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Whizzer always loved the holidays. Marvin would watch him walk the streets of the city, admiring the glittering Christmas lights, Whizzer shining brighter than any of them. Marvin never wanted a Christmas tree in the apartment, but Whizzer found every cheesy Chanukkah decoration on the market, covering every wall in dreidels and menorahs and stars of David. He had five different “Happy Chanukkah” garlands, each with a slightly different spelling. He trimmed every surface in the living room with white Christmas lights, and always snuck in a few evergreen garlands and big red bows that Marvin didn’t have the heart to take down. He loved Chanukkah and he loved Christmas and he especially loved bragging about the fact that he got to celebrate both. Whizzer was always brighter around the holidays. Happier, livelier, more affectionate, kinder. December was always a good month.
But ever since the bar mitzvah, Whizzer’s decline had taken up speed. By the time December first rolled around, there was almost no life left in him. His face was as ashen as the skies outside this hospital room. The glistening eyes, the ones that always reminded Marvin of the Christmas lights they so lovingly admired, have lost their shine. A bulb broke farther back and now the whole string has gone dead. The Christmas carols he wouldn’t stop singing have given way to coughing and wheezing. The singing always used to annoy Marvin. But he would do anything to hear that voice again, instead of that weak, rough sound; the one barely even able to escape his lips. He would do anything to have Whizzer drag him ten minutes out of the way to Rockefeller Center to see the tree all lit up and sparkling. Just one more time. One more detour. One more song. But this isn’t a cheesy holiday movie and there won’t be a happy ending. There will be no Christmas miracle here. Just this cold, grey hospital room. Just this cold, grey end to their technicolor story.
He balances the cardboard box on his hip, slowly pushing open the door to Whizzer’s room. He’s awake, if only barely, staring blankly out the small window, his eyes only half open. Marvin’s heart still breaks every time he lays eyes on him. “Good morning sunshine,” Marvin says, plastering a weak smile on his face.
Whizzer turns his head and returns the gesture, the smile that once was able to light up a whole room now merely a shadow of a grin. “What’s all this?” he asks, nodding at the box.
“Surprise,” Marvin replies, setting it down on the bed. “They wouldn’t let me bring in a whole Christmas tree, so I figured this would have to do.”
Whizzer breaks into a smile. A real one this time. Still nothing like the one he used to sport, but closer now. He opens the box and peers inside, searching through it slowly, before pulling out what he was looking for. It’s a stupid blue Santa hat that he had bought years ago. He always wore it when he decorated the house. This time, though, he tosses it to Marvin. “Your turn.”
Marvin groans. “Do I have to wear it?”
Whizzer nods with a laugh that devolves quickly into a fit of raucous coughing. “It’s tradition,” he says, once the coughs have seceded.
Marvin sighs and puts the hat on. “How does it look?”
“Completely ridiculous.” Whizzer tilts his head with a loving grin. “I love it.”
Marvin chuckles and rolls his eyes. He reaches out and caresses Whizzer’s temple lightly with with his thumb, playing absently with his ear. Whizzer reaches up, covering Marvin’s hand with his own. It’s bony and cold, but his touch still causes Marvin’s heart to lurch. He laces their fingers together and brings their hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss into Marvin’s palm. Marvin smiles and kisses him lightly, none of the fiery passion of days past. Replaced now by a sweetness, a warmth, a simple kindness. Whizzer’s lips are always chapped and his mouth tastes sour, but, to Marvin, each kiss is just as intoxicating as ever.
“Now go make this place look pretty,” Whizzer demands.
“Unfortunately, you hate every single one of my design decisions.”
“Which is why you won’t be making any,” Whizzer says matter-of-factly.
“Oh?” Marvin laughs.
“I may not be able to stand, but I sure as hell can still boss you around.”
And Marvin has no idea how he does that. How he maintains his sense of humor even as the darkness closes in. How he can laugh and tease and love with every fleeting moment, even as his body shuts down. Even as the disease drains his last ounces of life, Whizzer finds a way to smile. Marvin couldn’t do it. When he’s not with Whizzer, Marvin can hardly bring himself to eat. When he’s not with Whizzer, he doesn’t see the point anymore. He feels as if he has nothing left to give.
As expected, Whizzer hates every single one of Marvin’s decorating instincts. The silver dreidel shouldn’t be directly above the silver menorah. The “Happy Hanukkah” garland should be higher, so that “Chanukkah”, “Chanukah”, “Hanukah” and “Hannukah” can all fit beneath it. And the big red bow and the string of lights should be hung over the bed, and, while he’s at it, hang the mistletoe there, too.
“Cheesy bastard,” Marvin scolds.
“I prefer the term ‘romantic’,” Whizzer corrects with a chuckle. Every time he laughs, it seems, he erupts into a new torrent of those violent, wheezing coughs. Yet he never misses the chance to make a joke.
“You amaze me, you know that?” Marvin says quietly, more to himself than to Whizzer.
Whizzer looks up at Marvin and pats the bed next to him. “Lie with me, would you?”
Marvin nods and crawls under the covers, taking that stupid hat off and setting it next to him. He wraps his arms around Whizzer’s stomach and buries his face in the base of his neck. Whizzer’s hands cover Marvin’s and he squeezes them tightly. “I love you so much,” Marvin whispers. Had he said it any louder, he’s sure he would have burst into sobs.
“I love you, too.” Marvin is surprised when Whizzer’s voice sounds strained, as if, he too, is holding back tears. Through this whole ordeal, though Marvin has often found himself breaking down in front of Whizzer, Marvin has only seen Whizzer cry once. “I can’t wait for Christmas,” he says weakly. “It’ll be my last one, though, so it better be epic.”
“One epic, Jewish Christmas coming right up,” Marvin assures him. “No Chinese takeout this year, I promise.”
“That’s right. I want a full turkey and shitty, hand-decorated gingerbread cookies. And eggnog. We have to have eggnog.”
“We will definitely have eggnog.”
Whizzer doesn’t speak for a while. Marvin feels his arms rise and fall against Whizzer’s stomach with each shallow breath. “I missed the smell,” he eventually says. “That’s why I always wanted the tree. Because the smell reminded me of holidays at home.”
“Whizzer, I’m so-”
“Shhh,” Whizzer hushes. “Let me finish. I missed it cause it reminded me of the home from my childhood. But that’s not home anymore. Hasn’t been home in a long time.” He pauses, catching his breath. Even talking can exhaust him at this point. “This,” he says finally. “This is home.”
“The hospital room?” Marvin asks.
“No, asshole.” Whizzer squeezes his hand again. “You.”
Whizzer doesn’t make it to Christmas. He doesn’t even make it to the first night of Chanukkah. Marvin is lying with him when he takes that final breath. No drama, no fuss, no big, flamboyant exit to mark the end of his life. Just a quiet hospital room and a heart that got tired of beating. A body that got tired of fighting. And he slips away, just like that, without a word. How unlike him. Still, he went as peacefully as anyone could have asked for. That’s what Charlotte says, at least. As if that’s supposed to make him feel better.
He doesn’t cry that first day, though. He wants to cry. Desperately, he wants to. But he doesn’t shed a single tear. He just sits in stunned silence, numb and deaf and blind to the world around him. All he feels is empty.
He’s asked to return the next day, to collect any remaining items that Whizzer or anyone has left behind. Trina offers to do it for him, but Marvin shakes his head.
“I’ll go,” he says. “I should go.”
It feels too familiar, that sterile hallway and this heavy door at the end of the hall. It feels too familiar, because, when he opens the door he expects to see Whizzer lying there, all skin and bones, a shadow of himself, but alive at least. He expects that weak smile and the laughing turned to coughing fits and the snarky jokes and the dry, sour kisses. But, instead, the bed is empty. Marvin feels heavy. The decorations that once seemed bright and cheerful hang limp and dull against the white walls. He sits down on the thin mattress and stares up at the wall of “Happy Chanukkah/Hanukkah/Hanukah/Chanukah/Hannukah”. He remembers Whizzer returning home with a giddy smile on his face, shopping bag in hand “I found another one! How many are we at now? Five? Someone needs to figure this shit out, it’s getting ridiculous.”
He looks around, seeing the one real menorah in the room, sitting on a table in the corner. “You lit them all last night! At least let me light the shamash or something! I’m feeling very left out here!”
And the mistletoe, still hanging above the bed, like a teasing reminder of the nights he’s now lost. “If we hang it over the bedroom door, Marvin, we’re limiting its powers to the confines of said bedroom. I don’t like being restricted like that, you know?”
It’s that mistletoe that finally breaks him. For the first time since Whizzer’s body went stiff, Marvin cries. And it’s not gentle tears, but big, earth-shattering sobs that hurt his lungs and sting his throat and cause a painful throbbing through his head. He lays down on the bed, suddenly too weak to hold himself up, and squeezes a pillow against his chest. It still smells like him, vaguely. Or this version of him. It’s Whizzer’s scent mixed with the stale scent of the hospital room, but it’s him. Marvin breathes him in as best he can, between sobbing fits that feel like violent seizures. And the pillow is soaked through with tears by now, but he’s found something here and he can’t let it go. Because Whizzer was right. A smell can bring you home. And Whizzer? He was home.