When you’ve had a girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend die a span of 5 years, you get a little paranoid. It’s not a matter of if it happens again but when. We all die eventually. So even though it may not happen now or 10 to 20 years from now, it will happen. But who will be first? Will it be me or my partner?
Jacks might inherit her mother’s breast cancer. The next cigarette could lead to an early
heart attack? Or a random chunk of blue ice could fall from a passenger plane, killing her instantaneously. Maybe she’ll be electrocuted during a house repair project or choke to death at the dinner table. The cat could trip her on the stairs.
This past weekend I was out of town for my 3 day work week. I felt that impending
doom, worried that she might already be lying dead in a ditch somewhere. All because it was 10pm and I had not heard from her since 11am. I couldn’t remember if she was headed Up North for a visit or if she was supposed to be working.
I left her a voice mail. Texted her. Nothing. I tried to calm myself. Maybe she didn’t have very good cell phone service Up North. Maybe she was busy at work and couldn’t call me back. Maybe she went out for a pack of cigarettes and was never coming back. Earlier that day I had noticed that she had disappeared off my Facebook page. I was no longer in a relationship with Jacks, according to Facebook. If she was really dead, there was nothing I could do about it anyway. I told myself to just go to sleep. I took a Benadryl and proceeded to toss and turn. I texted her brother. He hadn’t heard from her either. .
My phone vibrated at 10:30 with a message from Jacks. Her phone was almost dead and she didn’t have her charger. She would be home soon, and she loved me. I was relieved but still wide awake. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I heard her voice from the safety of our home.
15 minutes later, she called me but not from home. She was at exit 90. She needed the number for a tow truck. She had been driving 70mph down the freeway when her tire flew off and her truck hit the cement, sparks flying. The truck stopped inches from the guard rail.
The guys at Tuffy said the lug nuts were sheered off perfectly like someone had cut them off. Rather suspicious. A couple days earlier we had noticed that the top right hand corner of her license plate had been cut out. Some fucker must have used a tin snips to steal her tag. She only makes $9.00/hr. Seriously, if you can’t afford your own tag, ride the bus! She drives a rusty 1991 Chevy S-10. Why couldn’t they have gone to the rich neighborhood? Why not a BMW or a Lexus?
Tuffy said the truck should have flipped over and veered into on-coming traffic. Those feelings of impending doom were not unwarranted. Jacks said she had similar feelings.
The tag and the tire are both replaceable—Jacks, not so much.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Bust
Someone asked what the background picture to my blog was. I thought it was obvious. But then I looked at it more closely—from an outsider’s perspective. Seriously, what the hell is it?
I think it was an attempt to resuscitate the dead through the living. Instead, it was a reminder of what I wanted and what I couldn’t have. In the photo, it sits ready to burn in a fire pit. Only it was too windy that day, and there had been no rain. I threw it in the pit anyway. Covered it with some clumps of dirt and gave it a dead bouquet. It was my way of moving on. I had wanted it to be some dramatic, engulfing fire, melting shimmering blue beads. But moving on isn’t dramatic like that. One day you wake up and realize that you don’t need relics of the dead. They are in you.
I remember Rhiannon laying on the carpet in her underwear, gooped up with Vaseline as I placed moistened plaster cloth on her body. That’s what you see in the picture. A plaster cast mold of Rhiannon’s bust, decorated in a celestial theme with blue beads and silver paint. Those were the days when I think we understood each other more; not that we talked, because that really wasn’t Rhiannon’s style. I did the talking. She would half listen, grunting in response as she simultaneously chatted on Yahoo messenger. She was silent and emotionally distant unless you got her drunk, and it took more than a few shots to get her there. I never saw her cry, not even when Emery died.
I had expected Rhiannon to be like Emery. Emery was born first; Rhiannon 6 minutes later with the cord wrapped around her neck. Their mom didn’t know she would be having twins. It was 1978, and the doctors always heard a slight echo when they listened to the heart beat. They blamed it on faulty equipment until Rhiannon came out second. They were together for the next 23 years—inseparable shadows of each other, speaking their own language.
Rhiannon and her three cats moved into Crooked Tree Apartments with me in 2001. That is how I came to know Rhiannon.
“Is that the last box?” I asked Rhay.
“Think so.” She peered into her car window.
A neighbor approached us.
“Hey, you doing alright?” He directed this question toward Rhay.
Neither one of us had ever seen the guy before. He must have noticed the confusion.
“I’m the one who found you on the steps,” he said.
Oh god. He thought she was Emery.
“That was my sister,” she stated evenly. She looked a little grey.
“Oh. I’m so sorry.” An awkward pause. “Is she alright?”
“She didn’t make it.” Rhiannon was trying hard to control her voice. She focused on the cement.
The neighbor guy didn’t look so good.
“Was she diabetic? Was there something more I could have done?”
“There’s nothing you could have done.” I assured him. “Nothing anyone could have done.” I repeated more to myself.
I wondered if he too would relive those moments on the stairs, asking himself what more he could have done or what if he would have gotten there sooner. I never saw him again.
Perhaps I had forced a continuation of my dream onto someone who didn’t want it.
One day I was pulling the vegetables out of the crisper, and I looked at Rhiannon’s face. After living with her for so many years, I didn’t really see Rhiannon. I had this image of what she was supposed to be and stopped really looking. Maybe it was the new light in the kitchen or the angle as I stood up from the crisper. I noticed that she didn’t have any dimples. I looked at one cheek and then the other.
“What?” she asked.
“I just thought that you had a dimple.”
“Nope.”
Emery had had a dimple.
I think it was an attempt to resuscitate the dead through the living. Instead, it was a reminder of what I wanted and what I couldn’t have. In the photo, it sits ready to burn in a fire pit. Only it was too windy that day, and there had been no rain. I threw it in the pit anyway. Covered it with some clumps of dirt and gave it a dead bouquet. It was my way of moving on. I had wanted it to be some dramatic, engulfing fire, melting shimmering blue beads. But moving on isn’t dramatic like that. One day you wake up and realize that you don’t need relics of the dead. They are in you.
I remember Rhiannon laying on the carpet in her underwear, gooped up with Vaseline as I placed moistened plaster cloth on her body. That’s what you see in the picture. A plaster cast mold of Rhiannon’s bust, decorated in a celestial theme with blue beads and silver paint. Those were the days when I think we understood each other more; not that we talked, because that really wasn’t Rhiannon’s style. I did the talking. She would half listen, grunting in response as she simultaneously chatted on Yahoo messenger. She was silent and emotionally distant unless you got her drunk, and it took more than a few shots to get her there. I never saw her cry, not even when Emery died.
I had expected Rhiannon to be like Emery. Emery was born first; Rhiannon 6 minutes later with the cord wrapped around her neck. Their mom didn’t know she would be having twins. It was 1978, and the doctors always heard a slight echo when they listened to the heart beat. They blamed it on faulty equipment until Rhiannon came out second. They were together for the next 23 years—inseparable shadows of each other, speaking their own language.
Rhiannon and her three cats moved into Crooked Tree Apartments with me in 2001. That is how I came to know Rhiannon.
“Is that the last box?” I asked Rhay.
“Think so.” She peered into her car window.
A neighbor approached us.
“Hey, you doing alright?” He directed this question toward Rhay.
Neither one of us had ever seen the guy before. He must have noticed the confusion.
“I’m the one who found you on the steps,” he said.
Oh god. He thought she was Emery.
“That was my sister,” she stated evenly. She looked a little grey.
“Oh. I’m so sorry.” An awkward pause. “Is she alright?”
“She didn’t make it.” Rhiannon was trying hard to control her voice. She focused on the cement.
The neighbor guy didn’t look so good.
“Was she diabetic? Was there something more I could have done?”
“There’s nothing you could have done.” I assured him. “Nothing anyone could have done.” I repeated more to myself.
I wondered if he too would relive those moments on the stairs, asking himself what more he could have done or what if he would have gotten there sooner. I never saw him again.
Perhaps I had forced a continuation of my dream onto someone who didn’t want it.
One day I was pulling the vegetables out of the crisper, and I looked at Rhiannon’s face. After living with her for so many years, I didn’t really see Rhiannon. I had this image of what she was supposed to be and stopped really looking. Maybe it was the new light in the kitchen or the angle as I stood up from the crisper. I noticed that she didn’t have any dimples. I looked at one cheek and then the other.
“What?” she asked.
“I just thought that you had a dimple.”
“Nope.”
Emery had had a dimple.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
My Dead Wives
You’re probably wondering about the title to this blog. Why Postmortem Life and Black Widows? That’s so morbid. Okay, so I’ve never been married. I have never had a wife in a legal sense just girlfriends or partners. Maybe significant other is a better word. There have been four main ones, two of which have died.
Melynda was a redneck with a mullet. I met her at a church outing when I was 16, and she was 20. She grew up with chickens and goats in the house and a schizophrenic father. She was the only child to graduate from high school let alone go to college. They lived in a double-wide off a dirt road and had government cheese in their fridge.
That’s when we spoke in tongues and raised our hands and knocked on strange doors in Cabrini Green and inner city Detroit, because we believed in Jesus and hell and the Republican party. It’s true. I voted for Bob Dole. That’s when I wore Addicted to Jesus t-shirts and didn’t swear for 4 years. And when I hid my Bible from my parents because they didn’t approve. Only they approved even less when they suspected something else.
It started with phone sex only we would never have called it that. We were only privately masturbating simultaneously over the phone. But otherwise we did very Christian sort of things like watch 8 hours of Anne of Green Gables and then have sleep overs in a twin bed. I kissed her first and couldn’t stop.
Melynda told me that she wasn’t in love with me anymore over a Slim Jim at Russ’. She had met someone on the internet--someone older and more exotic. Melynda is still alive and well somewhere in Nebraska.
I met Emery through yahoo personals when they were free. We lasted 2 years and 26 days. Or maybe I should say that she lasted. The doctors told her she was young. Wrap it. It’s just a pulled muscle. Two weeks later, Rhiannon and I stood next to the stretcher that held her lifeless body. She had an endotracheal tube shoved down her throat and a useless IV in her hand. Her gray hoodie and green corduroys were filleted open. A neighbor had found Emery, barely breathing on the apartment steps. That’s where the large clot had dislodged from her calf and entered into her lungs.
Sylvia worked at the group home with Emery. Eight months after Emery died, Sylvia and I started dating. She would leave poetic and sometimes ridiculous messages on the answering machine. “Why are frozen pizzas kept in the freezer section?” She made house calls when I was sick, forcing me to drink cinnamon tea. Soon we were going out a couple times a week to Jupiter Moon, the twenty-four hour coffee shop to play Scrabble and watch the privileged kids act pretentiously sophisticated. I won’t lie. We argued a lot and broke up several times.
We had been separated for about a year. She was headed eastbound on I-96 when she lost control of her vehicle. I imagine a vivid sequence of events. And I see her in her purple Jeep Cherokee, driving too fast down the freeway, skipping to the next track of her Bob Marley CD. Her long dreads decorated with beaded poetry and twisted wire, clinking together as she leaned forward, partially obstructing her view of the road. With a sudden swerve and screeching tires, her short, heavy, body smashed through the glass landing with a dead thud on the pavement.
And then there’s Jacks, my current partner and personal chef. We didn’t want to meet. Manuel set us up at his Halloween Party. I was a bitch and she was nothing special. Until we sat down in the wet grass and talked while everyone else was smashing the adult piñata. Jacks and I were delighted when we discovered that this is the longest relationship either one of us has ever had. I worry a lot that she’ll die. I know it’s inevitable. We all die. I just don’t want it to be too soon.
Melynda was a redneck with a mullet. I met her at a church outing when I was 16, and she was 20. She grew up with chickens and goats in the house and a schizophrenic father. She was the only child to graduate from high school let alone go to college. They lived in a double-wide off a dirt road and had government cheese in their fridge.
That’s when we spoke in tongues and raised our hands and knocked on strange doors in Cabrini Green and inner city Detroit, because we believed in Jesus and hell and the Republican party. It’s true. I voted for Bob Dole. That’s when I wore Addicted to Jesus t-shirts and didn’t swear for 4 years. And when I hid my Bible from my parents because they didn’t approve. Only they approved even less when they suspected something else.
It started with phone sex only we would never have called it that. We were only privately masturbating simultaneously over the phone. But otherwise we did very Christian sort of things like watch 8 hours of Anne of Green Gables and then have sleep overs in a twin bed. I kissed her first and couldn’t stop.
Melynda told me that she wasn’t in love with me anymore over a Slim Jim at Russ’. She had met someone on the internet--someone older and more exotic. Melynda is still alive and well somewhere in Nebraska.
I met Emery through yahoo personals when they were free. We lasted 2 years and 26 days. Or maybe I should say that she lasted. The doctors told her she was young. Wrap it. It’s just a pulled muscle. Two weeks later, Rhiannon and I stood next to the stretcher that held her lifeless body. She had an endotracheal tube shoved down her throat and a useless IV in her hand. Her gray hoodie and green corduroys were filleted open. A neighbor had found Emery, barely breathing on the apartment steps. That’s where the large clot had dislodged from her calf and entered into her lungs.
Sylvia worked at the group home with Emery. Eight months after Emery died, Sylvia and I started dating. She would leave poetic and sometimes ridiculous messages on the answering machine. “Why are frozen pizzas kept in the freezer section?” She made house calls when I was sick, forcing me to drink cinnamon tea. Soon we were going out a couple times a week to Jupiter Moon, the twenty-four hour coffee shop to play Scrabble and watch the privileged kids act pretentiously sophisticated. I won’t lie. We argued a lot and broke up several times.
We had been separated for about a year. She was headed eastbound on I-96 when she lost control of her vehicle. I imagine a vivid sequence of events. And I see her in her purple Jeep Cherokee, driving too fast down the freeway, skipping to the next track of her Bob Marley CD. Her long dreads decorated with beaded poetry and twisted wire, clinking together as she leaned forward, partially obstructing her view of the road. With a sudden swerve and screeching tires, her short, heavy, body smashed through the glass landing with a dead thud on the pavement.
And then there’s Jacks, my current partner and personal chef. We didn’t want to meet. Manuel set us up at his Halloween Party. I was a bitch and she was nothing special. Until we sat down in the wet grass and talked while everyone else was smashing the adult piñata. Jacks and I were delighted when we discovered that this is the longest relationship either one of us has ever had. I worry a lot that she’ll die. I know it’s inevitable. We all die. I just don’t want it to be too soon.
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