“These don’t really need glass, anyway,” Maisie offered helpfully, assessing the picture frames.
“You’re right,” Patrick agreed. The photos themselves were undamaged.
They swept the tile floors and vacuumed the rugs, unsure where little shards and remnants could be hiding. He would tell the kids not to walk barefoot for a few days, and would put Marlene in her booties, the ones they used to protect her paws from the heat. And tomorrow when she was here, he and Rosa would sweep the floors again.
“You have a big house,” Maisie observed, as if it had occurred to her for the first time. “Don’t you get lonely when it’s just you?”
“Sometimes,” Patrick responded. “I think that’s part of being an adult.”
“I’m not going to be lonely. When I’m an adult.”
“No?” He wondered how she could be so sure in the face of a loss like the one she was enduring.
“No. I’m going to have a smaller house. With three Siberian huskies.”
“That seems wise.” Patrick surveyed his spacious living room. It was too big for one person. “Will there be anyone else in this house? Any people?”
“How do you mean?”
Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know. A husband—or maybe a wife?”
Maisie lifted another photo frame, the one Patrick had gifted her with a photo of her mom. A Christmas miracle—the glass remained intact.
“A husband maybe. I don’t have to decide right now.” She traced her mom’s face with her finger.
Since either answer would be fine with Patrick, he agreed. “There’s plenty of time to decide. The huskies, however, are an excellent start.”
When they began on the shelves, Maisie cradled his Golden Globe—the globe part dented and bent—and quietly broke down in tears. “Hey, it’s okay,” Patrick said to comfort her. “It’s the Hollywood Foreign Press. They give them out to anyone. Twiggy, for god’s sake, has two.” Patrick stroked her hair, mimicking the way Clara had carefully brushed it; he remembered how calming it had been for Maisie. This wasn’t about some cherished possession. This was something else. Her growing fear that attaching herself to anything will only cause those things to break, wither, fall away—that maybe she would be lonely after all. “Things can be replaced,” Patrick whispered, pulling her in for a hug. “Things can always be replaced.”
Eventually Maisie retired to bed, choosing to stay the night with Grant—at least to start. Alone at last, Patrick surveyed their efforts. The house seemed more modest, elegant. It was like the earthquake unleashed Coco Chanel, dictating to the living room her old adage: Look in the mirror and take one thing off. Patrick kind of liked the new look, the simplicity. It was spare.
He set to work on his bedroom, wanting to thin it out to match his new aesthetic. The TV was busted, but he didn’t mind; he had little use for it at night other than as background noise when he felt most alone. The books were easy to restack, but he pulled a few titles to donate, anyhow. Books should be an experience, he thought, not a trophy for having read them. The Slim Aarons photo on the wall outside his en suite was askew, but he easily slid it back on its hook, and everything, for a moment, felt level again.
Patrick found the letter in his bedside table, folded in thirds, beneath an old stack of People magazines in which he’d appeared. He’d stashed it there who knows when, years earlier, with a bottle of pills—enough to end things if they ever got that bad. He remembered taping the nightstand drawer closed for the movers when he left LA for Palm Springs; he didn’t want to empty the drawer of its contents, be faced with any of it—the prescription bottle, its long expired expiration date, the letter. Patrick swore he’d never read it again, but also he never threw it away knowing that impossible promises made to oneself in youth are always going to be broken.
He climbed into his bed and pressed the letter to his heart. When he could bear it, he glanced at the first few lines.
I was a ghost for four days and then I wasn’t. That’s how I think of it now.
He was struck by how little his handwriting had changed in the intervening years. How could he be a fundamentally different person, but something as basic as penmanship, the way he formed words, remain the same? His scar, the other lines on his face. The salt in his beard. His arms were thicker after years of working out, lifting things in a vain effort to transform himself into someone strong enough never to hurt. Even his worldview had changed, the things he had to say. So how could his writing not reflect that? How could it possibly remain unchanged?
It was a long time before he could read on.
Joe.
I was a ghost for four days and then I wasn’t. That’s how I think of it now. How I prefer to think of it, for it means that for those four days we were together, neither of us present, neither of us gone. In the bardo, as you might say, never having shut up about East Asia. Maybe you’re there now. Wouldn’t that be something. Maybe at the end of those four days someone asked, “Where to next?” and you said, “Well, I read a lot of books about Bhutan, I rather think I’d like it there,” and, poof, you’re in some hut, or yurt, or whatever the fuck, hanging colorful prayer flags on the wall.
Of course you’re not in Bhutan, just as I’m not at the Plaza Athénée or anywhere I would want to be. Were you even bathed in white light in your purgatory? I was drenched in hospital fluorescents in mine. I still can’t open my eyes wide to this new reality, the world seems too ugly now, phosphorous, awash in a rotting, greenish hue. I keep them closed a lot. My eyes. Not wanting to sleep, exactly. But not wanting to be awake. (Sleep comes with the screeching of tires and that deafening crunch of collision. Remember how I would flinch in that last moment before falling asleep and kick you? The sensation of falling? Jimmy legs, you said. Now it’s not falling, but crashing. And you’re not there to make me laugh.)
I hope you never heard that hideous sound.
I was discharged from the hospital after just one day. The bulk of my injuries were not wounds that would appear on an X-ray, were not treatable by a doctor (unless you count the quack who assigned me this letter to write). They stitched up my forehead, I guess where it hit the dash. Wouldn’t you know it, the passenger airbag was off. It’s almost as if the seat didn’t register me, thinking, “My, aren’t you a dainty thing.” I’ve decided to join a gym. To bulk up. Though I might not. The books say exercise is good, but also not to make any sudden changes. Once again, I’m torn between two worlds.
I came straight to see you, but your family had already descended. And you know more than anyone that they never acknowledged my existence. I know, I can hear you now. It’s not personal—they wouldn’t like anyone you were with unless they had a uterus and a nonethnic name like Beth from Payroll and knew how to do things like make a pot roast. (But let’s be honest: mostly the uterus thing.) I was not allowed into your room—family only! I was not included in your vigil. Me. The one who loved you the hardest. The one who knew you best.
I think this is what kills me the most. (Horrific word choice, given that you’re the one who is dead, but you’ll never read this and I’m not supposed to cross anything out or edit myself in any way.) Your last breaths were taken surrounded by those who didn’t know you. Only memories of you, like I have now. They didn’t know all the best parts. The things that make you laugh. The things you believe. Your passions, your art, your politics, your pop cultural references. The way you taste. The way you bite my lip playfully when we kiss. The way your dick curves just to the left when you’re at your most excited.
Remember that one time I signed your Christmas card “Yours in Christ” and we laughed and laughed as nonbelievers and at the ridiculous formality of it all? (We might have been high. I think more than anything you were stunned I sent you a card.) And the next thing you signed for me, you did the same but crossed out “Christ” and wrote “science”? It became a love language for us, a
secret way to say I love you when our surroundings seemed unsafe. Yours in science. Or how every time I answered the phone you said, “That’s a corncob!” because that’s what Dustin Hoffman says to Jessica Lange in the movie “Tootsie.” Or how I could say for dinner I wanted that thing we had at that place that one time and you always knew which thing, remembered what time and the exact place. And you wanted it, too. Or maybe you were just kind enough to once again let me have my way.
I wandered the halls. Your family could keep me out of a room, but they couldn’t evict me from a building. Eventually they would relent, this family of yours who didn’t know you. Sooner or later they would crack. Someone would say, “Get that boy in here, the one wandering the halls.” They wouldn’t like it, but they would recognize that we had you in common. After a few awkward hours your mother would reach out and hold my hand in fellowship. No? At the very least someone would need me. At some point you would require clothes, you would need to be dressed. To come home, or—as it turns out—to not. They had the key to your room, but I had the key to your things. That never happened. I think they bought you a suit for the service at—god help you—the Beverly Center. That’s the thing about putting a hospital across the street from a mall. Haunt them, would you? Like, rattle some fucking chains. I want them never to sleep again. I imagine this is what it was like at the height of AIDS. This awfulness. Hateful families swooping in and erasing loving partnerships. You’d think we’d left all that in the last century, but no.
It’s this anger that’s taken over. I used to be scared of anger, and that’s because I bottled it up inside. Not anymore! It’s like vomiting after drinking too much. Sure, it’s unpleasant in the moment, but then you feel so much better! Anger is beautiful if you express it just right. Let it out. You should see the face of the woman who ran over my shoe with her cart at the grocery store. She won’t do that again! (That’s an extreme example; I probably owe her an apology.) Anyhow, I only mention this because they’ll probably tell you in Bhutan that finding a way around anger is a form of enlightenment, and I’m telling you that that’s a load of horseshit. Anger, when justified, is glorious.
Do you know what it’s like to be so close to you when you needed me most and not be able to cross a ten-yard divide? There was a minefield between us, filled with explosives made from years of brainwashing and religion and intolerance and spite. I could have made a run for it, like a soldier storming Normandy in a war film with things detonating all around me—I could have broken through. But I was so afraid. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it, that I would step on the land mine that is your mother, who would have me removed from the hospital altogether, in pieces if necessary, and if that happened I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.
Instead I regret this.
There was a kind man who took pity on me. His name was Seth, a nurse. He brought me in to see you when your family stepped out. I held your hand and we said goodbye. As best as I was able.
Your organs have been donated. At least that’s my understanding. I looked up the form and the questions they ask. Sexual history. Do you think your parents knew how to accurately answer? I don’t. I think they lied. Isn’t that the way? They won’t take our blood, but they’ll take our organs! This fucking world. I’ve about had it with straight people. Although I suppose they’d take our blood if we lied on those forms, too.
I am less me. I left part of myself with you. I don’t know what it was, but I felt it leave my body the last time I held your hand. It was incinerated with you, with that cheap suit from Macy’s and, I assume, scattered with you. Wherever that may be.
I will continue. I’m told repeatedly I have to. Greg threatened me not to do anything stupid. (Although, what recourse he would have if I did, I don’t know.) Sara is flying here to be with me. She’s arriving tomorrow. I was supposed to pick her up, but I told her that cars were traumatic and she said, “Of course, I’ll take a cab.” If I play this hand correctly I may never have to drive again. Certainly not to LAX. I will grow old and you won’t ever have to. You will always be perfectly Joe. With your skin and your hair and your teeth and your ability to do three sit-ups and somehow see results.
My life will be different. For a bright, shining moment I was part of a team. I thought we would see the future together and be—oh god, writing it like this sounds so maudlin—A FAMILY. Now I don’t know. I don’t even know what family means. I’m adrift in black space like an untethered astronaut, each star I float past a shining memory reminding me that I don’t live that life anymore.
Yours in science,
Patrick
PS This is dumb. I’m not going back to this therapist.
TWENTY-ONE
The visitors’ lounge at the Coachella Sober Living Facility smelled familiar—eerily recognizable; Patrick couldn’t quite place it and it was driving him mad. The walls were painted concrete brick, like an elementary school classroom, the furniture equally unimpressive. Not in a donated way: there was no sagging, puffy sofa one might find in an old church basement, batting spilling out of a tear in the arm. But certainly nothing high-end or evocative of the clientele this place seemed so desperate (according to their literature and pricing structure) to attract. Patrick took a seat on a chair that was as uncomfortable as its spare design suggested and inventoried the other furnishings. The lines were clean, the design Swedish, Danish perhaps, but everything looked disagreeable and had an air of mass production. Restless, he stood and paced the room in a hyped-up panic, like a dog whose owner promised to be right back.
The door to the hall was closed and Patrick was alone, trapped. The whole place was unsettling and still, there was an eerie quietude—like a reading room, in a nunnery, on a mountaintop, on Mars. Patrick’s mind raced. He imagined residents tiptoeing around in paper slippers while adhering to vows of silence. The temperature was cool, but air didn’t seem to be circulating from the vent. He had been offered a cup of coffee by someone with crooked teeth named Kevin, which he regretfully accepted; the coffee was weak, stale, bland—much like the first impression Kevin himself put forth. Patrick clung to the cardboard cup tightly, both as something to do with his hands and because there was nowhere to throw it away. The corner offered a lone plant; he considered dumping the coffee in the wicker basket that housed it, but the plant was fake and the basket contained craft foam, not soil, and he didn’t want the coffee running through the loosely-woven reeds and across the tile floor, pooling like evidence in a grisly crime.
That fucking letter. Rereading his letter to Joe had kept him from sleep for the second night in a row. If he didn’t take this next step quickly, sleep might never come again.
* * *
Sara arrived in a taxi that night. She used the key Patrick hid on top of the light fixture outside his apartment door; he heard her fumble with it in the lock. She came in and sat next to him, pulling him into her chest, kissing the top of his head. There were wooden blinds covering the windows, blocking out most of the light; the thin slats of sun that made it through fell across Patrick’s face like prison bars.
Joe had been dead for less than a week.
“I got here as fast as I could.”
Patrick nodded, his chin hitting the top of her breast. “They wouldn’t let me see him.”
“I know.”
Patrick gulped for air. “He must have been so scared.”
“They’re monsters.”
That’s all it took—acknowledgment—and Patrick broke down in ugly heaving sobs. She held him until he was empty of tears.
“Let’s get drunk.”
Patrick laughed, not a lot but a little, and nuzzled his face in the scoop of her T-shirt. Her chest was soft, welcome. Is this why straight men obsessed over breasts? It seemed wrong to sexualize something this comforting. Grotesque, even. He squeezed her tightly. They would get drunk. Was it possible relief was that easy? What was it Evelyn Waugh had
written in Brideshead Revisited? “Ought we to be drunk every night?” It was Sebastian. Yes. Yes, I think so. In college, it was his and Sara’s solution to everything. Difficult test, bad grade, hard day, awful date: get drunk. And off they went to Richard’s, a neighborhood bar with bottomless pitchers and a popcorn machine. And it actually, usually, momentarily helped. Patrick just wasn’t sure what witchcraft alcohol could conjure to settle something this dark. “I don’t . . . know what we have.”
He said we, but he was now an I.
Sara pulled a bottle of tequila out of her bag and set it on the table with a thud. “Shots.”
And it did. Help. After the fourth shot. Temporarily, at least, to ease the grip of the fist that was closed tightly around Patrick’s heart. They started with a souvenir shot glass from the Sands that Patrick had acquired on a trip to Las Vegas with Joe; after the third shot Patrick knocked it over, and it rolled under the couch. The Sands itself was long gone, imploded to make room for a newer casino. There was perhaps some symbolism there, but Patrick couldn’t imagine building anything new on his own ground; he wanted to exist as rubble, a fallen monument whose lights once shone bright. “Fuck it,” Patrick said when Sara tried and failed to retrieve the glass; they each took a swig straight from the bottle.
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