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.