But you do.
You tricked me, you cunt. You latch on to my ankle and pull and I fall over and I drop your Da Vinci Code and land on my side and it hurts goddamn it and you kick me in the dick and that hurts goddamn it. You are not gone, forever and you are possessed and out of words and my groin aches and my side pounds and you are not my savior, you make things worse. You are alive, underhanded, kicking me when I’m down and I scream in agony and you are toxic and Satanic because just a minute ago:
“You were dead, you fucking bitch.”
You say nothing. You kick. But I’m nontoxic and I’m bigger and braver and God gives me the strength to recover from your nasty blows. I swat your legs and now you collapse, flat on your back. I mount you. You try to bite me but you can’t and you try to kick me but you can’t and you try to claw me but your wrists are locked in my hands. You can’t do anything with me pinning you down. You spit at my face; you are a Masshole. And you are weaker now and I let go of your arms and wrap my hands around your neck for real this time. You try to hit me but your little fists aren’t what they once were. The bad in you outweighs the good and your cheeks turn white and my cock throbs in pain and my hipbone pulsates and your eyes bulge. You’re disgusting. My mother’s Nirvana T-shirt that I was wearing the day you stalked me to my house, the one I’ve held on to my whole life, it’s a mess of cum and vanilla. You have torn it beyond repair, you bitch.
“You were right, Beck,” I say to you. “You kill people. You do.”
I squeeze your neck and I thank you for kicking me in the dick, and I try to blink your saliva out of my eyelashes. I thank you for proving beyond a reasonable doubt that you are bad. You do not want love or life and we never had a chance and you are commonplace and raw, gasping and gurgling. Solipsistic with your fudgy inconsiderate fingerprints ruining my books, my heart, my life.
“What’s that, Beck?”
You have one word left in you: “Help.”
And I do help you. I take my right hand and reach for your Da Vinci Code. I shove the book into my mouth and bite a few pages. I yank the book away and I toss it and grab the torn pages out of my mouth, wet with my saliva that you wanted so badly.
My last words to you: “Open up, Guinevere.”
I shove the pages into your mouth and your pupils slip around and your back arches. This is the sound of you dying. There are bones cracking—where, I do not know—and tear ducts in emergency mode—the tear of death seeps out of your left eye and onto your porcelain cheek and your eyes are fixated on somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience; your eyes have their silence. You are no better than a doll now and you do not react as the pages in your mouth take the blood that rises from your gullet.
And all at once I miss you and you missed me and I call to you and I seize your tiny shoulders.
You don’t respond. You are as flawed as all the books in the store; you have ended and left me and you are gone, forever. You will never leave me in the dark ever again and I will never wait for a response from you ever again. Your light is out for good now and I take you in my arms.
No.
I want to throw myself in front of engine engine number nine. How could I have done this? I never made you pancakes. What the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t breathe and you are my sweet lord, Beck, different, hot. You are. Were.
I cry.
52
AT the end of your days, you claimed that you weren’t a writer. But I think you would appreciate the poetic symmetry regarding your burial. It was a long, lonely drive upstate, more than four hours outside of the city. It was tough going in the Buick, with you in the trunk with your green pillow, silent as Little Compton in the winter. I drove past Nicky’s Pizza and I kept going and I found this diner. Nicky’s and his brother’s extra homes are nestled in nearby Forrest Lake, a private area just outside of Chestertown. This is a pure township, Beck, old-fashioned and pleasantly anchored to an antiquated way of life. I eat a grilled cheese sandwich because I have to, because burying you in the cold forest will be demanding, even though everyone who comes into the diner can’t resist remarking on the mild winter. So mild, I wouldn’t need a red Holden Caulfield hunting cap from Macy’s even if I still had one. I will not cry. Not here.
Most in the diner are local, and those who aren’t local have driven in for a car show. The waitress asks me if I’m here for the car show and I say that I am and I check my phone and I have to go to the bathroom again, because every time I check my phone, it’s like you die all over again. Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands and I cry, quietly, so as not to attract attention. Your death is a song on repeat and I splash cold water on my face and try not to think about the fact that I will never hear from you ever again. I won’t, Beck. You are dead.
I know that Nicky is not stupid. He wouldn’t bury you on his own property. But he would drive into the nearby woods off Forrest Lake Drive, as I do now an hour after sunset. I see a pink-and-white sign. There is an event, “Chet and Rose’s Wedding” is happening tonight at the camp at the end of the road. But I will not be deterred. I veer off-road into the blackness that’s purer than the beaches of LC and darker than the depths of your solipsistic soul. There is no ocean here to soften the starless blow of eternity. I brake, slowly. Chet and Rose are the ones with bad timing, not me, damn it.
The night is so empty that I can hear the wedding when I shut off the Buick. I strap on my night vision goggles and grab my shovel and step out into the darkness. I try not to listen to the wedding as I shovel. But it’s hard. Chet and Rose take their first dance—Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”—as their friends and family clap. I wonder what our wedding song would have been and I ask you but you don’t answer. You are dead.
I dig. I have never been and will never be as alone as I am while I dig. Upstate New York clings to the cold like no other place. Only here would I have to listen to Eric Clapton shut off lights and praise his loyal, beautiful, girlfriend as I, alone, sweat and shiver and prepare to put you into the dirt. Life goes on, so literally, and I stab my shovel in the bitter earth. I bend over to catch my breath. I look over at you, wrapped up in a wooly blanket from Bed Bath & Beyond, silenced in the open trunk. I am breathing normally now and the revelers are doing the Electric Slide and would we have had a wedding like this? I suppose it would have been on Nantucket because you’re the one with a family. I would have invited Ethan and Blythe and Mr. Mooney. Mr. Mooney wouldn’t have come. But he would have transferred the title of the shop to you and me. I know it. I want the wedding to stop and I would like to scream at the top of my lungs but I don’t want to alarm you. But I can’t alarm you. You are dead.