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July 17, 2000
Birthdays at the Kriegman’s are, for lack of a better term, monotonous. The balloons, the cheesy coned hats, the cans of silly string, the designated party game that everyone ends up being forced to play, and the annoyingly loud Top 50s music are but an experience that is admittedly foreign to Andre.
There were never really any huge parties or anything, no kids came over to play with him in his backyard, because there was simply nothing to do at the Kriegman household. Looking back at his childhood, it was pretty damn bleak, if he were to be honest.
As much as Andre hated how over-the-top ‘normal’ birthday celebrations are, he secretly longed to have experienced it at least once as a kid. Much to his chagrin, it would be a wish never fulfilled. A birthday was a family gathering, a cake and some food as far as Andre is aware. Nothing more, nothing less. And with his 18th coming up, his expectations from his family are predictably low.
His mom bakes an extravagant charlotte cake, flavourful vanilla frosting and fluffy butter ladyfingers with assorted edible fake flowers and fruits on it. It’s nice, but it’d be even greater if Andre’s mom didn’t bake that, like literally, every other day.
“How’s the cake?” His mom places a glass of milk in front of him, it makes Andre feel like a little kid.
“Yeah, nice.”
“Nice cake, but how about nice camera?” Andre’s dad is staring down the lens of the Sony Camcorder Andre is currently holding in his sweaty palm. His birthday gift. Disappointedly, it wasn’t the model Andre asked for, at all.
Truthfully, he wonders if there’s any point letting his parents know anything about him if they never even listen, their gift an obvious half-assed attempt. But Andre wouldn’t say that out loud, he’s not trying to get grounded, thank you.
“They say the viewfinder is supposed to give a better picture.” His dad continues, German accent and all.
“I don’t think that’s how it works, Dad.” Cal chuckles just to Andre’s left, and he pans the camcorder over to his blonde friend. “What’re you chuckling at?”
Cal chuckles again, “The camera is almost as big as your head.”
Cal perches one leg on the chair, icy blue eyes gazing into him like he sees through all. Through the cracks of the walls that Andre had built up over the years, Cal inevitably finds a way to wiggle right through, down to the centre of his core.
He often looks at Andre like he can read him like an open book. Like Cal knows that Andre’s eternally grateful that he’s here, in his life, and really, Andre genuinely is.
Cal is one of the highlights, the silver lining breaking the monotony of a usual Kriegman birthday. He makes it all worthwhile, their plans together undeniably being the actual main attraction of this whole function.
On Andre’s 16th, he and Cal gleefully snuck into an R-rated movie, a re-release of one of the Evil Dead movies. It was terribly gorey, bloody and chaotic, which made it all the more delightful. At some point, purely for shits and giggles, they started flinging popcorn at the people in front of them, giggling and ducking in their chairs everytime someone had turned to find the culprit.
Eventually, someone had caught them just as they were about to throw another handful, yelling a resonant “Hey!” and they fully booked it. They ran out the south entrance of the cinema, mounted their bikes and raced each other back home, laughing and hooting all the way.
“Did you fucking see his face?” Andre cackled as he breathlessly pedalled on his bike. “I know!” Cal had said between giggles, “That was friggin’ awesome, Andre!”
On Andre’s 17th, they carried out one of their first “Army of Two” missions. A bunch of 6 week old eggs, rolls of toilet paper in hand and a mental list of douchebags they’d planned to target in mind, they walked around the neighbourhood late at night to execute their top secret operation.
They teepeed Brad Huff’s (named ‘Douchebag #1’ in Andre’s list of annoying assholes) house, and then some more. The stench of the eggs were utterly atrocious, and they made sure his range rover got the best of that treatment.
It wasn’t as thunderous as their previous endeavours, their goal was not to get caught after all, so it was a quiet birthday ending with Cal and Andre ultimately passing out in a set of limbs together on a couch at the Gabriel home. If they recalled the awkward morning after where Cal awoke with Andre’s head in his lap, they never talked about it.
Andre’s finger slips over a button and it automatically zooms in, the camera now attempting focus on Cal’s nose. “Oops. Hey Cal, I can see your disgusting nose hair from here.”
Cal smiles and kicks him under the table, “Shut up.”
“Boys.” Andre’s mother is shaking her head. “So, do you have any plans for tonight?”
Andre leaves the camera on with Cal in view, “Just plan on going to a kegger, maybe get some heroine, some cocaine, you know, the easy stuff.”
“And weed, some LSD.” Cal chimes in.
“Why don’t you try ecstasy while you’re at it?” Andre actually laughs at his mom’s sarcastic retort.
“We’re just gonna hang out, I guess. Maybe shoot some bottle rockets, or whatever.” The camera captures Cal pulling a smirk, and Andre doesn’t have time to react before the camera is grabbed out of his hand and the lens is being shoved in his face.
Cal angles the viewfinder towards himself, his thin pale hands a contrast to the black design of the camcorder. “I have something in mind. Wow, your acne is barely visible on this thing.”
It’s Andre’s turn to kick him under the table, and Cal just chuckles.
“You have to be home by 10pm.” Andre’s dad interrupts, stoic and direct as always.
Andre checks his watch, it’s 8pm. “I know, Dad.”
A slice of his mother’s cake and a family group hug later, Cal is holding a bag in one hand and pulling Andre by his shirt sleeve out onto the street with the other, a skip in his step and a suspicious twinkle in his eye.
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
“Just our usual place. C’mon, you’re dragging your feet!” Cal lowers his grip from his shirt sleeve to Andre’s wrist, tugging it towards the direction of the neighbourhood pond.
They walk for a very long while like that, Cal seemingly unaware that Andre is trying really hard not to turn red at the hold on his wrist. They’re practically holding hands and it makes his head all fuzzy.
They make it to the empty dock and sit down by the water. Cal puts the bag down and hangs his legs over the wooden ledge, swinging it back and forth.
“I love it here. It’s like a different world.” Cal inspects the horizon, the sun is setting and it colours Cal’s already light hair into a shinier golden. He looks real beautiful like this, Andre ruminates.
“This is our spot, no one else’s. It’s Army of Two property.”
“Hear, hear.” Cal turns to unzip his bag, and hauls out a small plastic bag filled with–
“Is that a fucking blunt?”
Cal retrieves the rolled up long white joint, “A joint actually.” He passes it over, along with his Zippo.
“Where in fresh hell did you get this?” Andre places the joint between his index and middle finger, giving it a sniff. It’s real. He and Cal don’t smoke weed all that much, for Andre, barely at all.
If Andre’s parents find out about this he’s absolutely screwed, but it’s his birthday, so he thinks, fuck it, he’ll deal with the consequences later.
“Secret.” The sun had now fully settled, it’s dark out, only the street lamps illuminating the area. Cal grins pearly white teeth at him.
Under the dim fluorescent lighting, Cal still manages to glow, like it’s his duty to fish Andre out from the perpetual murkiness and offer some kind of bright solace.
Andre grins back at him. “Thanks, man.” He lights it up, and takes a deep inhale. Perhaps a little too deep, as he ends up coughing a mere few seconds later.
Cal laughs again, a sound Andre is starting to love. “Dude, you suck. Here, watch,” Cal takes over, inhales and Andre lets his eyes trail over the visible neck veins by Cal’s throat. He puffs it out, eyes glossy. “See?”
They spend a time passing it back and forth, before discarding the almost finished joint back into the plastic packet.
Their eyes a slightly red, head in a woozy haze, Andre feels amazing.
“Me too.” Andre doesn’t even realise he had said that out loud, Cal beaming at him, eyes equally bloodshot. They’re sitting side by side with their hands splayed behind them and their legs stretched, barely touching.
It’s a wonderful moment of tranquillity by the wooden bridge, listening to the soft ripple of the waves from the pond and the trees swaying to the wind. It’s so calming, peaceful. Very much unlike the terror of what’s to come on Zero Day, but Andre isn’t comparing or complaining.
Abruptly, Cal breaks the calm by fetching his butterfly knife from his bag along with Andre’s camcorder. “I want us to remember this,” he says as he starts carving deep into the hardened wood. “I want to save this spot, for us, only us.”
Cal slides the camera out, turning the night vision function on and begins filming his handy work. Andre leans over and takes a peek, an “AK + CG” now forever ingrained into the dock. Their dock. It’s ridiculous how much that fills Andre with joy, a safe place to call theirs forever.
“Sorry it’s not much.” Cal closes the camera, lying down. Andre follows suit. “For your 18th, I mean. Been too busy prepping for our big school extravaganza and stuff.”
Andre lays on his side, hand pillowing his head, “It’s okay. I like this.”
Their faces are unexpectedly close, and they spend a minute peering into each other’s eyes. A moment, a beat, before he speaks again. “I’ve never felt the way I feel with you, with anyone else in this fucked up world.”
Cal leans forward, “Yeah? And how do you feel?” His eyes are boring into Andre’s soul, down to the centre of his core. He already knows.
Andre meets him in the middle, and they connect in a way they’ve never had before. Their lips are both dry, but neither mind as Cal pulls Andre over him, letting himself be enveloped by the stronger man. Cal’s hand fists into Andre’s white shirt and Andre’s is grasping Cal’s delicate cheek.
Andre straddles the blonde’s hips, unabashedly draping himself, covering him all over. His nose bumps into Cal’s once and they chuckle, before joining their lips together once more like it’d physically pain them if they stopped now.
They kiss and kiss and kiss, making out without a single damn care in the world.
A loud pop of a lone firework is what forces them to break apart and Andre is on high alert, twisting his head back and forth in a quick motion, examining the dock for the sound of the interruption.
Cal tugs on the waistband of Andre’s jorts, “‘Dre, it’s okay. Look.”
He points to the end of the pond, and more fireworks start popping, higher into the air this time, all kinds of blue, red, orange and purple. An extremely blurry, barely visible shadowy figure at the other side yells at them, inaudible over the loudness of the fireworks.
“Who the fuck is that?” Andre yells over the noise. He stands up and squints into the far distance.
“I may have, uh,” Cal is on his feet, patting the back of his jeans for dust, “told your cousin Chris I was bringing you here today and paid him to set off fireworks at 10.”
Andre breaks out into laughter, chortling like a damn nerd, “Are you kidding me?” The shadowy figure on the other side now looks like it’s waving. Fuckin’ Chris, man. “That’s hysterical.”
Andre watches as the fireworks continue to paint the dark sky, an array of colours reflecting back at them. It seems to be endless, and the entire neighbourhood should be awake right now. The thought cracks him up even more.
He’s jubilant, radiant at the sound of the crackles and roaring booms and the commotion of the entire town witnessing Cal’s silly plan in action. All this, this huge display of affection, all just for Andre.
He smiles harder than he has ever had in his life, a day well commemorated. His 18th, one he'll safely keep in the deepest crooks of his black heart, to remember forever.
Cal stands beside him, watching the colours bounce off Andre. They risk a quick peck, a small reminder of what’s to come in this new development of their relationship.
They share a loving glance, then Cal’s grabs Andre’s hand and interlocks their fingers tightly.
“Happy birthday, Andre.”