Fleeting
The days and weeks following Zac’s funeral felt all too familiar to Taylor. There were so many things that had to be done after a death, things that Taylor had gone through only a little over a year prior. He knew this routine. He knew about all the phone calls and letters to make sure all the appropriate people and agencies were aware of Zac’s passing. He knew about the piles and piles of fanmail that would inevitably arrive well into the future.
The last step, which they had all delayed as long as possible, was cleaning out Zac’s apartment. It seemed that no one in the family wanted to do it. Isaac claimed he wouldn’t know what to do with Zac’s things and Diana kept promising she would do it, then coming up with any number of excuses.
After two weeks, Taylor finally accepted that he would have to be the one to do it. It felt like a fitting sort of penance, he decided. Shiloh agreed and offered to accompany him. The next day that she had free of work, she joined him and they drove to the apartment she had shared with Zac for two years.
They had moved in together during her senior year of college, the same year that Taylor proposed to Charlotte. Taylor always thought it was strange, since they weren’t even dating at the time. For a while, Zac even had another girlfriend who spent a few nights a week in the apartment, but that didn’t last very long. It had been a convenient arrangement, Shiloh explained. They were always going to be best friends, whether they were together or not, and she needed a place to live after Charlotte moved in with Taylor.
The apartment was plain and sparsely decorated. It reminded Taylor of how Shiloh hardly seemed to exist in her current apartment; he supposed that was something she and Zac had in common. Neither of them felt the need to put down roots and really settle somewhere, even in a place they would most likely be staying for years. The only distinguishing feature in Zac’s entire apartment was the one wall he was allowed to paint. Even before setting foot in the apartment again, Taylor could remember what it looked like. He wasn’t surprised to see that Zac had added to the mural, though.
It had begun with the deep shade of blue that he and Shiloh had picked and had approved by the landlord. Then Zac began sketching various scenes – cityscapes and animals and musical instruments – in pen, then later in acrylic paint. Shiloh had added a few touches here and there of her own. Over the years, it had taken on a life of its own, even when the rest of the apartment was bare white and only the minimal things needed for daily life.
“I’ll take Zac’s room, if you want to stay in here,” Shiloh said, giving Taylor a slight nudge. “Just give me a few of those boxes and I’ll get started.”
Taylor nodded and handed over a few of the flat cardboard boxes they had picked up from an office supply store on their drive over. He could have stood and stared at the mural forever, but he knew he had to get to work. He pulled a marker from behind his ear where he’d stuck it for safekeeping and labeled the first box “DVDs.” He figured that – the big floor to ceiling shelf of movies, games and so on – was a good enough place to start.
He packed up box after box of DVDs and games. Taylor wasn’t surprised at all by how varied and extensive Zac’s collection was; Zac was by far the biggest nerd of the three of them. Taylor had no doubt that, especially since the band had quit touring, Zac had completed every single game on the shelf and watched every movie. It took nearly all of the boxes he had to pack them all and he realized he would have to make a trip down to his car for more boxes before he was finished with the living room.
The bottom shelf was far less organized than the others, and seemed to be piled full of all manner of items. Taylor sat down in the floor to examine it and found that among the empty CD boxes and things were several VHS tapes. Each one was hand labeled in what he recognized as his father’s handwriting. The dates varied, but Taylor could tell that each one came from their earliest tours, when their parents had insisted on documenting everything.
Even in the beginning, at their young age, they had a sense that the fame couldn’t possibly last forever. It seemed like such a fickle, fleeting thing that could be ripped away from them at any moment. There had been times, especially during the dark years with Island Def Jam, that it seemed only mere days remained before their time was up. But in those early years, they had been especially careful to film everything, to document it all, as if they needed the extra proof that it really was happening.
Taylor wondered when Zac had liberated these tapes from their archives in the studio. They seemed so random that Taylor was sure that Zac had just walked in, grabbed the first ones he touched, and brought them home. He looked up and saw that there was a VHS player plugged in; it looked old and he could see the lines of Zac’s fingertips brushing off the dust before, no doubt, playing one of these homemade Hanson documentaries. He couldn’t stop himself from brushing his own fingertips over the buttons; something about knowing how recently Zac must have been in that very spot shook him to the core.
Their fame would fade now, Taylor supposed. He had spent the last year feeling washed up, anyway, certain that he would never want to make music again. Now he supposed that he couldn’t. Sure, they could bring in another drummer, the way they’d brought in various bass and rhythm guitar players over the years. But that would be an insult to Zac. Taylor didn’t think he could stomach the sight of someone else behind the drumset, someone else’s hand in his during the final bow, someone’s pale imitation of Zac’s perfect harmony.
Still, even after a year of no music, their fans had turned out in droves to mourn Zac. Of course they would be sad, but Taylor wondered how long they would stick around now that it was really over. Would they still consider themselves Hanson fans? Would anyone care who Isaac and Taylor were now?
They were shallow thoughts, Taylor knew. Those things didn’t really matter. It wasn’t the fame that had ever truly mattered. It was only the ability to keep making music that mattered; that was the thing they truly feared having ripped away from them. Now it truly was gone, and Taylor wasn’t sure that he even knew who he was anymore.
Taylor couldn’t stop himself. He grabbed a tape labeled August 2000 and popped it into the VHS player. From the floor, he turned on the television and pressed play, then stared up at the screen to see what that particular tape might reveal.
It hadn’t been rewound from whenever it was last played, Taylor assumed, from the way it abruptly began in the middle of a tour of their bus, narrated by his father. It wasn’t really any different from the bus they’d had for the previous tour, but nevertheless, their dad described it all in such detail that you’d think he had never set foot on a tour bus before. By that year, things were only just barely beginning to lose their luster.
He pushed back the curtain to the back lounge and Taylor wasn’t surprised to see Zac sitting there. Still, it took his breathe away to see his younger brother there, looking even younger than Taylor’s most recent memories of him. His face was almost completely hidden by his dirty hair and he was engrossed in a book that Taylor couldn’t see the name of. When Zac finally acknowledged the camera with half a smile, then held up his book, Taylor wasn’t surprised to see that it was The Hobbit. Even then, it was so worn that the cover was barely hanging on. Taylor wondered just how many times over the years that Zac had read and reread that entire series.
If anyone asked, Zac would tell them his favorite character was Gandalf, but Taylor knew it was really Sam. He’d jokingly compared Taylor to Frodo in the movies, complaining that Elijah Wood was too pretty for the role. Taylor wondered if he hadn’t really been trying to compare the two of them to Sam and Frodo. In the end, Taylor wasn’t sure that either of them had been strong enough to carry the other’s burden, but it was his job and his job alone, whether he wanted it or not. And for Zac, he would do it.
“Taylor?”
He jumped up and scrambled to turn off the tape, embarrassed to let Shiloh see him being sentimental and unproductive. He wasn’t sure how she would feel about seeing Zac on the screen, anyway.
“Yeah?” He called out, pulling the tape out and quickly tossing into in a box.
“I think… I think my water just broke.”