anything.  Morrissey lifted a shoulder. It wasn’t as if he could stop Johnny from doing whatever it was he had planned. Johnny held up a finger, placing the receiver down before disappearing. Morrissey didn’t move his eyes from where Johnny had been standing until he returned with a damp flannel that was surprisingly warm when pressed against his face.

“I don’t need you to,” Morrissey began, his cheeks feeling hot and wet. Johnny just lifted his eyebrows in return. Morrissey let his eyes slide shut as Johnny pressed a little harder while he scrubbing his forehead.

Morrissey allowed Johnny to keep washing off his face, only pressing his head slightly back into the space between the pillow and the back of the sofa.

“Just so tired,” he said with numb lips. “You can call me a cab.” Johnny is squinting at him and hasn’t made a move to dial.

“To go where?” Johnny asked. It was the harshest tone that he’d heard Johnny use yet.
His mouth was open when the there is a knock on the door. Johnny spun dramatically, as if someone would be standing there pointing a finger at the two of them together.

“I’ll be right back,” Johnny said, pushing lightly against Morrissey’s shoulders as he stood. Morrissey flexed his fingers, straining to hear Johnny’s quiet voice asking who the intruder was but gave up. He pressed his cheek against the cool fabric of the pillow. His eyes slit open when he heard Johnny stomping back into the room.

“That was no one,” Johnny said quickly, looking at the pillow Morrissey was laying against. Morrissey had a distant thought to say something like ‘peculiar’ in the tone that used to always get Johnny stammering and blushing and sometimes telling him whatever it was he was hiding. The thought couldn’t connect to his mouth though, and he said nothing.

Johnny’s fingers were wrapping around his shoulders again, and he felt himself being lifted to sit upright on the couch. He felt the world tilt around him; he turned his head to the side and vomited, narrowly missing Johnny’s feet.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Johnny was saying. “Let’s just get you to the bed and you can lie down again. Up you get.” Morrissey was being lifted to standing, Johnny’s arm around his waist and pulling Morrissey’s arm over his shoulder. He sagged heavily into Johnny’s side and watched their feet more or less progress together.

Some of the pressure and fog in his head seemed to be getting pulled out by gravity as they went up the stairs, and Morrissey began noticing the bare walls, the un-vacuumed floors, and the dust on the moldings. He squeezed his fingers into Johnny’s shoulder, and picked his feet up a little higher to clear each step. His breath, he could hear more than feel, was coming out quicker, louder.

They reached the bedroom and Johnny all but dropped Morrissey on the bed to begin pulling down curtains.

“They can be open,” Morrissey said, clenching his fingers into the bedspread as he slowly pushed himself to sitting. Johnny pulled the blinds down hard.

“It gets really bright in here. Probably bad for your head.” He was tripping over his words. Morrissey looked around the room he was in and slowly felt panic clawing up his ribs. He tried to swallow it down and nearly gagged again. Johnny turned and sat on the edge of the bed. Morrissey was practically panting. It was the first time he’d seen Johnny since they recorded ‘I Keep Mine Hidden.’ The thought came to Morrissey as he watched Johnny’s fingers splayed on the bed. Nothing’s happening to you followed immediately after it.

“Morrissey,” Johnny said slowly. Morrissey looked up at him; his eyelids were feeling like stones were holding them down. Johnny’s hair was horrible. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep?” Morrissey felt himself nodding, his body lowering back onto the bed. Bad things happened when you couldn’t stay awake, he thought frantically, but his eyes were already shut, and the weight of a blanket covering him was the last thing he felt.


III.

He didn’t like this. The room was dark and unfamiliar, and he was almost sure it wasn’t his hotel. His stomach churned and his hands weaved under the covers to wrap around his body. He must have had too much to drink last night. His thoughts struggled to catch up, but there seemed to be nothing to catch up to. There was a heavy fog over everything between sitting down at a table in the bar with Mark and waking up just now.

He opened his eyes again to take in the whiteness of the room. If it hadn’t been for the plush carpet and clothes thrown over the top of the dresser, he might be convinced that he was in a hospital room.

He heard the sound of something being shuffled around on the other side of the door. His heart twitched to a quicker pace in his chest. He took a breath and reasoned with himself that there was nothing to be afraid of. He listened to a telephone being hung up and then the shuffle of footsteps passing by the door. He pushed his feet off the side of the bed. A wave of nausea crashed over him, but he couldn’t comfortably lie back down when he didn’t know where he was. He walked towards the door, pinching his neck towards his chin to keep the wincing of his migraine to a minimum.

He walked into the hallway and followed the steps downstairs to a small room. In the center of the living room was a small sofa staring at a TV. There was nothing littered around the space that offered any clues as to where he was.

“You’re awake.” Morrissey froze and turned. Johnny was standing in the threshold of the kitchen looking wearily back at him. There was something defensive in his stance that was off-putting, and Morrissey looked around for someone else. He tried to find rhyme or reason for Johnny’s presence, but the possibilities made his headache more.

He must have looked too unwell because Johnny set the tea on the counter beside him and grabbed his arm.  “Come sit down.”

Morrissey didn’t like the way Johnny was looking at him or touching him. He pulled out of the other man’s grasp and leaned hard against the wall. A bitter taste of adrenaline filled his mouth and he kept swallowing to make it stop.

“What’s happened?” he asked. Whatever was happening was not good, there wasn’t much to convince him otherwise.

Johnny looked ran his hands through his too short hair and stared blankly at the wall behind Morrissey.

“I don’t know,” he said with a small frown. “I found you on my doorstep about 6:30 this morning.” He paused looking like he wanted to do anything other than stand there. “You were really drunk, or,” he took a breath, “I don’t know…something.”

“Well thanks much for your forced hospitality, but I’ll call a cab and be on my way,” Morrissey looked for the phone. What else could he do?

“No, Moz,” Johnny said, looking tired. Morrissey’s lip turned down at the nickname.

“No what? Want me to stay so you can revel in my clumsy inebriation? All jokes aside, I’m sure Angie won’t be pleased to see me here.”

Johnny sucked his bottom lip in for a minute and picked his tea up again. He sunk down onto the sofa, facing away from Morrissey.

“There are reporters outside my house. Someone saw you outside this morning and it must be a slow news day because this appears to be on the short-list of the world’s most pressing feature story.”

“So, I’ll walk by them Johnny,” Morrissey explained slowly with as much annoyance as his headache would allow him. He had walked by hordes of reporters before; he didn’t understand why Johnny was making such an issue over it.

“No, you don’t understand,” Johnny said, “Morrissey whatever happened last night---someone,” he sighed, “you have, um,” he touched his own face, “a black eye.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” Morrissey mimicked Johnny’s gesture and touched his left eye, realizing for the first time that it felt swollen. Johnny pointed to a door to his left.

Morrissey flicked on the light and stared at himself in the mirror. To say he had a black eye was a typical Johnny Marr understatement. In addition to the shiner crinkling the blue of the eye half shut, were various degrees of scrapes and bruising across his cheeks. How embarrassing. Johnny was right, there was no way he’d want reporters to see him in this condition. His skin was pale and tight across his features and he looked every bit as sick as he felt. He made a tiny groaning noise in his throat and sank to his knees, still clutching the edges of the sink with his fingers. He was breathing in short quick gasps. He used to take pills for panic like this.

Johnny was kneeling next to him, looking unsure. “I don’t know what happened,” he repeated. “But you’re okay now.” He set his hand lightly on the singer’s shoulder but Morrissey didn’t seem to notice.

Morrissey sat more flatly on the floor underneath of him and stared dazed at the white tiles under him. He took a breath, “so someone, I can’t remember who, hit me last night and left me on your doorstep, and I’m supposed to feel safe here?” he said.

Johnny took his hand away and reeled back a bit. “What are you asking me?”

“I think you’re able to parse it out.” Morrissey knew he shouldn’t be this accusatory, this catty, with someone who seemed to be trying to help him, but he was beyond considering anyone else’s feelings when he had to know. He could see Johnny suck in his cheeks.

“Morrissey, you have to know I would never hurt you-“

“Try again,” Morrissey said dryly, as Johnny managed to look half-ashamed.

“I would never physically hurt you,” he said quickly.

“Then who?” Morrissey wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at the blinds on the window across from him. Where there really reporters outside? Could he trust Johnny?

“I don’t know!” Johnny said exasperated, “I told you what I know.” But it was hard to believe someone wouldn’t meet your eyes.

“I want to go back to bed,” Morrissey said, standing up with only a small amount of support from the wall. It would be easier to think if he were alone.

“Okay,” Johnny said, “do you want tea? I have toast,” he trailed slowly behind his former bandmate. But Morrissey said nothing, and the door shut again.

IV.

Morrissey stood inside the room, sitting on the edge of the bed without turning on the light. Johnny was the last person in the world that he would want to see him like this. He hadn’t tirelessly spent the last three years promoting and pushing himself lyrically for Johnny to find him beaten and pathetic. Now all he had keeping Johnny from walking out the door again was that he was in his house. He looked over at the red numbers of the alarm clock. It was already 8:00PM, how many hours had he lost track of?

He couldn’t be sure what happened to him last night. But he was sure that his former bandmate wouldn’t have had a part in it. Even as he had said it, it wasn’t a real accusation.

A hesitant knocking interrupted his thoughts, and the door pushed open. The guitarist was standing in the doorway with a plate of toast and a steaming cup.

“I think you should to eat something,” he set the tray down and not looking at Morrissey. Morrissey thought for a moment that the advice didn’t seem that genuine coming from someone who barely let more than coffee or gin pass through his lips in the last two years of the band.

“Wait,” Morrissey said, glad Johnny stopped because he was feeling weak again and was unsure if he could follow him back down the steps. “I know you wouldn’t have wanted this to happen to me.”

“God, of course not!” Johnny looked outraged that it even had to be discussed. He handed Morrissey the mug of tea and paced the length of the room. “Look, Morrissey, I know that I hurt you when I left the Smiths. But it wasn’t meant to be malicious.”

“But you never answered my calls, you never responded to my letters,” Morrissey said, wondering if the drugs had removed whatever filter would have normally kept these thoughts in, or was it the circumstances.

“I never opened them and I didn’t take your calls because I knew it would only take you one breath to convince me to come back.”

“Is that still true?” Morrissey said before he could stop himself.

Johnny looked hard at the quilted duvet under both of them.

“I don’t want to have this conversation when you look like you could pass out at any moment.”

Morrissey didn’t know what to make the response, but he did know that Johnny’s assessment was fair. He felt like shit, and hearing that there was no chance of a Smiths reunion wouldn’t do much to persuade him to health.

He looked down at the tea in his hands and took a sip.

“I’ll be right back,” Johnny left, and walked back in the room with a small bag. “Anti-septic,” he explained, twisting the lid off a small tube.

Johnny’s eyes steadied on him, and Morrissey watched them as though they studied his injuries. “I killed the Smiths,” Morrissey said, wincing back as Johnny dabbed a cut on his cheek.

“No,” he could feel Johnny’s breath on his cheek as he spoke, not stopping what he was doing to entertain the thought.

“I used every brain cell I had to write those lyrics and there weren’t any left over think about what I was doing to you.”

“No one gave us a fucking handbook on how to do it,” Johnny replaced the cap, “none of us are blameless.” He sighed and walked towards the window. “Anyway, the Smiths aren’t dead. There are about a dozen reporters on my lawn that would say otherwise.

Morrissey lay back on the bed and watched long rectangular shadows project across Johnny’s torso. “I think I’d be a great deal happier if I could have a bath,” he said, stretching his arms over his head.

“This way,” Johnny flicked the blinds back into place and walked to the hall.

V.

Morrissey watched his reflection in the foggy mirror. Somehow his injuries looked grimmer after being washed. It wasn’t important how this happened to him, he reasoned, because Johnny was talking to him, and if he had known that this was all it took, he would have thrown himself into traffic years ago.

“Are you okay?” Johnny was knocking again. It was almost comical that he was concerned now, Morrissey thought. These injuries would heal. There were too many days after Johnny had left when Morrissey would get out of bed to make tea only to lie back after the water had started to boil, tired again.

“Do you have clothes for me to wear?” Morrissey opened the door, holding the towel tight at his waist.

“Um,” Johnny looked down at the t-shirt in his hands, “just this.”

He pulled the t-shirt from the other man’s hands. “This is my Smiths shirt!”

“Is it?” Johnny wouldn’t look at him, “well anyway, I washed your trousers and such, they’re, uh, on the bed.”

He wasn’t used to this stony faced Johnny, and wondered what he had to say to make his old friend look at him like he wasn’t an animal needing to be fenced in.

Morrissey pushed his damp quiff off of his forehead, “I suppose it was good I wasn’t wearing my glasses when this happened,” he stared at his eye in the mirror.

Johnny was watching the singer inspect his eye further.

“Where’s Angie?” Morrissey said casually, without worrying too much about the repercussions. There wasn’t anything to lose anymore between them, so there was no reason for tact.

“I don’t know,” Johnny stepped back into the hall, flicking the light switch in fingers.

“We shouldn’t be expecting her?” Morrissey asked, eyeing the sparse bathroom necessities and single toothbrush in the holder.

“No,” Johnny replied softly.

VI.

The next two days bled together. When he wandered out of bed in the morning Johnny would still be sleeping on the sofa in the second bedroom. He seemed to largely use the space as a makeshift studio. There were unpacked boxes stacked against the wall and guitars displayed in front of them.

Johnny seemed to be going about his life as if it were typical to be trapped inside his house by a small brigade of willful journalists. Morrissey willed his scrapes and bruises to fade, and they had, but not enough to successfully bypass photographers without appearing under some witless headline. They would tire of playing cat and mouse soon enough, he reasoned, as he pursued Johnny’s meager book collection. He could hear the careful progressions of Johnny’s chords through the walls. It must be a new song.

In the ruins of the Smiths, journalists had thrown around terms like ‘musical soulmates.” He’d always shrugged it off. But listening to the intricate mood of the music, it was hard not to be drawn in. He plucked a book from the shelf and retreated into the upstairs bedroom. He had to remember that what Johnny did now wasn’t for him.

Morrissey stared at the boxes stacked in the corner of the room. He wondered if Johnny had just moved in, and if it had something to do with Angie’s disappearance. He wouldn’t ask, he’d was already asking too much to just remain here. He was sure it was taxing every ounce of the other man’s generosity.

“Do you want dinner?” Johnny yelled up the steps. Morrissey set his book down, not realizing until now that the music had stopped.

“I’m fine,” Morrissey replied, hearing Johnny walk into the kitchen.

They may have been the only words Johnny had said to him all day. Morrissey couldn’t decide if the guitarist was fed up with the entire situation, avoiding another conversation about reforming the band, or just generally hated being in his presence. It could, he concluded, be all three.

Either way, he was tired of sitting cross-legged in a barren bedroom. He wandered into the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe.

“I can help you unpack,” he said simply. Johnny set the kettle back on the burner.

“What do you mean?”

“Your boxes,” Morrissey motioned at the white wall behind Johnny like it was proof of something.

“Oh,” Johnny bit down on his lip, busying himself with sifting the tea into the pot. “They’re fine as they are.”

“Let me help, I’m going a bit mad sitting on my hands.”

“They’ve been like that for a year; they can stay like that for another day.”
Morrissey briefly wondered if Johnny was hinting at a timetable for his departure.

“You’ve lived here a year?”

“I’ve been busy,” Johnny said defensively.

Morrissey frowned and walked over to a box. “You shouldn’t keep your Horses LP in the dark, it’s surely a criminal offense.”

Johnny joined him peering in the box at his belongings. “Where should we put them?” he stared hopelessly around the living room.

“In the lonely corners of your bedroom,” he said, picking up the box. “And bring the other one; I think I saw your T REX poster behind it.”

When Johnny rejoined him Morrissey was well on his way to having pulled the bulk of Johnny’s record collection from the box. “New Order?” Morrissey raised an eyebrow, “really, Johnny,” he said tossing the copy of “Technique” safety away from “Chelsea Girl.”

Johnny pulled the record from Morrissey’s grasp. “There’s musical merit to synch pop,” he said looking serious, “can anyone really say the same for Jobriath.”

Morrissey grasped his chest, “Jobriath will tear us apart again.”

Johnny laughed and rolled his eyes. “Oh! There was something I thought you might be into,” Johnny said, looking through the pile and retrieving an album. “My record player is downstairs,” he said without turning to see if Morrissey was following.

VII.

“Do you remember the first time we played in New York?” Morrissey’s head tilted back on edge of the sofa so the room skewed at a more interesting angle.

“And you made us stay at that shitty hotel just because James Dean stayed at it twenty years before?”

“Yes, the very same time,” Morrissey said, smirking. “And I had been dragged off the stage—“

“Fell,” Johnny corrected.

“And I had been dragged off the stage by some over-zealous admirers,” Morrissey continued, “and came over and convinced me that no one had noticed.”

“The show had to go on,” said as he tightened a peg on his Gibson.

“Was it true, did you think no one had noticed?”

Johnny itched at his ear, “I think Andy might have seen you tumble over his amp,” he said diplomatically.

“I don’t know what made me believe you at the time.”

“Because you wanted to,” Johnny shrugged and Morrissey supposed it probably was that simple.

“We hid from reporters on that trip,” Morrissey remembered the over-adamant American music press.

“You had a bruised face then too,” Johnny tilted his head back to presumably to stare at the purple crescent under the singer’s eye.

“We shut ourselves in the hotel and nearly starved to death,” Morrissey said distantly, only to refocus on the empty room, “somehow that still seems more glamorous than now.”

Johnny said nothing, but stretched forward to pick up his Gibson.


“What do you think happened to me?” Morrissey asked. Johnny looked like he wasn’t sure what exactly he was referring to until he turned to watch him dragging the pads of his fingers across the bruise under his eye.

“I don’t know Moz. What can you remember?””

“Having a drink at a club after a show. Then waking up here.”

“Do you think people are looking for you?” Johnny asked.

Morrissey laughed to himself, “I’m sure someone checked me out of my hotel and called it normal.” He wished, for the first time in his life, that he was someone more dependable. But how many times had he not shown up somewhere at the last minute without clueing anyone in, this wouldn’t be unexpected behavior for him.

“We will find out what happened to you,” Johnny said. Morrissey wondered if by “we” he meant “you.”

“It was surely some adamant Cure fans hoping to make my face a level playing field,” he said sprawling his fingers above his head in a makeshift impersonation of Robert Smiths’ hair.

A painful expression passed over Johnny’s features and he turned back to his guitar. It was obviously not an acceptable topic to joke about.

“I’ve lost track of the time in here,” he said absentmindedly strumming the chords to “Ashes to Ashes.”

“I’ve never done good things, I’ve never done bad things, I’ve never done anything out of the blue,” Morrissey sang as Johnny quickly accommodated the chords to match the singer’s familiar pitch.“Need an axe to break the ice, wanna blah blah blah blah, ashes to ashes,” Morrissey trailed off and Johnny stopped playing.

“Someone told me you were thinking of touring with Bowie,” Johnny said.

“Bowie would be touring with me,” Morrissey said through a yawn. “How do you sleep on this sofa,” he squirmed against the backrest, and closed his eyes.

“Determination,” Johnny said, standing and squeezing Morrissey’s shoulder. “Come on, you should sleep in a bed.”

Morrissey stretched and slid his legs onto the floor. “I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience,” he said standing, “it’s the exact opposite of what I had wanted to prove I could be.”

Johnny shook his head, and grabbed Morrissey’s shoulder. He resisted the urge to pull himself away from Johnny’s touch. But was staring willfully at him now and he froze under his gaze. “This situation has nothing to do with how I feel about our ability to work together,” he withdrew his hand and stared dazed at the floor, “it makes me sick to think about what happened to you, but I need you to know that I’m glad you ended up here.”

Morrissey nodded and tried to meet Johnny’s determined gaze, but found himself looking at a wrinkle on his shirt. He felt like he was deceiving him somehow.

VIII.

Johnny had left to get groceries; Morrissey’s only request being Cheerios and some more Darjeeling, but now he was left more at odds with himself than he’d been while Johnny was in the house. He had assumed that with Johnny gone the oppressive ghost air of knowing another person was in the house would lift. He thought he would breathe in the easy feeling of true alone time, but he kept biting at his lips and watching the curtains for flutters.

He settled on the sofa to watch anything that would keep his ears straining to hear creaks and footsteps. He turned the volume up louder than he could stand it and leaned back into the cushions, allowing the banal made-for-TV movie wash over his nerves. The movie wasn’t long, was already mostly over when he’d started, so it wasn’t long before the credits began.

His eyes unfocused from the TV and began to take in the scattered copies of NME laying in piles. There hadn’t been much time for him to explore the contents of Johnny’s new life. There didn’t seem to be one. Just an old life still packed in boxes. He ran his fingers over the white walls and wondered where Johnny kept his secrets, namely, old pictures of himself that Johnny could stare at and think about what he’d done.

He noticed the room with all of Johnny’s guitars had its door shut. Maybe he had a demo tape or two in there.  Something he could take with him once this shared hallucination of close-quartered civility gave way to how things truly were and he was left alone again. The door was unlatched and all it too was a slight push and Morrissey was in what appeared to be Johnny’s most frequented room.

There were six guitars; five of them sat on stands and the other was propped against the sofa, next to a guitar case that lay on the ground.  He didn’t see any recording equipment, just piles of sheet music, which didn’t do him any good. He picked up a page, trying to make sense of the lines and circles. There was no point. He let the page float to the ground.

Like the rest of the house, the room had no color, nothing decorating the walls. Morrissey could barely stay at a hotel overnight without bringing along at least a tea cup. The meager decorating he had pulled and prodded Johnny into hadn’t spread to this room. He walked around the sofa, letting his fingers dance across the neck of the guitars as he passed them. The room was so sparse that short of shoving his hands down the cushions he was going to have to give up his fantasy and accept that Johnny didn’t seem to be missing him.

He slumped onto the couch; his legs spread and stretched out along the carpet. Shutting his eyes, he sank lower into the sofa, wondering when Johnny would get home. His foot jiggled idly against the guitar case on the ground. A soft rushing sound was coming from inside. Rather than guess, he slid to the floor, his knees sinking into the too-plush carpeting, and opened the case.

There were orange pill bottles inside. He frowned and pushed them around. Some of the bottles were empty; he crouched down and read the labels.

Temazepam, they all had the same name, and all of them were for Johnny, but the name of the doctors and dispensing chemists were different. The name was familiar, and when he spun the bottle to read the warnings it occurred to him.Sleeping Pills.

Two bottles still had pills in them, one was completely full and the other had maybe ten pills left. Morrissey ran his fingers over his mouth. If Johnny was just done taking them, why wouldn’t he have gotten rid of the extras and why fill a prescription before his old one was empty? He picked up a bottle and shook it.

It wasn’t hard to come up with a reason Johnny would have so many, but he was searching for some alternatives. He had never pegged him for someone to get to this point. The corner of a cardboard box still filled with Johnny’s possessions caught his eye while he spun the bottle in his hand. Whose thoughts took enough shape that he was hoarding pills and arranging his life into easily disseminated boxes?

Morrissey shut the guitar case and threw the latches shut, as if that would deter Johnny from getting inside. What else could he even do? It wasn’t like he had any bearing on what Johnny was doing with his life. What could he begin to say to dissuade him? He stood and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

He went to the kitchen to look into the picked over cupboards for something strong to drink down his new-found knowledge with. There was a bottle of wine in a cabinet next to the refrigerator.

Close enough. Morrissey grabbed it by the neck and went searching for a corkscrew.
He’d just poured his second glass when Johnny came in the door, bags in each arm and trying to catch the door with his foot. Morrissey stumbled over the leg of the coffee table as he went to grab one of the bags from Johnny.

“I see you found the wine without a problem while I was gone.” Johnny grinned as he finally kicked the door shut and followed Morrissey to the kitchen. “I’d have a drink but will I be able to catch up?” It was hard to look at him now, every action and word colored by the knowledge of what was upstairs.

“I think you’re up to the challenge.” Morrissey said, putting things away with an exaggerated clumsiness. It was unlikely that Johnny was going to go straight upstairs and start popping pills while he was in the house, but all the same, he wanted to keep him close.

Morrissey grabbed another glass from the cabinet and walked back to the sofa. He flipped the channel to a movie he recognized but couldn’t remember the name of. Johnny was still opening and closing things in the kitchen, he could hear.

“Come along, Johnny,” he called. Laughing, Johnny took a seat next to him, gulping down his first glass and presenting it back to Morrissey with a flourish.

“I’ll be tripping over the coffee table soon as well,” Johnny said. Morrissey shrugged and turned his face toward the television, but kept a watch on Johnny out of the corner of his eye.

He only managed one more glass of wine before Johnny was emptying out the bottle into his glass.

“That’s all that’s in the house,” he said sadly. “Don’t keep much else in stock anymore, I’m afraid.”  Morrissey shrugged and tried to repress his relief. Next was the challenge of raising the topic of what’d he’d found upstairs.

“There’s a lot of sleeping pills in your guitar case upstairs.” Morrissey said, because tact was for those who still had something to lose, and as friendly as the past few days had been, Morrissey had no illusions about what would happen once he left. He had thought he knew what would happen to Johnny as well, but it was becoming clearer that his perceptions of Johnny’s life these days were somewhat left-of-center.

“What? I don’t-” Johnny stopped and took a breath. “I have a hard time sleeping, some nights.” He leaned back against the sofa, his head tilted back so he was looking at the ceiling. “It’s really nothing.”

“I believe that’s my line.” Morrissey thought he saw Johnny smile, just a little. “And I don’t know if you need that many for ‘some nights.’ Johnny, let’s go and throw some away. What if a toddler waddled in off the streets and thought it was candy? You have to do it for the fans, Johnny.” Johnny swallowed; his neck bobbing.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Johnny said quietly. Morrissey turned to face Johnny. His face was quickly growing hot and he held his eyes open wider in a bid to keep them from filling up too quickly.

“Johnny,” he tried to say without letting his voice break. “What do you need them all for?” He already knew, but if Johnny could give him another reason to cling to he would take it.

“You know why.” Johnny shrugged weakly. Morrissey waited, thinking that maybe Johnny would offer up more information on his own. They sat in silence. Johnny stared at the ceiling, seemingly ignoring the hot gaze of Morrissey on the side of his cheek.

“Don’t tell me that,” Morrissey said through a strangled voice.

“What do you expect?” Johnny laughed and kicked a messy pile of VHS tapes so they splayed out in front of him. “You’ve been a tourist to this fuck-up that is my life for three days now. Look around you; I’m not playing for keeps here.”

Morrissey felt a wave of nausea pass over him and sat up straighter. “Is it because of Angie?”

Johnny laughed, “It would seem that way. But no.”

“If this is about the band, I’ve already said---“

He slid onto the floor so he was sitting next to Johnny. Hadn’t he done everything in his power to leave the door open for Johnny to walk back into the band?

Johnny sighed, Morrissey watched with unease as the guitarist’s eyes remained unfocused.

“Things just haven’t gone the way I thought they would,” Johnny said in a small voice.

“No,” he replied, knowing the feeling.

“I thought you might understand. What did you always horrify interviewers by saying; that suicide was a respectable choice?” Johnny’s hands were over his face now and Morrissey had to strain to make out his words.

“I’ll follow you,” Morrissey with an unquestionable determination. Johnny looked skeptically over at his companion, but Morrissey only shrugged, “Johnny, the only reason I made it past twenty-three was because of you. I’m only still here because you are.” He leaned his head back, feeling the emotion in the room weighing on his chest. He felt Johnny’s fingers reach across the carpet and hinge around his own. In another minute, he leaned across the gap dividing them and kissed Morrissey.

Morrissey’s eyes opened wider but Johnny pulled him closer. It didn’t matter what recipe of emotion and alcohol was fueling this, it was enough to be happening. It was a natural conclusion rather than a sharp turn in their relationship. There was nothing easier than folding into one another’s touch. Morrissey slid further down so Johnny was lying on top of him. Johnny’s hands were clinging desperately to Morrissey, while he thrust his hips against the singer. Morrissey pulled the striped t-shirt over the thinner man’s head and kissed his naked shoulders. Johnny mimicked the gesture, pulling the shedding the Smiths shirt off of Morrissey so their stomachs pressed together in a rush of warmth. Johnny sat up for a moment as he now straddled Morrissey’s hips. Morrissey watched with interest as the other man unbuckled his own trousers and reached down to do the same to his companion. When Johnny touched him for the first time, Morrissey’s eyes closed and he breathed one long groan through his mouth. Johnny rolled off of Morrissey so they were laying side-by-side, never breaking a kiss, as he kicked his trousers off his ankles. Morrissey followed, and their bare legs wrapped around one another until they were completely entangled on the living room floor.

“Fuck me,” Johnny said breathlessly. Morrissey’s heart skipped, as he rolled the other man over.

IX.

It seemed like the middle of the night when Morrissey woke up. It took him a minute to realize where and how he was. Johnny was pressed against him in a cocoon of warmth on the floor. Their clothes were lying in an outline around their bodies. Another round of knocking continued, and Morrissey opened his eyes this time. Someone was at the front door. He looked down at the guitarist and wondered if the visitor would just fuck off. Johnny seemed so small with his arms curled around Morrissey’s torso. He leaned down to kiss his temple and wondered if he could always keep the guitarist at arm’s length so he’d stay safe. But the knocking became more insistent, and Johnny’s eyes twitched open.

“Oh,” he smiled at Morrissey as he kissed the other man’s shoulders and twisted his neck away from the floor, “I guess we should go up to bed.”

“There’s someone at the door,” Morrissey whispered, as the television cast eerie shadows on the objects around them.

Johnny looked suddenly more aware, and reached for his shirt. “I’m sure it’s just the fuckin reporters,” he said, stopping to button his trousers to kiss Morrissey again. “We’ll put on Horses and they’ll disappear.”

Morrissey nodded and grabbed his own trousers. Johnny wrapped his arm around Morrissey’s waist and held him close.

“Johnny!!!” A voice called from the other side of the front door.

Johnny made a face and pulled back from Morrissey, “it’s Bernard.”

It took Morrissey a minute to realize that he was talking about Bernard Sumner.

“I’ll meet you upstairs in a minute,” Johnny said, retrieving his shirt from the floor.

Morrissey nodded and frowned as the other man walked away from him. He climbed the stairs and flopped backward onto Johnny’s bed.

He didn’t know how he had managed to get any sleep while he was here; the walls were paper thin and he could hear every creak of the floorboards as Johnny went for the door. He heard Johnny say, “now’s not a good time.” Unable to contain his curiosity, Morrissey stood and moved back toward the door, cracking it open far enough for him to hear and see the front door, where Johnny was greeting a vaguely familiar face. Neither of them was making any effort to keep their voices down.

“I couldn’t imagine a better time, Johnny,” Bernard was grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I haven’t had so many cameras forced in my face since Ian—well,’” He looked out the window at the lingering reporters and offered an exaggerated wave.

“I don’t know who called them,” Johnny said, looking over Bernard’s shoulder. “Did they say anything to you?”

 Bernard’s smile grew impossibly wider.

“They heard you got our little present. We even signed it,” he looked around expectantly.

“What?” Johnny asked casually as he leaned against the wall behind him.

“‘Our Wank.’” Bernard laughed, “In lipstick, across his forehead.”

Morrissey couldn’t see Johnny’s face, but his silence confirmed that the information rang true.

“Whose we?” Johnny’s voice was harder now. Morrissey felt his stomach turn over, and was sure he was going to be sick on the floor.

“Just some mates; phoned them up and off we went. Didn’t take two minutes once we were in the door to have him back outside in the car park. Took turns playing watcher and nobody even came. Was just about the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

Johnny said something too quiet for Morrissey to hear, but he wasn’t even sure he wanted to anymore.

"Don't look at me like that!" Bernard yelled, before saying something Morrissey couldn't hear. Johnny shook his head, slamming the wall with his open palm.

“Why in fucks sake would you think this is what I wanted!” Johnny said, picking the empty wine bottle from the table and sent it soaring past Bernard’s head.

It crashed abruptly to the ground around them.

“Jesus fuck! Are you insane?”

“Are you!”

“It wasn’t even worth it, for such a fag, he’s shit at giving head.”

“Fuck you, get the fuck out,” Johnny said, shoving Bernard towards the door.

“No, fuck you Johnny. You think I’m so dumb? That I can’t see how shit you are when you’re writing music for me and how you jump when his name comes up and that stupid fucking look on your face when you’re listening to him on your Walkman like no one can tell what you’re fucking doing. He’s not your own personal Jesus Johnny. Look at him.” Bernard’s face was a deep shade of burgundy and his breathing was quick. He looked at Johnny from under his clustered eyebrows.

“Get out,” Johnny said lowly. “Get the fuck out of my house.” Johnny was louder, but he wasn’t shouting. Bernard didn’t move, didn’t blink. Johnny was breathing heavily.
“I bet he’s still here.” He looked at the sofa, into the doorway of the kitchen, up to the landing of the stairs. He began to move toward the stairs, but Johnny put a hand solidly in the middle of his chest and pushed. Bernard looked at him. His earlier grin was gone and replaced by an open slash of a mouth, his teeth barely visible through the gap. The ugly face disappeared when he turned around and took long strides toward the door.

“I don’t know why you’d want to interview him,” Bernard yelled as he walked out the door at the few remaining reporters. “Go interview a real musician.” Bernard was still yelling as he walked away from the house, though his words were no longer intelligible. Johnny stood staring at his open front door until the sight of a photographer inching into his view forced him to more forward and close it.

Morrissey stood frozen, realizing for the first time that he was shaking. He felt like a small child first discovering shame. He tried to remember what had happened through the thick fog of hands over his biceps and the taste on his tongue but nothing more concrete than that was forthcoming. He rubbed at his hairline and frowned. By the time he had seen himself in the mirror, anything that would have been written was gone.  It didn’t matter. Johnny had seen it. He must have known all along the nature of what had taken place to him. Morrissey stared at the junction of the porcelain sink against the wallpaper. Maybe he needed to splash some water on his face. That seemed to be what people did in these situations. Morrissey gagged and took a few staggering breaths.

If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen. He thought desperately. He could feel Johnny standing in the doorway; saw his hand partially outstretched in the mirror’s reflection, unable to actually touch Morrissey.

“It’s okay,” he said grabbing Johnny’s fingers, “if that was what it took to be here with you, it’s okay.”

Johnny was shaking his head his eyes brimming with tears, “no, Moz.” He rested his head softly against Morrissey cheek and kissed the corner of his lips.

“Please tell me, you won’t hurt yourself,” Morrissey said, gripping onto the guitarist as his warm tears curled down Morrissey’s cheek.

“But everything is so fucked up,” Johnny said, taking a jagged breath, “it can’t be the same.”

“It can be better,” Morrissey promised, leaning down to kiss Johnny’s lips. “Let’s stop crying."