Loss

I’ve wondered if I could even begin to write about you.

All these years later, I still remember the day we met. It was in orchestra class in 7th grade. Of course, we didn’t become friends until later that year. When we had both begun crossing lines and boundaries, rebels against whatever you had.

I remember the first time we got drunk together. I think it was spring. I remember it as being warm, but then, that may have been the wine. Terrible, cheap wine. And we made up a stupid song about “Rubber Leggies” to the tune of Sesame Street’s “Rubber Duckie.” I remember walking up the block to your house in the darkness singing, silly, ridiculously drunk. It’s a moment frozen in time for me. It hangs there sometimes and calls out to me.

I remember when you started running with us. Not the truly bad crowd yet, just skirting the edges of bad. The truly bad came later. I remember that first party at your house, when we all sat on the roof of your garage and smoked marijuana after your grandmother greeted us all like we were demons from hell, and perhaps we were. I remember she sat in the kitchen and chained smoked and we made fun of her sitting there smoking cigarette after cigarette, while we sat on the roof smoking one joint after another.

I remember that you lost your virginity in my bed while my family was on vacation. I still remember the date (December 26th) and I still remember with whom.

I remember a time when we shared everything, including lovers, trouble, and the endless pursuit of the next thrill, the next kick, the next thing.

I remember when you were with… was it Zeek? while I was on my first date with Terrence? The four of us in that tiny apartment, with ZZ Top playing in the background. Throwing our innocence away with both hands. I remember Terrence’s first kiss to me that night, the taste of crest toothpaste. The thrill of being with this older, tattooed and edgy boy. I remember you dating Terrence for a while, and me dating Zeek.

I remember you and I sneaking out one night and going to play foosball. We met some guys and went to have drinks with them. They brought out a joint laced with angel dust. We didn’t know. We had the sense to get out of that apartment before we completely lost our minds, but oh! Didn’t we completely lose our minds? We were walking past a construction site with mounds of dirt coned up all over the place. We thought we were in the mountains. And then suddenly, you were gone! Disappeared! Stark fear grasped me by the throat for a moment until I found you, standing indignant in a six foot hole, and there you were at the bottom! How did we get you out? I don’t know. I don’t remember that part. But we must have gotten you out. We must have, because life went on, and here I am, and there you were, and maybe we shouldn’t have. Maybe it would have been better if time had stopped with you there in that hole and me laughing at the edge.

I remember you fighting Michelle in the park and losing a tooth. Was it over Richie Joe? Was it something else? It was all so long ago. A million years. It was also yesterday. It was this afternoon.

I remember when you and Beatrice and I all became best friends. Sharing everything, even the guys we dated. Driving around in Bea’s ridiculous tank of a car. We had it all, the blonde, the red head, the girl with the chestnut brown hair down her back. It was a treacherous balance for me, though I never told you that. I was always jealous of anything you did with Bea without me. Perhaps Bea was jealous of what you and I did without her. Perhaps even you were jealous of what Bea and I did alone. Three is not an easy number. Even for friends.

I remember how we had it mapped out, the guys two of us would date, the guys only one of us would date, and that no one would date all three of us. Except Jon Earl of course. He charmed his way into being the exception, and exceptional he was. In the end, he broke Bea’s heart, but that’s her story to tell or not. I hope you see him now and again. I hope there’s comfort for you in that, in something old and familiar.

Remember the first time Jon Earl drove me home? You called him and asked him to! I said no at first, but you were emphatic. “Let Jon Earl drive you home. You will like it.” And I did. I did.

I remember one cold and misty morning with you and me and Brant – back from some nefarious sojourn – walking and eating donuts and flirting. God he was beautiful that morning. Oh, Brant! My first lover. My funny friend. Do you see him now and again too?

I remember when Jay Vanzandt came back to town, just back from juvie with that blue Lincoln continental and asked us to take a ride with him. Were we game? Of course! We were always game then! Seizing the day! The moment! I remember driving by a park in the rain, speeding. Not racing, but speeding. The cops were there. Suddenly lights were flashing, and instead of pulling over, Jay gunned the engine and we were off… I remember screaming at Jay to stop, to pull over, screaming that it was “just a goddamned traffic ticket for fuck’s sake!” And finding out – of course – that the car was stolen, there were pounds of grass in the trunk, and ounces of meth. We zigged and zagged back and forth through streets and alley ways. Almost killed an old man taking out his trash. We drove across the lawn of the damned county courthouse! We drove and we drove, and more and more cops were chasing us, and Jay turned a sudden U from an alley into a street, and the cops all lost their balance, skidding in the rain. They ended up in yards with their transmissions trashed and miraculously we escaped!

We went to Bea’s house. Where else? Ditched the car. Calmed our adrenaline with some grass. Chilled.

How stupid of me to not have questioned Jay with a Continental! How young and stupid, and ridiculously lucky we were to have made our way out of that one. I don’t know what became of Jay. I’ve heard rumors, dark rumors, but I don’t know. Perhaps you do. Perhaps you run into him too, now and again.

The last time I saw him was one of the last days I was on the street. We were walking to Bea’s house. We talked. Seriously. Earnestly. “You’re dying.” Everyone was telling me I was dying in those days. Including your older brother.

During the worst of it, your older brother took me to your house. You were gone. Your father, your grandmother, and your younger brother too. Somewhere, I don’t know. I was too sick to know. I weighed 85 pounds and was dying of pneumonia and exposure. Your brother made me licorice root tea with ginseng, fed me herbs, fed me food, burned incense and chanted over me, for how long? Hours? Days? I dozed in and out, and somehow – against all reason – recovered.

I remember the first time you took me to Tim McFarrel’s house. I remember the pine paneling on the walls. The layout of the room. The three of us smoking grass with a fire blazing in the fireplace. Another moment frozen, calling out to me.

In the end, he broke your heart. Treated you like a petty play thing, and I’ve never forgiven him.

I remember getting you a job when I was trying to pull my life back from the brink. You didn’t show up the first day and I had to cover your shift. I was furious with you. It’s good, that I can remember being furious with you now and again. It keeps you in perspective.

And god knows, you could get furious with me. Often did. Especially that night at the movies. Our date dropped us off at my house and you stormed off walking home. I tried to follow you, and you waved me off walking faster. I was floored that you were so angry. Had no idea that I’d pissed you off so much, or even at all. The rules were changing for you, but not for me. You know, if I had known that it was important to you, that the rules had changed with you, things would have been different. I would never have pissed you off like that. I still have a hard time letting that one go. One of a thousand regrets.

I remember when you started dating William during a time when he and I were at a hiatus. I was pining for him, pitifully, loudly, and often to you. You never told me, hinted only that you were seeing someone and were ridiculously happy. He didn’t tell me for the longest time either. Not when we were engaged to be married, not when he was trying to persuade me to run off to Vegas and get married at once. Not until years later, when we’d both been through a marriage or two. Even then, he could barely talk about you.

And remember James? Your real boy? That ended all wrong. Wrong for all of us. But I guess there was no happy ending to be had here. Some stories are set in stone with the first sentence.

There were happy moments though. Lots of them. Meeting you at the park at sunrise to get high and watch the sun come up. I remember, god – who was it? Tom O’Malley? Jon Earl? Someone? – meeting us there, and talking us into going to Denny’s for omelets. I remember he knew the menu blurb for a Denny’s Pizza Omelet by heart, recited it for us, bringing us to tears of laughter.

I remember listening to Iron Butterfly’s Inagaddadavida run through your father’s bass amp, played at a slow, slow speed, so slow the bass ripped through the walls and our drug laden minds.

I remember the “bottles” of our Park? Grass, dirt, bugs, litter and all, stuffed carefully into empty soda bottles. Time in a Bottle. Time stopped. Time.

Time. Time. Time. See what’s become of me?
While I looked around for my possibilities.
I was so hard to please.

But look around.
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter…

Hang onto your hope my friend.
That’s a easy thing to say,
But if your hopes should pass away,
Simply pretend
That you can build them again.

Look around.
Grass is high.
It’s the springtime of my life.

Seasons change in their greenery
Weaving time in their tapestry.
Won’t you stop and remember me?

The last time I saw you, you dropped by unexpectedly. We had drifted some around then, though at the time I just considered it a phase. I never questioned that you were my best friend and always would be. That day, you were tripping on acid, said you wanted to see me, to talk, though we talked of nothing consequential. Just drove in your car and chatted. I left puzzled. Unsure of what had just transpired.

Later I learned you had dropped by on us all in that couple of weeks. Never for any reason. Always loaded. Always just wanting to see each of us.

I remember the afternoon I got word. It was our senior year of high school. One of those ridiculously beautiful April days. Warm. Gentle. Daffodils and fruit trees blooming like crazy. I had been on a walk. I came home and my father – my father! the man who barely spoke to me though my whole childhood! – sat me down and told me. He told me that Susan had called. That you hadn’t shown up for work that day. The words after that all flowed together… suicide. A gun. My mind snapped at the first sentence. All I could manage was to screech, “Who is Susan?”

Finally I understood, and grief settled down over me like a bad case of the flu. I walked in a stupor for days. Barely understanding anything that anyone said to me. William took me out that night. I couldn’t understand his distance from my grief. I didn’t know then that you and he had been lovers. That this was his loss too. He took me home quickly, retreated for weeks.

My brother-in-law came over and sat with me on the front steps and we held each other as we cried. You were his loss too. A lover long before my sister.

I went to your family’s house the next morning. There was no wreath on the door. For a moment, I thought it was all a dreadful mistake. Then your father answered the door and I saw the truth, the agony, in his eyes.

Your mother came from California. Your younger brother was… a robot. Moving vacantly from room to room utterly devoid of emotion. He had found you. Opened the door to your room, even though your suicide note instructed him explicitly to not open the door. Your older brother was lost on one of his journeys. He did that a lot. Just disappeared.

At your funeral, I sat between my parents, holding hands with each of them. Pete and Kaden sat behind me, both with their hands on my shoulders. I sobbed through the whole thing, with the tears just streaming down my face. No hand free to wipe them away, but what was the use of trying?

Afterwards, Tina Jameson threw herself in my arms and wailed, “I want her back!” I wanted to spit on her, to claw her eyes out. The two of you were never close friends. How dare she belittle my grief by comparing it to hers? I could have killed her in the church parking lot. I could have killed everyone to have eased my pain.

It’s been 24 years, and I still live with that same intensity of grief. It’s never gotten better. It’s only become a part of me. A part of who I am. Each year, I still mark your birthday, the anniversary of your death. Each year I count the years since you’ve been gone, and can’t believe it wasn’t yesterday.

When you died, I had that old blue plaid flannel shirt of yours. I wore it until it was literally rags hanging from my shoulders, and even then it was years before I could throw it away. I tried to throw it out after it became rags. I was cleaning out the closet, took that shredded shirt from it’s hanger, and just stood there and cried. I couldn’t let go.

This year when I met my family for Christmas, I asked my mother to get my jewelry box from the safety deposit box at the bank. I was ready to take it home. My sister was with me when I opened it. Inside was a necklace from Tiffany’s with an enormous garnet that belonged to my aunt Lily, my name sake. My grandmother’s platinum and diamond wedding ring was there, the wedding rings from my marriages were there, along with a few gold coins. And there, in that box of precious gems, was a cheap silver ring with an obviously fake turquoise stone. My sister asked, “What is that?”

“That was Marla’s.”

“Oh.”

In my mind is a perfect picture of you walking towards me in the park, your long brown hair flowing behind you. You are young and unspeakably beautiful. And there is no time. No distance. You are close enough to almost touch.

Almost.

I dreamt one night, long ago that I found you. The dream shifted through alternate realities in which you were alive, dying, dead, gone, here, and then finally at last, I was holding you, clinging to you, crying like a child, and then my arms were suddenly, agonizingly empty. After a moment, I felt something on my shoulder and turned to see a cardinal. The bird looked at me for a trice, cocked it’s head and flew away.

Oh fly sweet Marla! Fly somewhere safe and kind. Fly into the warmth of the sun. Fly to all the others I’ve left to their graves. And fly back to me someday.

In my heart there is a vacant room, reserved just for you. It shall never, ever, belong to anyone else. And it aches in it’s emptiness. It aches.

Oh god, Marla, I loved you so.