ten second buzz

We walked out of the bank, into the light and the dryness. It had been a dry, mild winter, and summer stepped right in. Spring simply didn't happen. Warm all the time. This all pointed in a bad direction: fires, low reservoir levels, municipalities instructing their citizens on how to save water. And then the water runs out: rioting in the streets, murder, devastation...

I hope to be gone by then.

All the papers were signed. I was now the Personal Representative. The lawyer and I said our goodbyes. "You are Robert now," he said. I watched him walk through the parking lot. He didn't stop, and I thought, where the hell did he park? I briefly thought about offering him a ride, then walked to the car, got inside, put the keys in, got it started, drove out of the parking lot. At the stop light I noticed how dry my hands were, the hands of an 80 year-old.

There were a lot of lessons over the years, Robert. Most of them intentional, some by accident. In the beginning, because of the wide-eyed awe you inspired in me, they were all-consuming, laying the foundation for my own aesthetic. I went back later and questioned them, realizing a lot of them were truth, and a lot of them had to be taken with a large grain of salt. At any rate, they all made me think, which isn't a bad thing by any stretch. In fact, pretty damn important, I reckon. But, my friend, this one I don't need just now. This is one that could have waited: how to open a probate.

I could have waited another 20 years before figuring the ins and outs of settling an estate. If only
you were here
so I could
tell you
how pissed off
I am
about this
one.

goodbye, goodbye...

My grandfather was dead at 76, he died on the table while they tried getting the cancer out. It was the first real funeral I ever attended. We stood in line with the rest of the family at the funeral home, waiting to view the body. My mother walked my brother and me past the casket,

and there was this strange moment: they’d done such a perfect job with the body, my grandfather lay there, serene, looking just as I remembered him a month ago. He looked so normal, so much like Grandpa, that ever so briefly – two seconds, maybe – I imagined his eyes squinting, his brow furrowing momentarily, his hand coming up and rubbing his face, turning to us, happy to see us: “Hello…!” As the image played out I knew it wasn’t happening, yet it was happening, I watched it happen, it was so real, and was so happy to get him out of there and back home. But two seconds later it was over, he was just lying there, the three of us bawling. It seemed so real, I wanted it to be real, but I knew it wasn’t, and we went outside.

After they searched the house, the officer told me they’d look outside with the dog. “Is there anywhere you think he’d go?” “The park, or the arroyo. There’s a path down to the arroyo…” I told them I’d already been to the park and was sure Robert wasn’t there, but it was so overgrown and dark near the arroyo, and my flashlight was so tiny, I couldn't be sure about the arroyo. “We’ll start there,” the officer said. “Wait here, and I’ll talk to you when we’re back…”

I stood in his study, looking at the Segovia poster I’d looked at a million times before in the last 28 years. Files, computer, music stand, Ramos picture, chair, desk, everything was there. It all looked so incongruously normal, like he'd walk in momentarily and we'd listen to Beethoven. I didn’t know what to do. The phone rang; who the fuck was calling? I picked it up. “Hello…?”

I was outside and saw the officer and the dog come up from the arroyo. I took a step towards them. “Wait there until I get him back in the vehicle.” The dog was worked up, but he got it back in the truck, and walked over to me. “He’s down there,” he said. “He’s still breathing." I was aware of the sobbing, the hysterical questions coming one after another. “The ambulance is on the way, but please stay back. They need room to get down here and bring him up.” I heard the sirens getting closer, and two vehicles came down the hill. Red lights were flashing everywhere. They got the stretcher out, rolled it to the trailhead and realized they couldn’t get it down the narrow path, so they removed the top and took it down the path. I kept thinking: hurry up, boys. The quicker you get him to the hospital, the quicker you can pump his stomach. Come on, come on… Less than ten minutes later I saw flashlights coming up the path and they had him there and attached him to the rest of the stretcher and there was this strange moment: they wheeled the body past and Robert’s left arm was bent and sticking up in the air and his head was turned towards me and ever so briefly – two seconds maybe – as the whole area was bathed in flashing red lights I imagined his eyes were open and he saw me and smiled embarrassedly and his arm was sticking up because he was trying to wave at me somehow as if to tell me “everything’s ok you got me in time I’ll see you in a few…” but two seconds later it was over I realized there was blood on his face and his eyes were not open and his arm hung in the air in this horrible manner as though rigor mortis had set in and one of the neighbors came out having not seen Robert and walked over to me:

            “What’s going on?”

            There's not much to say at such a time. “Robert attempted suicide again…”

His mouth opened in shock and he watched for a moment and the rest of the officers came up the trail and I heard one walk over to the neighbor: “Did you hear a gunshot?” and everything sort of fell apart around me and seemed incomprehensible and the officer who had been so nice with the dog came back over: “He shot himself, but he’s still breathing…” and I wanted to get my car the fuck out of there and over to the hospital but I couldn’t because of all the police cars and an ambulance and I realized that it was pointless anyway; what did it matter how quickly I got to the hospital now? I wanted to be anywhere but there, anytime but then, doing anything else but this, and the air was a lot thinner than usual and so heavy now, so unbearably heavy, and I wondered if maybe there was a way to rewind the tape now, please, can we rewind the tape, just this once, I don’t ask for riches or fame and fortune, just to rewind the tape this one time, and do this over again.

turn of the screw

Rain - rain where there should have been snow, but we need it, so you accept it. Shouldn't be drinking so much, but the car turns over, and the music plays on the way to the liquor store. It's just enough rain that the low setting doesn't get it off quickly enough, but the high setting is too fast, and the wipers make a horrible noise. A small parking space, but mercifully there's no one else inside.
     "You want a bag for that?"
     "No thanks," I say.
     A ten dollar bill, and 27 cents change.
     "You're all set..."
On Anna Jean, a dog runs in front of the next car up. It looks like about two inches saves it from death. The owner wears a wife-beater, looks unconcerned. Annoyed, even. The whole thing is too ugly to even think about. The wipers make a horrible noise.

Pull up in the drive way, get out, go in, find the corkscrew. Dinner, TV. There's no point in it, but there's no point not in it. All in all, a normal string of events. Forgettably normal, even, but for the horror of the last three weeks.

Robert, I thought of 100 questions to ask you today. Nothing about what happened, nothing like that. Just run of the mill stuff, the stuff we used to bounce around when we hung out. Some were old, going back months, even years. Some came to me just hours ago. Everything from Keith's rhythm track on Live With Me, to appropriating Beethoven for The Black Cat, to hair on the ears, to concentric circles, to flying over Alaska in a prop plane, to the nature of evil. The sound of your voice still comes easily, but I can't answer the questions for you. The clock stubbornly refuses to tick if I stop and wait for an answer, everything just hangs in the air, so I orient myself back to reality, back to a rainy day in spring of 2012, with you gone, with no answers. And the awful weight of it all hits me again: for 28 years, the questions were always answered, even when I didn't like what I heard. Now there's nothing. Just the questions themselves, with no closure, with this jigsaw puzzle in front of me; there are supposed to be 150 pieces, but over 40 are missing, all in crucial spots, and I can sit here at the table, cursing the fates for selfishly keeping these pieces out of reach, or I can get up and walk away, content that I was able to piece together what I did. How fucked up can you get? This one's a no-brainer.