The Last Time I Died (22 page)

Finally, someone says they’re calling for an ambulance and my blood starts pumping again. I don’t need a doctor. I have a doctor. And I’m not going to a hospital. I guarantee what I’ve got in my pocket will help me far more than whatever they cook up for me in the psychiatric department. My shaky hand digs around and pulls out the meds. They’re still intact. How the fuck did my knuckles get so bloody? I thought I only got one punch in.

I struggle to my feet, gather up my sketches, which are now blood-streaked and trampled with boot prints. One of my teeth lies on the ground but I don’t pick it up. I’m gone before the ambulance arrives. If it ever came.

If Lisa were still talking to me and happened to be here right now, she’d have plenty to say on the subject.

The layout of the drawings. The order. A better way to attach them to the wall, perhaps. I’m using tape but it doesn’t hold great on brick. It’s good enough.

I put the new drawings up next to the old ones. The order doesn’t make much sense, but every time I reorder them, they make less and less sense. Which came first and what followed what is a complete mystery. Most likely Forearm Cop showed up after one of the big fights but maybe not. How the fuck am I going to keep this up? There are so many gaps to fill in.

My tongue is a little swollen and I have a craving to eat ice and I think dirt, as well. Those are symptoms of anemia. Lack of iron in my red blood cells. Or lack of red blood cells. Makes sense. My marrow has been taxed beyond belief. The recuperation I’m forcing on myself must be the equivalent of a turbo growth spurt. You can only run an engine so fast for so long before something breaks down. Looks like we’re starting with anemia. Oh well.

If Lisa were talking to me she’d notice that my sketches are now taking up a good two thirds of my (our) wall. It’s an impressive sight if you know their origins. But she wouldn’t know the origins. I never told her. She might offer some suggestions on order or aesthetics, but she’d be guessing as much as I am.

Eventually, she would tell me enough with the rearranging. I could do this for hours but I have to maintain my priorities. I have some recovering to do. Lisa was good like that. Recovery means more memories. More memories means answers. I get my gallon of water ready and fill my syringe up.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Someone pounds on my door. I limped home. Looking back on it I must have left a trail of blood. Easy enough to follow if you were the police or EMTs who showed up at the scene of my beating. Or if you’re Goose, come to finish the job. But he already knows where I live. If it is that smiling fuck, I can do nothing to stop him once he gets past the locks. I’m weak and I’m tired and I’ll die in my living room and no one will know until the neighbors complain about the smell. No reviving. No way back from The White.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

If it were the cops, they would have identified themselves by now. It’s not the cops. Great. Now, this is where Lisa and I would differ. She would tell me I deserve this. Running around like a madman. You make your own fate.

The pounding isn’t strong enough to break down the door, but maybe he’s not trying that hard. How long is he willing to wait? Why follow me home to finish me off? He didn’t seem to care about witnesses. Why not kill me on the sidewalk? And who the fuck is this guy? Why decide to torture me all of a sudden? I’m just a guy trying to kill himself over and over and minding my own business. God damn it’s annoying.

—Christian!

Through the door. It’s Ella. Oh, Lisa would have a fucking mouthful to say about this. Like don’t answer the door. And it’s none of her business. And shut the fuck up.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

—Christian, open the door. I can hear you moving around in there.

It is her business and it has been for a long time. It was her business just like it was mine. Ella’s angry. She’s going to yell for a while, I can already tell. But I need her so I unlock the door.

It’s barely open before she throws a wad of papers in my face and storms in. It’s the copies of the drawings I shoved through her mail slot in my face. Good, she got them.

—What were you thinking?

If Lisa were here I wonder if she would defend me. I like to think she would jump in front of me and tell Ella she’s handling this completely the wrong way. What is needed here is compassion and understanding on her part. Not anger. I’ve got enough of that for all of us.

—What is wrong with you?

If I started to explain she wouldn’t listen. Ella needs to yell. It’s her process, like dying is mine. I only wish her timing were a tad better. I’m not up for drama right now. My right eye is swollen shut and I’m having trouble breathing through my nose. Ella turns to face me. Steaming.

It hits her. How bad I look.

—Oh god. What happened?

No way around this. I haven’t looked too closely lately but I’m sure my face has aged to match my gray hair. And, there’s the missing teeth. Also, my anemia is making me even paler than I would be from dying so often. I’m only five years older than her, but if you asked a stranger, they might guess we were father and daughter. At least it softens her up a bit.

—I’m okay.

I can see Ella making the internal choice to take care of herself and her family before she helps me.

—Look, I get that you’re having a tough time, Christian. But I told you I’m not getting involved in whatever chaos you’ve got going on. You’ve got to stop sneaking around and causing trouble.

At this point Lisa might tell me she told me so. She told me I should have never gone to the dog fights or Ella’s house. She told me so.

—What am I supposed to tell the kids about those horrible drawings? They were scared. And now I have to lie to Tim about why you would leave those for me. I’m not interested in telling Tim or anyone else for that matter what happened. It was thirty fucking years ago, Christian.

My loft must smell awful. I have cleaned none of my messes up for weeks. My voice sounds like a bad Sam Eliot impression.

—Christian? What are you doing?

—I’m so close to so many answers.

I indicate to the wall of drawings and it’s clear that she didn’t notice them when she walked in. She looks at my massive, sloppy, homemade shrine.

—What is this?

—Do you remember any of this? Does this trigger anything? You were there for some of these.

—Christian—

—What’s missing? What am I missing? I can go back but I have to know what to look for.

—Go back where? Where are these coming from? What are they supposed to be? Why are you doing this?

I can’t explain to her how I’m getting them. The effort would be too much. She’s back to her comfort zone of borderline hysterical and I do not have the stamina. My head is throbbing. All I can do is beg.

—Ella, look closely. Tell me what you see. Tell me what this reminds you of.

She looks. Ella takes a step back to stare at the wall. She takes it all in. A few moments in, she looks over to me and then back to the wall. Her eyes well up and she tries unsuccessfully to blink back tears.

—Christian, you need help.

—Yes, from you.

—Yes, from me. I will help you find the professionals who can help you.

—I’ve been to them. I have better people. What I need now is your mind. Your memories. Tell me what all this means.

She marches over to the wall and rips a row of sketches down. And then another. I’m dumbfounded. I move toward her as fast as I can, but by the time I can grab her wrist, she’s got a dozen more drawings down, crumpled at her feet.

—What are you doing!

I lean my entire body into moving her away from the wall. She could fight harder but she doesn’t. Finally, she stops resisting entirely.

—You need help.

She’s backing away from me toward the door, forgetting she’s still got a sketch of our mother in her hand. The one that says
Why won’t he leave me alone?

Ella gets to the front door and when she realizes she’s holding the drawing, she drops it like it was on fire. Like she suddenly wants a shower.

—You need help.

The struggle re-aggravated my most recent injuries and her voice is a knife in my eye.

Lisa would tell me to take her help. That despite everything, Ella is my best bet. That I should curl up on the floor and let her wait with me until someone comes to take me away to a facility with plenty of oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and phenylethylamine and the orderlies big enough to make me swallow them.

—Just try, Ella. Try to remember.

Ella cries harder. She turns and walks out without closing the door. I can hear her sobbing all the way down the stairs.

Fine then. I’ll do it myself.

—FUCK OFF!

Oh, Lisa would have had a lot to say about all of this.

I force myself to move across the room, shut the door, and lock it. If you’re not with me, you’re against me. I’m sweating by the time I get there and have to sit down to recover whatever energy is left in my body.

Seven minutes later, I tie off my right arm and jam a syringe into the big fat vein running through the middle. I’ve forgotten about Ella before the plunger is all the way down.

This is exactly what I needed.

Black.

*It’s three months ago.

I’m on my way into work when that twat Michelle sees me on the street and looks awkward. Surprise, surprise, she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me or acknowledge my existence. But she approaches me anyway. Makes eye contact with me, for Christ’s sake.

Fuck, she’s gonna yell at me about all the phone calls. The point was to get Lisa’s attention not to have a sit down with her BFF. So, what are my options? Tell her to piss off and keep moving? No good. That’ll get right back to Lisa and we’ll be three steps back. Listen patiently and nod? I know she’ll use that insanely condescending voice and I’ll feel like vomiting, but that’s probably the best play. The listening, not the vomiting. Alright, bitch. Bring it on.

Michelle walks right up to me and puts on a face that’s equal parts disgust and sympathy. Like I said, always with the condescension. She offers her condolences and I think she’s being funny or sarcastic or something.

—If there’s anything I can do . . .

If there’s anything you can do? What would you do for me? You can go fuck yourself to start.

Wait.

It dawns on me that she knows something I don’t. It dawns on her about the same time.

Manhattan is so fucking loud.

—Christian, I thought Lisa’s mother called you.

—Why would she call me?

She starts talking but I already know what she’s going to tell me. Just like I knew Dana would bring Lisa to my apartment even though I never invited her. Just like I knew I shouldn’t marry her even though I had to. I knew what Michelle was going to tell me and as much as I wanted to not hear it or run away or clamp my hand over her fat mouth I did nothing. Nothing. And her words spilled out all over me and I heard them.

Lisa is gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

I turn and walk away. Michelle might still be talking.

The details filter in through my fog as I float down the sidewalk. Lisa stepped off a curb. A bus didn’t stop. There was a head injury. Nothing they could do. Happens every day. Everyone is so sorry. It was in the
Post
.

No wonder she wasn’t calling me back.

The Black releases me after two intense days.

I wake up naked in my own filth once again. The water bottle is empty and across the room, this time crushed flat. The clothes I was wearing have been thrown out an open window. The chairs from my dining table are scattered across the floor. This appears to be the result of having been stacked and knocked over. Every dish and glass in my kitchen is broken and on the floor. My front door is still locked from the inside. I remember nothing. It’s early afternoon.

I take a quick inventory of my body. A few scratch marks. An impression of my teeth still visible on my wrist and starting to bruise. My thumbnails have been pulled out. I feel thinner.

Beyond that, I am fantastic.

I feel like a new man. Refurbished. I might even be energetic. My reflection in the bathroom mirrors lacks any of the deep cuts and hideous disfigurements I was given during the beating forty-eight hours ago. As if it had never happened.

I run my hand through my hair and a clump of it comes out easily. And then another. I shower and the water finishes the job, washing away whatever was left on my scalp. My eyebrows wipe away. My pubic hair brushes off completely. My hair clogs the drain and if I cared whether or not the tub emptied I would clear it. I am now hairless.

I air dry standing in front of my drawings, half of which are still strewn across the floor. Staring at them. Trying to upload the arrangement into my consciousness as a whole. A shabby representation of the unfinished masterpiece constructed in a medium in which I alone work. There must be a hundred sketches. I cannot take my eyes off of them.

My father yelling.

My mother crying.

The purse.

The washing machine.

The cop’s forearms.

The stoop.

The tension.

The fat cop.

I know I’m right about this.

Outside, my clothes are all pretty close together. I must have thrown them out fairly recently since this is New York and you can’t leave anything of any value on the sidewalk without someone walking away with it. People watch as I go from naked to dressed in my discarded clothes right there in the open, but no one says anything.

I walk straight over toward Cordoba’s office, eating three breakfast burritos on the way. I can feel my stomach ripping the food apart, breaking it down and shipping it out to the cells who so desperately need it. My metabolism is revved. Redlining. The closer I get the better I feel. As if the magic meds took me so far down the rabbit hole I’m still slingshotting back up even now. I’m riding the momentum of recovery. Flying. I internalize the feeling and savor the tingle racing around the inside crown of my head. My brain is dancing. I don’t even want a drink. I haven’t been able to say that for years. Christ, I’m high on life. And I can’t wait to die again.