Chapter 24
SIX YEARS LEFT
I remember waking that morning to the smell of salt and iron. Tate sat at the edge of the bed with a plate of bacon still hot from the skillet, smiling serenely. His hair was wet from the shower and curling at the ends like a little boy’s.
I was usually in a plane by sunup, getting my hours in for the day. But Rick was busy, and I’d somehow slept the whole night. I felt bruised from lying down for so long, and my mouth watered for the food.
As I ate, we talked about the big trip we were taking south, through Mexico and all those little countries on into South America.
Tate wanted to help out at some churches down there, and I wanted to hear Latin music straight from the source.
I needed to feel the twist of the instruments, the sound bouncing off the walls of the places they’d been forged, the smells and the heat settling around the strings as the descendants of their makers played.
We weren’t rolling in dough because we’d been shit at looking after our money, but we had enough to bum around and travel.
After breakfast, I drove to the travel agency to finalize the details, and Tate headed downtown to volunteer.
He and a few of the church folk went out and found junkies to talk them into getting clean.
It was funny to imagine those uptight church people trying to talk to someone who’d had such a hard life.
But I thought Tate was probably pretty good at it; at least he understood the need.
I went over to Martha’s in the afternoon. She was my only unmarried friend by then—even Tima had married her lawyer beau. I was happy for them, but I longed for the days when we looked out only for each other. I knew they’d always have my back, and I also knew it would never be the same again.
Martha and I worked on a few ideas with me singing and her on piano.
It still felt a little strange to make music in such an effortful way, instead of just listening to the music that drifted into my head.
But I’d learned so much about music, and there was still so much to discover.
I was trying to make peace with the fact that it wasn’t coming back.
I’d found other ways to be with God, and that would have to be enough.
We worked until her keys fuzzed and grayed, and we realized we’d forgotten to turn on the lights as the sun fell. That was my cue to head home.
Every evening Tate and I made dinner together, and then we put on a new record, or he read out loud to me from one of his college books. He’d introduced me to writers like Mary Shelley, Flannery O’Connor, and Sylvia Plath. “My freaks,” he liked to call them. They were my people.
I drove home in my Gran Torino with the windows down. We were right on the edge of fall, and the maples were just starting to turn. Wood smoke curled in on the breeze, and I had this good, clean feeling that maybe I was finally figuring out how to live this brief life.
When I got in, the table was already laid with a feast. Emmylou Harris’s “Boulder to Birmingham” was playing on the record player with its mournful beauty. It was bluer than we’d been leaning since we got sober.
I found him in the bedroom with his bicep tied off with a belt and a needle still in his arm. He must have injected seconds prior, because his lashes were fluttering like he was launching up and away. As if the whole world was passing behind his eyes.
I pulled the needle out and ripped off the belt. I held him in my lap and said his name. He opened his eyes, and they were glazed like donuts. He smiled dreamily and reached up to touch my jaw as if testing its solidity.
“I waited for you. I was going to show you, and then we were going to decide. To be or not to be. To be or not to be…”
I told him I was sorry. I told him this was just one slipup. He would ride this one out, and I’d flush the rest of it, and we’d just pick up where we left off. As I said this, I eyed the half-full baggie that sat forlornly on the nightstand.
His hand released my jaw and fell limply against the bed. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his throat made this horrific gurgling sound.
“No, no, no,” I pleaded, trying to prop him up, as if erect posture would bring him back to consciousness, but he was like a scarecrow in my arms. I turned him on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his vomit, but nothing came out.
I held my finger under his nose and felt his chest, but there was no movement. He wasn’t breathing.
I put my mouth around his and tried to give him my air. I’d give him everything I had—my lungs, my heart, my brain. Anything he needed to start living again.
But he only turned cold and blue in my arms, the warmth fading from him like the end of summer out on the road.
As I called for an ambulance, I felt this stark loneliness sweep into the room, and I looked down and saw that he was gone.
Since the night I met him, we’d been on this journey together. Even when he was off on his solo adventures, we were still linked, traveling like two connected particles through the universe.
But now I was utterly alone.
A lone traveler.
Hurtling through time and space toward my inevitable death with nothing but emptiness before me.