Speaking Ill of the Dead (excerpt, 2003)

from, SPEAKING ILL OF THE DEAD (short fiction, excerpt, 2003)

So Tuesday night, Boozer started much earlier than usual, drinking I mean. Really it was a continuation of the night before, he hadn't really stopped, just passed out stinkin'. Jack was pretty fed up with him and so was Elena. I was too, really, He'd said some pretty mean things to me. I was just the tiniest bit tired of the whole Jennifer Drama. As a matter of fact I was just tired. I had worked late, and we were very short-handed at the restaurant.

When I got home, Jack was in the same damn mood he always seemed to be in lately, the one where he just sits and chain smokes and stares at me, and I say "What? WHAT?" Believe you me, Jack's been getting a little creepy lately. The whole house was just crackling, you know, like a pile of dead leaves waiting for a spark. I cooked up this really great Low Country Boil to cheer us all up, but I was the only one that wanted to eat it. Well that is just alright, I said, I'll eat it by myself. And I did. I had a few glasses of wine, too. By myself. Fine and dandy. Y'all go ahead and weird out, don't bother me one bit. I'll still enjoy mine, you know. I started thinking for the first time about getting my own place. I couldn't really afford that, but maybe a change of roommates. Maybe we're just all getting on each others' nerves.

Boozer started to go downhill fast after he started working at Michael O's. I mean, even I noticed it, out of the corner of my eye sometimes, or over my shoulder. Boozer, well, Marcus really, did I say? Boozer's real name is Marcus. He never liked it. I didn't either, really. It was a family name. He started coming in every night in a worse and worse mood. One night with a black eye, the next with a cut lip. He got morose. I asked him about it but he just ignored me. For days. The hard ignore.

Finally I said, "Alright, Mr. Shithead. Mr. I'm the only one on the planet with a problem. You can ignore me, but you're falling apart, and between you and me, I'm the last friend you got in this damned house, and I'm standing in line for my bus ticket to anywhere else so listen up. I don't want anything from you. Not anymore. You can waste your money, your time and your life on some bouncy fool who will never see you, I don't care. You're an idiot, but if that is what you want, fine. But for God's sake look in the mirror and do something about yourself. Clean up. Eat a green salad. You've just become gross. Your sister is through with you. Jack is ready to verbally drive your head into a wall. You're just fucked up, Boozer. I'm not as young or as dumb as you've always thought I was. This ain't love, hon. This is just fucked up, pure and simple."

He looked at me for a moment, and just for a second, I thought I saw a glimmer of the old Marcus. The one I missed. The one I'd followed around my whole damn life, dragging my blanket. Dragging my doll after, dragging my school bag after, dragging my paintings after. Dragging my raggedy-ass ol' heart after, leaving sad little furrows in the wet Tybee Island sand. The one I would've done anything in the world for, if he slowed down long enough to see me standing there, seen me for who I was instead of who he got in his mind I should be.

I guess it's always that way, isn't it? By the time you recognize the reality of someone, all you can see is their back, disappearing over the horizon, all you are left with is the memory of their fire to keep you warm, blue-orange shadow trails of what they meant to you. Just for one damn second, I was pretty sure he saw me, that we stopped spinning in our solitary pirouettes long enough to just see each other for who we were. I'd been waiting for that my whole little life, I guess. And then the door bell rang, and it was gone. But not the memory of it. No. Even after how it all turned out, I guess I'll always have the memory of that one second. That's more than some people get, I suppose.

When the doorbell rang it was a jumpy shock. I'd just fixed it that morning. It had never worked before, so it was strange. Elena came out from the kitchen, drying her hands on her tee shirt. It even roused Jack from his corner, and he got up slowly as if out of a dream, and kind of sleep walked across the room. You know how when the phone wakes you from a nap, and you are up and across the room and your heart is pounding and you are answering the questions of a stranger before you even know you are awake? Jack opened the door before I could get to it, I was still clutching the threads of the moment, trying to weave something up out of them, but I looked at Boozer and I could tell he was gone again. Gone and never coming back. I felt like I aged about twenty years in that one moment. Probably that's a good thing. I don't know.

Jack opened the door, and there was this guy standing there in a brown leather jacket over a black shirt. Boots. He had this fuzzy red hair and beard. Boozer saw him and started forward, this crazy look in his eye. "You ignorant son of a Dublin whore" he said. His hands came up together. He looked crazed. I mean, I'd seen him mad before, but not like this. This was different. This was hard, stony death anger. The red giant in the doorway just stood there, with a teasing, triumphant look on his face. This little visit to our doorway was his victory lap. He wasn't here to sell anything, he wasn't here to deliver anything except the final blow. Boozer looked like a man with nothing left to lose. God knows why. I'll never understand it. I will never, ever understand it, not until the day I die and St. Peter himself explains it all to me. But I knew what he felt. He'd just realized he'd lost the only person in the world that meant anything to him. I understood that, believe you me. I understood it hard. Because less than a minute before, I had too.

It was the lightest decision I ever made. I know it should, but it doesn't really bother me much, not even now. It might, later, you know, after the lacquer coat of martyr love wears off. Elena couldn't have done it, she'd just stand there and dither. She's sweet but she'd dither you into the next century, gathering opinions. Really. Jack was a non-actor, always was, too cerebral. I'm sure they are comforting each other right now, Jack and Elena. Elena dithering, spinning her little what-if worry circles, Jack just trying to explain it all rationally and failing miserably. Boozer was too angry to think things through, plus he was ham-handed and stumbly, all he could every think to do was lunge. Poor guy, always flinging himself head-long in the wrong directions. That was way too over for me, I'd watched him fling himself off a cliff too many times. I wasn't going to watch him do it again tonight.

And then I saw the pipe...