Chapter 38
Life goes on and we pick up the pieces and you know what I’m gonna say.
I’m a murderer now—holy shit—but nothing’s that big of a deal.
That’s the joy of being a reader. We book people will tell you that we go back to our novels, to our paperbacks, because a book is a friend.
A light in the dark. As a reader who knows that the best work we do as people is the work that outlives us, as in the stories we tell so that others might read them and feel seen.
Known. The one on my mind as I get cozy with a corpse for the first time in my life is Stephen King’s The Body.
You know the drill, the lost boys who have each other go on a mission to see a dead body. That one changed my outlook on people.
I went to school and looked at The Others in a whole new way, all these potential buddies. I put myself out there, tried to find a crew, build a team. The deceased man in the freezer is a solid example of why I never did find my crew. The truth is, Vail, most guys are like Richard Arnold Palmer.
Most guys are dicks.
And why did Mother Nature waste these thick eyelashes on Dick?
I pull one out. Snick. A first for me, Vail.
So many firsts that I can’t keep up. My first murder.
My first dead body. It’s an honor, if you think about it.
Because of me, there is one less dick in this city.
He had his chance. Were I in that freezer, with some brave lone figure standing over me, I mean, hell.
Who does coke at a time like that? Who tries crack fucking cocaine when they’re trying to survive?
When the love of their life is out there waiting, yearning?
I wish I could write the obituary. Richard Arnold Palmer (no wonder he was an alcoholic) spent his charmed life abusing women, rendering them incapable of love.
He pitched several hundred lackluster film projects to several hundred visionless producers.
He did not like being rejected. Instead of giving up the nightmare when he realized the dream was never going to come true, he took his frustrations out on women.
He was loved, but he did not reciprocate.
Richard Arnold Palmer died at the hands of a better man who shall remain nameless, a man who provided “Dick” with time to heal, to own up to his missteps and speak his truth.
One might say that Richard Arnold Palmer died of a broken mirror.
He could not face himself. And so the glass cracked, shattering his body, which was already ravaged by years of compulsive abuse.
In lieu of flowers, his mother requests grandchildren she’ll never fucking have because of a man named…
Is it weird that this whole thing feels kind of cool?
I’m not a sicko. I feel bad for the guy.
But how do you watch someone act like life’s no big deal and not kind of prepare for them to die?
And come on. It’s a big world. Dick got around.
He was popular. He had plenty of chances and he knew so many girls.
And it’s me, Vail. I’m the last person who got to see him alive. The only person who watched him die.
I am the tree in the forest.
And it’s normal that I don’t feel guilty.
I’m just a kid. He took advantage of me.
He took advantage of you. What do they say about men who abuse women and children?
They say that’s a sin because we are the ones.
We are the world. Dick tried to slaughter us.
And what a waste. He used his last moments on this planet to beg for a crack pipe.
I was the only real friend he ever had, the one who cared enough about him to call him out, to speak the truth.
I know I was wasting my time, but that’s me.
I want to believe there’s a good person buried inside every dick.
I want to give every Gordie Lachance a chance. Now I think I get it.
Sometimes a dick is just a dick. Gordie is fiction.
Dick is real. And the world is hard enough, right?
Because of me, there is one less bad dick running around.
Because of me, you are free and maybe, just maybe…
Well, come on. I killed him for you. It’s romantic.
It’s classic. I belong to you now. I bet you feel it too.
Change is in the air. He’s gone but I’m still here and maybe in a world without that undomesticated dog…
First things first. I gotta get him outta here. Say what you will about Mr. Mooney, but he’s the kinda guy you can call when you’re in a jam.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Mr. Mooney. It’s me.”
Maybe the only person in my world who knows what it means to be me. “Well, hello. Are you in some sort of trouble, Joseph?”
Yes. “No, but I kinda need to borrow your car.”
“Is this your not-so-subtle way of asking to return to work?”
I don’t know how to answer that, and I hear Martha in the background, Martha making meat loaf. “Tell our boy we miss him!”
Mooney has my back. He doesn’t punish me for leaving him hanging about the whole job thing.
I leave Dick in the freezer and schlep out to Long Island.
The keys to Mooney’s beige beast are where he said they would be, on the left front tire, and there’s a plastic case of meat loaf on the passenger seat. No mold this time. I am loved.
Driving is not my thing, especially under these circumstances. You’re calling me and Dick is dead and the sun won’t go the fuck down. I pick up. Gotta seem normal. Cool cat.
“Vail, sorry, I’m in the middle of something.”
“Are you with Dick and his perfect ten?”
Dick is dead. There is no such thing as perfect, not when it comes to people. “Nah, he blew me off. I’m gonna catch up with Jeremy.”
“Oh, well, did something happen with the perfect lawyer girlfriend? Why did Dick blow you off?”
The misplaced longing in your voice, the motherfuckers who cut me off. We need a win. “Sounded to me like they were having a fight or going to get hitched, but seriously, Vail, Jeremy’s waiting for me.”
“I’m sorry I was weird with you. Sometimes I just…I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I know what’s wrong with you, Vail. And I fixed it. “That’s okay. Don’t worry. Plenty of time for us to figure it all out, but right now…”
“You’re a good friend, Cusack.”
Your parting words were just the little boost I needed, Vail, and yes.
I am a fucking saint. A lucky saint. The warehouse is still a ghost town.
Nobody found Dick in a box. He’s heavy, but I’m strong, and I manage to get him into the back of Mooney’s Buick.
And it’s a good thing that some places never get gentrified, as if the city knows the world will always need dark corners like this, places where you can stash a dick in the trunk of your car.
No cameras. Not even any vagrants or kids.
I’m on the road, bound for the beach—Dick did love the water—and Long Island is pleasing at this hour, when it’s neither winter nor spring nor summer but some mishmash of all three.
No birds chirping or eyeing me. No bird-watchers either. I am safe.
I forgot how much I like the water, and it feels good to park the Buick.
To kill the lights and be alone with Mother Nature.
I like her, Vail. She is fair. Indifferent to all people, unlike all the real mothers on this fucking planet.
It’s this John Prine song in Mooney’s tape deck.
You want me to find what I’ve already had.
Some people get too much love too early, and it is possible to love someone too much, too hard.
I’m lucky that’s not me, and I remember what Dick said about his mother.
I wonder when she’ll see that she went wrong, if she’ll regret telling him that no girl is good enough.
No one is above Mother Nature’s Law—what is lifted must come down—and I wonder if Mrs. Palmer made meat loaf for her son and I wonder if his dad took him to some pier like this to go fishing and talk about the birds and the bees.
What a waste, if so, and I pop the trunk. “ ’Sup, D. You ready to go for a swim?”
I lift him up—he is heavy—and I put him down—he is dead.
My muscles are tight. Throbbing. But I can do this.
I leveled up at Crunch when I was a gym rat, but mostly I can do this because of you.
You deserve your freedom, and he was never going to let you go.
He is gone now, and I drag it—a body is a thing, not a he, not a she, it is an it—and I listen to the waves pound at the pylons.
Dick was a reckless abuser. The kind of cocky faux artiste who came to places like this to get high and “think” about all the movies he was never going to make.
Mother Nature sends a few pellets of hail that bounce off what used to be his face.
Yes, it’s starting to rain. Icy. Cold. There is lightning followed by thunder and am I gonna get shocked?
Killed? Is it safe to be in the open on a pier with a single soaring lamppost?
For once, I wish a computer did fit in my pocket so I could Ask Jeeves if I’m safe.
The hairs on my arms tickle me. Are they trying to tell me something?
Is anyone watching? Does anyone see me?
No. I am alone. I’m good at knowing when it’s just me. I had a lot of practice as a kid, waking up on my mattress in the wee hours. I never needed to turn on the lights. I would just feel it, the absence of other hearts beating behind closed doors.
I toss Dick’s computer into the sea. I don’t hear it land, because of the wind. Next is the phone. And then I toss the paraphernalia. Some make it into the water and some do not. That word never made sense to me. Paraphernalia. It sounds like fun, not like this.
I would say a few words for our friend Dick, but I already wrote that obituary in my head.
Honestly, I’m kinda mad, Vail. Frustrated that I’ll never get to put any of these firsts in my fucking Moleskine.
I’m not a bad guy. I don’t kick him into the water.
I’m not mad at him anymore. I take my time with it.
I push the top half of his body and then the lower half, going back and forth and before you know it, he is home again.
He always did say there are plenty of fish in the sea. And now he belongs to them.
I sit on the dock by the last little crack pipe, and I do…I do kinda miss the guy. I guess that’s what happens when dicks die. You can’t help but think of the good stuff.
—
Mooney and his wife are asleep when I head back to their place.
I leave the keys where I found them, like he asked.
I stand there a minute looking at their place, wondering why they stay together, if there’s any love in that raised fucking ranch, in any of these houses.
It’s getting light now, too light to see.
I walk through the mist and I am not Woody in Hannah.
I am not Elliot in Hannah. They never killed for love, and they didn’t have what I have, what we have.
They also didn’t have internet cafés. I pay up and rev up one of the loud, chunky computers in the back and I log in to Dick’s AOL account. There you are. Available. Online. Desperate.
Me as Dick: You up
You: I am always up for you Dick. Can’t help it. And honestly if you made up some girl so Joe would tell me and make me jealous well good job…It worked.
The muscle under my ribs needed that, Vail. The pain. This is not you. This is you on him. On the drug that is Dick. You were a lost cause, I know. Stuffed so full of the ghost of his assembly-line penis that you were incapable of letting me in there. But all that changes today.
Me as Dick: lolol r u fucking high? enough’s enough.
Check it: u need to get a life. It is never, was never, will never be you.
your tits are too small; your nose is too big.
you’re a stage-nine clinger and hate to say it but I guess you need to hear it, kid.
joe told me that you were the one who went looking for him on craigslist and like…
Relax. I didn’t tell him I know whats up.
But you need help. Get a shrink; get that janky toe fixed.
Join a gym. Get it through your thick head (a little too big for your body by the way).
you are not a lovable beautiful baby; it is not my job to take care of you lol I’m audi 5000 vail. C ya