Under The Covers

by Baker, Max Q.

  ***

  After the funeral, we all took a few days off and stayed apart from one another.

  Even me and Bo.

  Especially me and Robby.

  [ A Letter ]

  A letter arrived in the mail. It was waiting for me when I returned home from the funeral. It was from Mags. She had written it the day she died; probably written immediately after I was forced to hang up on her at dinner. In the margin, she scribbled a pair of luscious lips and wrote “Blow” under them. It was the Kesha song that had played the first night we kissed.

  Near the bottom, in an upward slope, she scrawled, “A penguin with custard on his lip pushed his smoking car into a garage on a hot day. The walrus mechanic asked ‘blow a seal?’ and the penguin replied, ‘no, I was eating an ice cream.’”

  It was surreal reading her handwriting, her words, her joke (which must have been written sober, since it actually made sense), while knowing that she was gone.

  I could hear her voice in my head as I read the letter.

  “Dear W2,

  I'm not sure I could say this in person, or over the phone.

  And I don't want to put it in an email.

  So I am writing a letter I may never send.

  (do real people still send letters?)

  I used to be a real person. I thought. But life got the better of me.

  I don't know what I am anymore. Or who.

  The pain seemed beyond my control.

  It put me to sleep.

  My body went on autopilot,

  like a racecar tearing through the small back streets of a crowded city.

  The thrill, the oblivion, it drove me.

  The danger, the risk of death, it enticed me.

  I knew I was heading toward my own destruction,

  but I was doing it in style.

  And then I met you.

  You were like a fuzzy mold. You grew on me.

  (Not that I have mold growing on me. You would know if I did.)

  Maybe it was because you cared about me that first day.

  And kissed me like a gentleman the next.

  Maybe it was because I could tell you were trying to be something you weren't.

  Just like me.

  We had that in common.

  Or because you saw 'under the covers' as you say.

  You knew who I was, even if you wouldn't admit.

  You made me remember who I used to be.

  Before I stopped caring.

  And the sleeper awoke.

  My awakening put me on a race against time, on parallel tracks -

  one with a destination of liberation from my past -

  and one on a crash course with self-destruction.

  I wasn't sure which one would win. I'm still not sure.

  But you made me care. You made me hope. And you made me want to try.

  You made me want to be better than I was.

  That's why I'm writing this now.

  Because even if you love someone else,

  I love you.

  I don't want us to lose our friendship.

  Our friendship is more important to me than anything else, even my own life.

  And I will do whatever it takes to keep that bond alive.

  I want us to be more than friends,

  but please,

  if nothing else,

  at least let us remain friends.

  If you haven't already, please call.

  I’m ready to talk.

  I don't want what we have to die.

  Love,

  Mags

  p.s. if you get this, I guess I sent it.”

  Those were literally her last words to me. Delivered posthumously.

  They were not full of hate and accusation.

  They were filled with sadness, caring, and hope.

  [ Questions ]

  Robby's story had bothered me. It wasn't that I didn't believe it, exactly. Generally speaking it had the ring of truth to it. But there was something about the words he had chosen to share that made me a little suspicious.

  He had pointed out that she was dressed like a slut when she picked him up. He had called out that he wasn't going behind my back. And he pointed out that she was already messed up before he got in her car.

  Why had he shared that one specific comment about no one understanding her?

  And she had disappeared with some guy for half an hour. A guy he couldn't possibly identify. Scoring roofies, a drug that made you forget.

  He made a point of saying he didn't know what they had been doing while she was gone.

  What if his entire story was fabricated to try to cover for something happening to her? Blame the mysterious shadow man. The drugs. And how she told him to fuck off and left without him.

  It all sounded like it was probably true.

  And yet…

  I had to wonder if maybe that 'guy' had been him, and he had done something to her because he thought that's what she wanted. Or he wanted; the way he always looked at her; the way she dressed; the way she seemed to put herself out there to people; the way that Robby was himself.

  I wondered if she had been hurt, or threatened, and ran away. She tried to call me. Was this how she crashed?

  Had Robby gotten shitfaced out of guilt? He couldn’t have known about her accident, but he would have known if he had done something else that he shouldn’t have.

  When I said she left me a voicemail from her car, he seemed scared, as if he was afraid she had revealed something in that message. But what was he afraid of?

  I knew that my whole theory was flat-out stupid. Probably. And was just more craziness for me to use to punish myself. But the seeds of doubt had been sown.

  I knew why I was choosing not to call Robby, but I wasn't sure why he wasn't calling me.

  Was he guilty? Did he think I knew something, and I was just keeping it to myself? Was he just as broken up about the whole thing as the rest of us, and there was nothing sinister about his silence?

  I would never know the truth; of that I was sure.

  But it was a question of trust now, and I didn't trust Robby any more.

  Only one thing was certain. Mags didn't deserve what happened to her.

  [ Heart Ache ]

  So I suffered through a dark period alone.

  There’s a popular expression, “Don’t go to bed angry.” Actually, it is based on Ephesians 4:26 from the bible, but the overall meaning is that you should settle all unkind business and hard-feelings before each day ends. Start each new day fresh with a clear heart and conscience.

  I made a point to live by that. If I were unkind or hurtful, I would apologize or make up before I went to sleep that night.

  Except in that one case of Mags.

  I didn’t mean to hurt her. I had been dealing with my own issues, and was trying to have a conversation with her. I secretly wanted the breakup, and thought it made sense, but I never wanted to cause her pain. I meant it when I said we could talk the next day, even if that didn’t end up happening. Even if I weren’t sure it would accomplish anything but more hurt.

  But I never got that chance to make things right with Mags.

  I didn’t make up before I went to bed. And I never got to apologize. And the next day she was dead. Just like that. She died with the memory of the pain and bad blood between us. And I had to live with that. There was nothing I would ever be able to do to change that.

  Life is a time-limited offer.

  And the knowledge of all that went wrong festered within and chewed at my heart.

  So why do they call it a heart ache? I'll tell you why.

  Because all of a sudden, your head feels heavy, like your brain is swelling between your temples and behind your eyes, and your heart feels as if someone has wrapped it up in a plastic bag and started squeezing it until you are gasping for air, struggling for blood. It is dying inside. And the rest of your body, cut off at the core from everything that it needs to sustain life, feels weak, and lost. E
very breath is a struggle, labored and pointless. You wonder why your lungs don't run out of energy and stop all by themselves. You wish you could make them stop by pure will of thought. You feel each beat of your heart banging to get out, to free itself from its cage. It is like a deformed monster, swollen and agonized, struggling to silence itself.

  Heartache is terrible because your soul has no escape.

  You lie down, and wish death would sweep away the pain. But heartache isn't a physical malady, so death will not claim you, usually, so the pain persists. Every single second stretches into an eternity as you suffer. Until you can become numb enough to the source of the problem, to the trigger that started the pain.

  Time is the only real cure for a heartache. The time spent dwelling and replaying the events that hurt, over and over, wondering what you did, or could have done, or should have done differently.

  And that time spent dwelling eventually desensitizes you, turning you one-tick-at-a-time into a soulless unfeeling machine.

  And then life goes on.

  [ Confrontation ]

  A few weeks had passed since Mags died, and the old gang was still not getting together. It was early October when Chris made a special trip to confront me. I was sitting on the steps alone, drinking a beer. A small metal bucket of melting ice had a few more beers with my name on them. That was more or less where my head was at that point. No Mags. No Bo. No Robby. All my critical points of contact had been removed. The life I had started to build had imploded.

  When Chris saw me, he jumped out of his car and ran, out of control. He was having a total sensory meltdown. I stood up, at first afraid something bad had happened to someone else and he was bearing the bad news. I stood up, holding my breath. That was when he actually started pushing me. My instinct was to strike back, but I refrained. Chris was special. I needed to find out what was going on before reacting. I held up my hands and let him push and hit me. This wasn’t the Chris I had seen that night at Karaoke. He was holding back, restraining himself, hitting with the palms of his hand like a little girl. As he slapped me, he kept shouting, “Don’t make me hurt you! Don’t make me hurt you!”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him, genuinely concerned.

  He was spewing brimstone and bile. "It's all your fault! Before you came along, everything was perfect. This was the perfect cover, as you say. Everyone was together. Everyone was alive! We had fun.”

  I couldn’t argue with any of that.

  Chris continued, a storm raging, contained within his complex mind. “Maybe I was never more than a curious footnote to you, a shoe with an invented number, right? But this was all I had! This group was my home, my friends, my one foray into a public world where I could almost pretend to be normal for a while!”

  He slapped me with repeated deliberate weakness in the face, which was more of an annoyance than anything else. I let him and turned my cheek, as if avoiding a hovering yellow jacket.

  Rolling his eyes, and laughing as if he were about to go mad, Chris raised his voice. “It is with great personal irony that I realize I did nothing to anyone in this group; yet now I look around, and Mags is gone; Bo and Ryan are gone; Robby is gone, as much as I hated that imbecilic Darwin-Reject ass-fuck.”

  Chris grabbed me with conviction, like he had grabbed the man at the karaoke, and suddenly I felt his strength. I was afraid to admit I felt intimidated.

  Pressing his nose to mine, he snarled, “Maybe I shouldn't be a whiny bitch, getting all selfish about my own wants and needs, but I wanted you to know what you have done. I AM pissed. And I blame you. I blame you for everything. And I wish you had died instead of Mags!"

  He released me roughly. He was done.

  I didn't rebut a single word he said. It was all true. And I was alone too, destroyed. I sat down in a wicker on the porch and tossed a beer to Chris. "Me, too, Chris. Me too."

  Quietly, he said, "I hate you," catching the beer.

  I agreed. “Me too, Chris. I hate myself. I don't see any way to stop the darkness or the hate now. That’s how I spend every minute of my day. Hating myself and wishing I could turn back time. Wishing I could undo the mistakes I made. To you and to everyone else. So many damned mistakes. But maybe this is exactly what I deserve."

  Chris shuffled into the other chair on the porch, cracking open his beer. "This sucks," he said. His meltdown had ended. He had said what he needed to say. Whether he still hated me or not was unclear, but he had vented his anger and he was calm again.

  I agreed. "So much."

  “You didn’t kill Mags,” he added, more quietly. It was a statement, not a question. He seemed sure of himself.

  “I hope not.”

  “Did Robby?” he asked, tilting his head and raising a bushy eyebrow.

  I never replied.

  We sat in complete silence for a long while, each of us finishing our beers, and then Chris got up and left, saying only, “I’ve led a pretty strange life.”

  [ Transitions ]

  Chris’s confrontation was well-deserved, and I was glad he did it. It was good for him, and in a way, it was good for me. I needed to be punished, and he was the only one brave enough to do it. If nothing else, it felt good – for both of us – to have some contact with the old gang again, even if it was a sensory meltdown and temporarily unashamed accusation. Curiously, after his confrontation, I found that Chris’s comments were much darker, and far less random, as if he had decided to let one of his covers slip, having shared that experience with me.

  ***

  Meanwhile, while my personal life fell completely apart, my website had actually become incredibly popular and profitable. I accepted an offer from a large web portal to buy my site for a sizeable chunk of money.

  At that point, I could buy any new car I wanted, but I kept the one I had built by hand and finished the paint job, doing it the right way. There was literally no other car on the road that looked quite like mine. It was lean, mean, and unique. And then I gave it to Chris, hoping he would love and care for it as much as I did.

  I bought a comfortable Volvo, and exchanged my sneakers for a pair of soft tan Merrells. Still had no laces. Still slip-on/slip-off easy. But it was a shoe that could be worn casual or dressy, but not too dressy. Like Bo’s shoes.

  I had changed my Ho Shoe; updated my personal cover like a new resume uploaded to the web.

  As for my dumb-as-fuck, I didn't even look down when I stepped on it with my new shoes. And I mean I stepped on it. Stomped. Squished. Crushed. Like an ugly Cockroach. There was no love lost there.

  I had everything I needed in a fancy new SmartPhone, except the friends who once would have made it worthwhile.

  [ A Talk With Pa ]

  Another week slowly rolled by since Chris had visited. No one held it against me that I kept to myself and generally moped around, drinking a little too much, and being a little too alone. Sometimes I talked back and acted out, and at one point Ma raised her voice and said, "I am willing to cut you some slack, under the circumstances, but I will not let you use this as an excuse to become flat-out rude, so you clean up that attitude this minute, young man!"

  And I did.

  Or I tried.

  One night when I couldn't sleep, I snuck downstairs to find Pa sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, a spoon buried in an ice cream box. He looked up guiltily.

  "You eat out of the box? That's gross. You know that other people eat that ice cream too, don't you?"

  "How old are you?" he asked me, making a point.

  "22." (My October birthday had come and gone, uneventfully alone.)

  "Hasn't hurt you for 22 years. Why worry now?"

  The point sunk in that he had always done this. All the ice cream I had eaten in this house was secretly covered in frozen Pa-spit. "Great."

  I grabbed a glass of cold water, sat across from him and slumped my head, scratching behind my neck.

  He took another bite, watching me the whole time, his eyes squinting as if he were wondering
if he should try to act like more a dad and say something. "How you doing? " he asked.

  "Doesn't feel real," I told him. "I have these dreams where she comes to me, alive, and tells me it was a mistake. That it wasn’t her, that it was someone else. Then I wake up, and have to deal with her being d..." I changed myself mid-word, "gone, all over again."

  He nodded. He was never very inspirational.

  "You ever lost anyone?" I asked, curious.

  "No one I cared about," he replied without much emotion. He take a few scoops of ice cream, then awkwardly searched for something to say. He asked me, "You loved her?" with the same level of measured curiosity I had used on him.

  "Love is relative," I answered. "I loved her enough. I liked her a lot." I took a drink of water to quench my dry throat. "Doesn't make it any easier, one way or the other."

  My dad glanced over his spoon at me as he took another bite of ice cream from the box. That was still bugging me.

  I admitted, "Anymore, I'm just angry. Angry at myself, Angry at the world."

  He nodded again, waving his spoon. "I'm angry too. I have a lot of regrets. It seems the only thing I don't forget these days is my past. The one thing I wish I could."

  I wasn't really in the mood to be his therapist, but Pa and I never talked, so I felt I should say something. "Do you love Ma?"

  "Sure." He shrugged indifferently and flattened the surface of the ice cream he had been eating.

  I frowned, and shared an observation. "You don't seem to have much in common; or get along."

  "That's just life. It starts out fun, and then you get bogged down with responsibility: bills, jobs, and kids. And then you start to feel old and tired when you can’t make ends meet, and doing something fun costs money you don’t have. But somewhere underneath it all, you don't lose the love. You just don't show it anymore."