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The first time David IJzermans hears David Bowie he’s seven days old and screaming at the top of his lungs.
He can’t sleep and neither can his parents and none of them can remember what the light of day looks like.
It’s three am and Robbe is pacing, up and down, patting David’s back and praying to god that he stops crying soon. He’s holding David tightly to his chest, bouncing slightly as he walks.
Sander observes them from the doorway, eyes heavy and exhausted, but he’s still smiling faintly. “Your son is a screamer.”
Robbe begins his next rotation, narrowing his eyes at Sander over David’s tiny shoulder. “ My son?”
Sander nods against the doorframe, yawning loudly. “Yep, between two am and six am he’s your son.”
Robbe opens his mouth to reply, but then David’s screaming intensifies, and his face falls. The fatigue sets in his shoulders and he blinks at Sander with glossy eyes. “I’m tired Sander. I love him so much, but this is so hard.”
Sander approaches slowly, circling his arms around them both, so they’re cradling David between them.
“I know,” Sander admits, “but it’s you and me, you’re not alone.”
Robbe dips his head, resting their foreheads together and closing his eyes. They stay like that for a for a long moment, David’s cries still hitching in the space between their bodies.
Sander tilts his head and presses a soft kiss to Robbe’s dry lips and then steps back. “Give me a second.”
He leaves the room and returns with his phone. He sets it down on the changing table, sound turned up halfway.
The opening notes of Ashes to Ashes waver gently across the room as Sander pads to Robbe’s side and holds out his hands. “I’ll take him for a while.”
Robbe shifts and lowers David carefully into Sander’s arms. Seeing David’s little face screwed up in despair makes Sander’s chest ache. He starts swaying from side to side, trying to soothe them both.
Sander looks up into Robbe’s exhausted eyes.
“You should go try and sleep for a while.” He suggests, but Robbe shakes his head and smiles, stretching up and resting his head on Sander’s shoulder, arms wrapped around his waist.
David is still crying, but the volume has decreased, enough for Sander to hear the song clearly as it reaches the chorus.
He starts singing low, his mouth forming the words on instinct.
“ Ashes to ashes, fun to funky, we know Major Tom’s a junkie ”
Robbe twists, pressing his face to Sander’s shoulder, lips hardly moving, but Sander realises he’s mouthing the lyrics against his skin.
David’s crying evens out into a soft simpering. Robbe and Sander keep gazing down at him, soft with wonder.
Finally, David sinks into a light slumber, furling rosebud lips and the angry creases smoothed out of his little face.
David Bowie sings and Sander sways.
David sleeps.
+++
By the time David is three David Bowie is as familiar as the sound of the wind trailing through the leaves.
When his Dad is cooking dinner, when he can’t sleep, when they’re in the car, David Bowie is there with them.
David doesn’t know the words to the songs or who sings them, but they sound like home and they’re all he’s ever known.
+++
David is five when he first starts to get it.
Daddy’s been calling him Bowie for a while now and David doesn’t know where it comes from or what it means but that’s okay. He likes the soft way Daddy says it, how he only uses it when they’re happy.
Daddy is cooking dinner today, spaghetti and sauce, and David can smell the garlic from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table, propped up on a pillow and sipping on a cup of orange juice.
Daddy turns on the speaker and David recognizes the music. David likes this song, Daddy plays it a lot, it’s loud and fun and he likes how smiley Daddy gets when he sings it.
David knows it makes Papa happy too.
David watches as his Dad moves around, bobbing his head to the music, hands twirling in the air along with the beat.
David giggles, Daddy always makes him laugh, but especially when he’s like this, silly and sappy.
There’s a muffled laugh from behind him and David turns as far as he can in his seat and finds Papa standing behind him gazing at Daddy with gooey eyes.
Daddy spins around and catches them both staring, and his smile matches their smiles. He starts to sing, loud, and it echoes around the kitchen. “ Rebel, Rebel, you’ve torn your dress, Rebel, Rebel, your face is a mess .”
Papa rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning so David knows he’s actually happy.
His Daddy gets that look on his face, the one that Papa says means trouble and he dances around the counter, arms outstretched and takes Papa’s hands, dragging him into the middle of the kitchen.
Daddy twirls him around until Papa is stumbling and laughing and smiling so big David wonders if it hurts.
Then Daddy hugs him tight to his chest – “ Hot tramp, I love you so .”— Spinning them on the spot until Papa is laughing as loud as Daddy is singing and they’re dancing and kissing.
And David watches and watches because this is his favourite thing, and this is his favourite sound and when he realises that he has to ask before he forgets. “Daddy? Who’s singing.”
Daddy stops mid twirl and comes over and David feels bad for pausing the fun, but then Daddy is pulling him into his arms and spinning him around too and kissing the side of his face before answering, “This is Bowie.”
“Bowie?” David asks, confused, because that’s him that’s what Daddy calls him, and he doesn’t understand. “You call me Bowie, I don’t sing.”
Daddy laughs, but it’s not mean, and he still sounds happy, so David doesn’t mind. “No, but Bowie is brave and cool and smart and so are you.”
David glances at Papa, like he’s checking it’s true, but Papa is smiling too and nodding and well if Bowie is cool and brave and smart then David doesn’t mind borrowing his name sometimes.
+++
When David is seven, he knows most of David Bowie’s songs by heart.
He can sing the words with Daddy in the car and hum them to himself at school. His Dad makes him playlists and he listens to them over and over.
Daddy shows him other music too, Queen and T-Rex and The Kinks and The Beatles. David likes them all. Papa plays his music too and David likes it just as much, but it doesn’t quite feel the same.
He didn’t listen to Nas when he was a baby, he listened to Bowie.
That’s around the time David starts noticing the t-shirts.
His Dad tells him about bands and their music, playing him albums on their record player. Then David starts to see them in his playlist, their names in little white letters across his screen. Then he starts to see them on Daddy’s t-shirts.
He’s never really noticed before what the words on his Dad’s shirts say, but they’re in the same colours as they are on the album covers and now, he can’t ignore them.
Daddy has a lot of band t-shirts, smattered in black and grey and white. They feel soft when David touches them, and they smell like him.
He wears them everywhere, around the house, out to the shops, the only place he doesn’t wear them is to work.
Daddy has multiple with the same names on them. He has a lot of Bowie, some Kinks and Queen and the rest only one or two.
Then he realises Daddy isn’t the only one who wears them.
Daddy will be in one shirt all afternoon, but then Papa will be wearing it before nighttime. David doesn’t really get that because Papa does the laundry and he could get them clean, but he doesn’t. Mostly Papa wears them to bed like pyjamas and sometimes he walks around in them on the weekends. David has seen him lifting the collar up, hooking it over his nose and staying like that for a moment before he lets it drop.
David can’t help feeling a little left out.
+++
It’s not long after that, that David forms a plan.
Daddy is at work; he told David he has a student exhibition to go to and when David’s face turned quizzical, he explained that it’s a big party where everyone brings their art and puts it up for people to see.
So, it’s just him and Papa, but Papa is busy in the kitchen making mac and cheese and so David takes his chance.
He creeps down the hallway, standing up on his tiptoes to make less sound and walks to his parents’ bedroom. The door is open which makes it easy for David to squeeze inside.
At first, David searches the floor, there’s usually at least one shirt there, but Papa must have cleaned up because there’s nothing around. He’s momentarily stumped, going into their drawers hadn’t been part of the mission, but he thinks he’ll have to.
He pads over to the dresser. It’s big and kind of scary and if he stares at it too long it looks like it’ll fall down on him.
He starts with the bottom drawers which are the easiest to reach, but all his finds in there are jeans, so he moves higher. There are no shirts in the second drawers either and he huffs.
But when he opens the second drawer from the top, there they are, Daddy’s black shirts, scattered around and mingling with Papa’s in the drawer.
He has to reach a bit, but he gets his hand on one and pulls it out, clutching it gently between his fingers. He untangles it, and his baby heart swells in his chest when he sees David Bowie on the front, lightning bolt striking across his face.
David tugs off his own shirt, dropping it unceremoniously to the ground beside him and drags the new shirt over his head.
He looks down at himself, the shirt falling to mid shin, but it still smells like Daddy and David Bowie is on the front and that’s what matters.
He toddles over to the mirror in the corner, stands in front of it and looks at the shirt, looks at himself in the shirt, immensely pleased.
Then he hears a voice. “David?”
He turns around, eyes wide and scared and finds his Dad standing in the doorway, tie undone around his neck and shirt half unbuttoned.
Daddy glances down and smiles. “Is that my shirt?”
David kind of wishes he could curl into a ball and hide inside it.
“Yes,” he grumbles, looking down at his feet.
Daddy moves out of the doorway and drops to his knees in front of him. David looks up at him as he reaches out a hand and plays absently with the hem. “Hmm it’s a bit big, isn’t it?”
David just nods, a little confused as Dad keeps inspecting him.
Finally, he rocks back slightly and looks into David’s eyes, his cheeks wide and happy. “Well, you can keep wearing this one if you want, or we can go and buy you some in your size?”
David’s whole face lights up and he lets out a quiet gasp, hands clenching in excitement. “Yes please, I want my own ones.”
Daddy slips a hand up to his cheek. “We’ll order some tomorrow, okay? But you can keep that one on tonight.” David nods again, grinning, but then Daddy’s face turns gentle and his smile is that small soft one he usually saves for Papa. “My little boy.”
David moves forwards shyly and into Daddy’s space, wrapping his arms around his neck and pressing his cheek to his shoulder.
Daddy bands his arms around David’s back, curling his fingers tightly in the fabric where it slouches around David’s shoulders.
Daddy’s tie is pressing into his collarbone and he’s sure Daddy must be tired from kneeling on the floor, but neither of them move.
David is glad.
He isn’t ready to let go just yet.