Diane Bass looked down at the small brown
paper wrapped box that had arrived in the mail. She sighed
sadly as she looked at the return address: James L. Bass,
Orlando Florida. It had been postmarked September 28,
2009, which was several weeks ago, and Diane assumed that
it must have gotten lost on its way to take so long to
get to Mississippi. Diane shook her head as she tore the
brown paper off the package and opened the box, revealing
the jewel case within and the yellow sticky note on top
of it with the message: "Play in your DVD player"
Diane removed the disc and walked into her living room.
She placed it inside her DVD player, turned on the television,
and pressed play. Diane's breath caught in her throat
as she saw the image of the young man in front of her.
"Hi Mama."
Diane let out her breath at once and resisted waving
at the screen, knowing that it was just a recording.
"I know we haven't talked in a long time, ever since
that night
but I wanted to try
again...to get
back together with you
cause
I need you. Now
more than ever, I need you."
Diane realized just then how thin and gaunt her son looked,
how unhealthy, how tired and haggard he appeared to be.
"Mama. I'm dying. My doctors have told me that I
don't have a lot of time left. They told me that this
cyclomegalovirus I have is going to make me blind
and
then
everything else will go after that."
Diane's eyes widened, as she whispered, "Oh my God
he
knew he was dying
."
"Mama. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry that
I didn't try to make up with you before now. I was too
proud to put aside all the hurtful things you said to
me and to try again
until now. But I want to try
now
with this tape
try again
and hope that
we can come together again before
"
Diane sniffed and shook her head.
"I want you to know that I love you, Mama. I love
you and I forgive you for everything that happened that
night. I forgive you for shutting me out of the family
and for not talking to me for the last 5 years. I am sorry
for all the sadness I caused you and I forgive you for
all the hurtful things you said to, and about, me."
"I remember that just after that night, I said I'd
never forgive you for what you said and did. I remember
telling Joey that I "had my pride" and I think
I actually believed that for the longest time. I believed
it until just after the doctor told me that I was going
to die. Then I realized what a nebulous commodity pride
really is."
"It's a funny thing, Mama, but pride doesn't comfort
me when I am lonely, and pride won't be there for me on
my deathbed. I don't want my pride anymore, I want my
mommy back."
"Oh
my baby
" Diane said as her tears
fell freely down her cheeks.
Diane's gaze never strayed from the screen as she listened
to the words her son spoke. As he spoke of forgiveness
and love, she realized that he had never changed
he
hadn't changed from the bright, kind little boy that she'd
raised. And he hadn't changed on the night that he told
her he was gay. It was she who had changed. She had let
her prejudice and fear harden her heart and turn her away
from her own flesh and blood. As Diane strained to catch
her breath from the sobs that had begun to constrict her
breathing, she realized that this- revelation, painful
as it was, had come too late.
"Mama?"
Diane's thoughts snapped back to the image on the screen
and she inadvertently answered.
"Yes baby?"
"Mama. I need you. I need you here
Mommy
I'm
so scared."
Diane put her hand to her face and began to weep into
it. She was too late
too late.
The image flickered and disappeared bathing the living
room with the eerie dim light of the blank screen.
Diane reached over to pick up the phone from the coffee
table and dialed the number she had never been able to
forget. She hesitated when she heard the voice on the
other end.
"Hello Joey. It's Diane Bass."
"Hello Diane. I was kinda expecting your call."
Diane nodded and then asked in a small voice, "I
need to talk with you, if you'll let me. If I fly in tomorrow
morning, can we meet and talk?"
Joey sighed. "Yeah. I'm free tomorrow."
Diane sighed and hung up the phone, immediately re-dialing
the airport and booking a seat on the first flight out
to Orlando the next morning.
As the plane took off from the airport in Mississippi,
Diane reflected back on the last night she'd seen her
son alive: the night that he'd told her that he was gay.
"Mama? I need to talk to you. It's really important."
Diane looked at her son and saw the mix of nervousness
and fear in his eyes.
"What is it baby?"
Lance took her hand and held onto it as he looked into
her eyes.
"Mama
I've been keeping a big part of my life
from you. I know that with work and all, I don't get to
see you that much, but when I'm here
.I don't like
to have to keep something like this from you.
"Mama
I'm gay."
Diane's eyes widened slightly and she let out her breath.
"What did you say?"
"I'm gay."
Diane closed her eyes and sighed, then opened them again
and shook her head.
"Gay? Who did this to you?"
"No one did this to me
it's what I am."
"No. My baby is NOT gay. Who DID this to you? Was
it Joey? Did HE do this to you?"
Lance shook his head. "Mama
please
nobody
MADE me gay! I love Joey, Mama
and he loves me too!"
Diane just shook her head again and sighed. "Well
this
just can't be happening. I can't have a homosexual as
a son."
Lance looked at his mother, sighed and shook his head.
"I'm sorry Mama, but that's what I am. I hope--"
"We can get you treatment baby! We can take you
to--"
"Treatment? NO! Mama
.I finally come to deal
with this myself
I don't need any crackpot treatment
to try and cure me of what I really am."
"There's no other way. This will ruin you. I'll
go call a doctor I know who treats this kind of thing
and see how fast he can treat you."
"NO! Mama! The word is NO. I am not seeking treatment.
I'm gay. That's the way I am. I've dealt with it
.now
you need to find some way to come to grips with it too."
"Lance
.you are my son. You will do as I say."
"No I won't. I may be your son, but I'm also legally
an adult. I am telling you as a courtesy only, because
you are my mother and deserve to hear it from me."
Diane pulled her hand free from Lance's and shook her
head.
"You will do as I say, or you will no longer be
welcome in this house
or in this family."
Lance shook his head. "Then I guess this is where
we say goodbye."
Diane stopped and put her hands on the table.
"You ungrateful bastard! You'd leave
leave
your family, just to go traipsing around being perverted
with all your friends? After all the hard work we did
to get you where you are today, you would just leave us?"
Lance's head snapped up and he laughed a mirthless laugh.
"ALL YOUR HARD WORK?!? Mama
all you did was
encourage me to join the band and come and visit. I did
all the hard work. You just watched me do it."
Diane shook her head and turned around, walking over
to the sink. Lance watched his mother closely as she grabbed
tight hold of the countertop and rested her weight against
it.
"Then go. You're no son of mine. Get out of my house.
You're no longer welcome here."
Lance nodded sadly and left, grabbing his bags from where
they lay in the hall outside the living room. Lance had
placed them there earlier, along with an airline ticket
back to Orlando. When he'd made up his mind to tell his
mother, he had prepared for the worst, but still hoped
for the best. He was disappointed nonetheless; that the
worst had come to pass as he slung the last of the bags
over his shoulder and headed towards the door.
"Goodbye Mrs. Bass." Lance said coldly as he
walked past his mother.
"Lance
.you can change
.if you'd just
change, none of this will be necessary."
Lance shook his head. "If you cared a damn about
me
.if you really cared at all, I wouldn't have to
change. You'd just accept me for me
but I see that
that's not gonna happen
so
goodbye."
Lance walked through the door and out to his car, loading
his bags into the trunk without a backwards glance. Diane's
resolve crumbled slightly as she heard the car door slam
closed and the engine rev to life.
"Goodbye
my baby."
A slight jolt, as well as sounds of the wheels touching
ground, roused Diane from her thoughts and she realized
that the plane had landed in Orlando. After disembarking,
Diane grabbed her bags and headed for her hotel.
After changing clothes and freshening up, Diane drove
over to her late son's house. She sighed as she got out
of the car and walked up the path to the front of the
house. Diane knocked lightly on the door and waited for
a response. Several seconds later, the door opened and
Joey Fatone peered out.
"Hello Diane. Was your flight OK?"
Diane nodded at the greeting and the perfunctory pleasantry
Joey extended to her.
"Come on inside. Can I get you something to drink?"
Diane shook her head and sat down on the muted sage green
camelback sofa in the living room.
"Joey-- I just received a DVD from Lance. He wanted
to try to make up
to get back together before--"
"It arrived too late, huh? I'm sorry about that."
Diane looked up at Joey and gasped as she saw that his
face had changed, twisted into a mask of pain, anger and
sorrow.
"What?"
"I hated you so much. That you could treat him like
that
that you never tried to make up with him in
those 5 years
I hated you so much I couldn't even
see straight when your name was mentioned."
Diane's eyes widened and she placed her hand over her
chest as she listened to Joey speak.
"He recorded that almost a month before he died
and
I promised him I'd get it to you. But when I got to the
post office
I just couldn't bring myself to send
it. I hated that he would even want you back in his life
after the way you treated him. But then
after he
lost his sight
and his health began to slide
I
realized that I better send it. It was too late, though.
He died about a week after I sent it. I sent it bulk rate
mail. I guess deep inside, sending it made me feel better,
even though I knew there was no way you'd get it in time."
Diane's mouth gaped open as Joey's words echoed through
her mind and perforated her heart, cutting her to the
quick; enabling her to feel just a taste of the awful
hatred he had held for her.
"What tore me up inside, what really made me hurt,
is that in the hospital, blind and sick as he was, he
still begged for you to come. You! DAMN YOU! You threw
him out and abandoned him
and yet, at the end, the
only one he wanted was you! I was always there for him,
but he never called out for me. Just you! He wanted his
mommy! And because of me, she never came."
Diane's control evaporated at Joey's words and she began
to weep.
"My baby asked for me?!? Oh God!"
As Diane's sobs abated, she looked up and saw that Joey
was crying as well.
"I hated you up to that point
until I realized
how much Lance loved you, despite everything you had done
and
then I dunno
I just felt numb...I couldn't feel hate
for you anymore. I realized that he had forgiven you
but
yet I was the one who could not find it in my heart to
do the same."
Joey shook his head and walked over to the bar, grabbing
a bottle of whiskey and pouring out two shots. He then
walked back to the sofa with the shot glasses and the
bottle, placing one of the glasses on the coffee table
in front of her and one in front of himself.
Diane looked down at the shot for a second before grabbing
it up in her hand and placing it to her lips, swallowing
it all at once. Diane gasped as the powerful liquid burned
in her mouth and throat. She gulped in air as the shot
left her feeling lightheaded and breathless.
"It's not your fault, Joey. I should have seen how
wrong I was a long time ago and reconciled with Lance
and tried to start over--"
Joey shook his head and sat back in the seat.
"It IS my fault
It's all my fault. He'd be
alive now
if I'd just
just gone with him
.it's
all my fault that he got sick
all my fault that he
died."
Diane looked at Joey and was shocked to see the broken,
lifeless look in his eyes. She wondered what had happened
that he could shoulder such emotions.
"He came back here after you tossed him out. He
was upset and he wanted to get out and just get drunk
and forget about it. And I didn't want to. I wanted to
stay in. I was tired from recording
and I just wanted
to go to sleep. If I had gone out with him, he'd still
be alive today. He wouldn't have
."
Joey poured another shot of the whiskey and downed it
in one gulp, almost cringing at the powerful kick of the
spirits in the glass.
"What happened Joey?"
"He and I were just starting out as lovers back
then
and after I told him that I didn't want to go
out
he went out by himself. He got really drunk
and
hooked up with a guy. They went back to his place and
had unprotected sex. Lance never spoke to me about it
to me, but six months later, he tested positive for HIV
and admitted that he'd only ever had sex with two guys:
me and this one night stand."
Diane watched as Joey held his head in his hands, silently
sobbing as he drew breath.
"So you see
if I had just gone with him that
night
he'd still be alive today. He and I would have
come home and made love and he wouldn't have had sex with
that guy. I could have stopped it
but didn't."
"Oh Joey. There's no way you can feel responsible
for the decisions Lance made. You can't hold yourself
accountable for something like that."
"Can't I?! I let my lover go out to a bar and get
drunk
how can I not feel responsible? He had sex
because he got drunk and I could have stopped it if I'd
just been there with him? I AM responsible for his dying.
His death is as much on my hands as it is on yours. We
both made the decisions that ended up killing him."
Diane shakily poured out two shots of the whiskey and
laid them out in front of them before sitting back on
the sofa.
"So...Now what?"
Joey looked at her and shrugged, then got up and grabbed
a package off the top of the television and tossed it
to Diane. Diane looked at the wrapping and immediately
realized that it was the same paper that Lance had used
to wrap her DVD. Diane opened the package and got up off
the sofa and placed the disc inside the player and turned
the television on.
Both Diane and Joey gasped as they saw the pale, haggard
looking young man appear before them.
"Mama
Joe-bear. If you are playing this, then
you two have gotten together and talked. Mama
I made
it clear in my other video to you that I forgave you everything
that happened that night. I am sorry if we never got together
again to make up like I'd wanted to, but please know that
I do love you."
Diane nodded almost imperceptibly as the tears again
began to fall freely down her cheeks.
Lance sighed and looked back up at the screen.
"Joey
I know you feel as if me getting sick
is somehow your fault. That if you'd gone out with me
that night, that I would still be alive. It's not your
fault, baby. It's mine. If I had been a stronger man,
I would have realized that I didn't need to go out and
get drunk to feel better
if I'd just stayed home
with you that night, your love would have made me feel
better like it always does. Joey, I didn't stay and that
was my choice, my fault
and having sex with that
guy
that was my decision as well
and I accept
the consequences of that decision."
"Mama
Joey
you have to forgive yourselves
and each other now. Mama, I know you blame Joey for me
being gay and whatever else
and Joey
I know
you hate Mama for shutting me out and all
but
it's
all in the past now. Joey
I'm gone, baby
and
you are all she has left of me. Mama
I'm gone and
Joey's all alone now too."
"Can you find it in your hearts to forgive each
other? You're both going to need one another so much now
."
Joey turned and looked at Diane as Diane met his gaze.
Only then did both realize how much they really did need
each other. Joey held out his hand towards Diane and she
gingerly put her own into his.
Joey and Diane looked back at the screen as Lance's face
fell and he let out a deep breath.
"I love you two more than anything in the world.
Please take care of each other. Goodbye Mama...Goodbye
Joe-bear."
The screen flickered and went dark. Joey and Diane sat
on the sofa in silence for a long while, holding hands
and drawing on each other's strength. No words were said
because none were needed. Both had found what they had
most wanted that night through forgiveness.