The leaves on the maple trees wave in the darkness, glistening with the moisture of the rain by the light of the streetlamps. My boots crush the fallen foliage into the sidewalk and leave ripples and eddies in puddles. I reach the corner of 13th and Pallow. I’ll head to the left this time. Everyone asks me why I do this, why I walk. Ninety-nine percent of these people know the answer to the question, but they are really hinting for me to tell them in my own words.
Those people aren’t really listening. As I explain the same story I’ve told a thousand times, they nod to show sympathy or acknowledgment. When they turn around to talk to someone else, both my story and I die with the loss of their attention, which was hardly there in the first place. If it wouldn’t kill them, I’d tell them to go to Iraq and bring back their own tales.
She was part of the one percent, one of the people who really understood and listened until she became part of the story. Her brother was over there with me. I came back and he didn’t. I got her email. He never told me he’d passed my address along to her in case something happened to him. It’s impossible not to wonder why it was him and not me. If I had given him contact info to pass along to my parents or something, would it have caused some cosmic twist of fate to send the bullet my way?
She came here to go to school or so she said. If I could handle it, I’d be in school, too. Instead, I’m here because it’s the one place I longed to come back to. This place is home. A small college town with plenty of trees, a river on the east side and nothing but two-lane streets inside the city limits.
We agreed to meet up at the River’s Bend, my favorite bar, for a drink. It was hard just meeting her. A tentative wave. An awkward hug and even more uncomfortable post-embrace moment. I saw him, his eyes and cheekbones. They didn’t belong to her. To anyone else, I’m sure she was attractive, but I couldn’t get past the association.
“It’s numb now,” she said with his lisp, staring at the table, halfway through her pint of Rainier. “I have this weight and I don’t know how to manage it.” I watched his eyes fill with tears on her face and felt the wall rising in my chest, the internal perimeter that kept my past from leaking into my present. She made it harder to arm myself against the memories.
Before meeting her, I dreamed we would mourn the loss together and wind up laughing and swapping memories of her brother, my friend, even though I knew it wouldn’t happen. If I had a few drinks, my mind would invent the meeting leading to a more intimate relationship. Impossible. She was too close to him and so was I. Conventional wisdom, common sense, and general rules of decency and sensitivity countered such a notion.
We met again after the quarter started. She looked a little different, but not enough to hide him. She had a backpack full of textbooks and a university T-shirt. Looking at her, you wouldn’t know she carried the aching weight of loss.
“It’s amazing I grew up here and never really noticed the college,” I said after I took my first swig of IPA and nodded at her shirt. “It was all in the background the whole time. The presence was always there, but I never noticed it or gave it much thought.”
“It’s amazing what we can miss even when it’s right in front of us.”
Something about the way she said it, the way her gaze moved away from me or how quickly she grabbed her beer after speaking caught my attention. I don’t know if it contributed to me calling her in the middle of the night a few days later.
I woke to the sound of the roars of war. My comforter was at the foot of my bed. I had clawed the sheets and mattress cover back. I had to blink sweat out of my eyes. My hands shook as I dialed her number. I don’t remember getting dressed or most of the walk to her studio. She was up when I got there and I collapsed in her arms. I didn’t want to look at her. I couldn’t. I needed to be with someone who would understand.
She guided me to couch and I sat, twitching and holding my hands together, my head bowed.
“He wrote about it,” she said, her hand on my knee. “If you need to talk about it or anything, I’m listening.”
What was it about the way she spoke? I looked up with sweat beading on my forehead. My voice was about as steady as my hands, turning my words into stuttering syllables.
“I wish I could miss this. It’s right in front of me, but I don’t want to see or hear it.”
I leaned toward her and even now I can’t remember what I was going for. A hug maybe but I got more than that. When it had started I realized it wasn’t what I wanted.
“Are you sure?” I kept repeating. Each time I asked, she replied with a determined stare. She unbuttoned her jeans and lifted her shirt over her head. As her face disappeared into the tank top, I saw her body for the first time, free of the association, and it didn’t help me resist at all. I realized she couldn’t understand the way I needed her too, at least at that level. I needed support that went beyond what she had already been able to give me. Maybe I helped her find temporary peace that night and at least my memories didn’t return. The encounter did give me something else to focus on in the time before I saw her again.
I didn’t get to see her again, though. Life isn’t ever so bad it that it can’t get worse. I started walking the night I heard that she took her own life.
A crisis in general is one thing but a crisis in a small town is completely different. I couldn’t bring myself to actually go there but I heard that her apartment door was surrounded with flowers, candles, and cards. The paper ran a story related to her every day for two weeks and then letters from the community for months after that.
She had been out with a group of friends at a bar and they had gone to her apartment afterward. After they left, she cut her wrists with a knife. I remember her arms; they weren’t like his at all. One of her friends left her purse behind. When she came back to get it, she saw the blood on the bathroom floor and called the police.
I thought I identified with her numbness when we first met. I stayed in my room after her death, staring at the walls and feeling blanker than them. My thoughts went out to her parents, strangers I had never met and never would, losing their two children in equally senseless ways. I remember standing up and staring out of my window at the sidewalk. The sight triggered my imagination and I saw her sprawled on the linoleum, feeling her strength diminishing. The vision made me hate my imagination more.
I tried to keep a journal, but the pain persisted and I often flopped back on my pillows in defeat. Writing sounded like a chore, but I had to come up with some way to express and to work through my thoughts. If I couldn’t spill my ideas on paper, I decided to try and let them go to the world around me.
I stepped out into the chilling embrace of the night. For all its imperfections and troubles, the world can absorb a lot of misery. I walked, trying to avoid all the places that would remind me of her. My boots scraped the pavement as I thought of her touch, her fingers sliding up my arm and down my back. Her hands had been soft and tender, smelling the like the lavender lotion I had seen in her bathroom. I don’t want to think about her bathroom.
What a waste, I thought. I had spent all the time I knew her dwelling on her similarities to her brother. Only after her death could I completely break the association. Her touch had been delicate, but the last time he touched me was when he pulled me from the rubble, his gloved fingers clutching my bicep. The world doesn’t always have to take your numbness; sometimes it gives you more to think about and since that first walk, I’ve kept at it. It’s my access to dealing with the past or at least gives me a moment to live with myself, the real me, before the haunting sounds and dead faces fill my consciousness.
I’m walking down 13th, leaving the cover of the maple trees. In moments of reflection, a lot of people gaze at the stars. Not me. I spent enough time looking at the damn things over there and now they only remind me of the sand and gunfire. Plus, looking up meant you weren’t watching what was in front of you and that’s how you die. Even when I tip my head back, the glare of the streetlamps blocks out anything beyond the top of the poles.
Observing the ground is much better. Unlike the sky, the ground has a lot more variety. Right now, I pause to watch the water running in the gutter, weaving around the fallen leaves and rocks on its journey. Just ahead, the trickling sound echoes out of the storm drain chamber. I’m sure they design them to magnify the call of the falling water. I never knew how much I missed it until I was over in the desert, thousands of miles from these storm drains and the rain that fills them.
I cross the street and hear the car in the distance. It sounds like it’s driving over a massive strip of flypaper as the tires roll on the wet pavement. I walk into the middle of the intersection. The lights and puddles cooperate to shatter the surface of the road from flat black to a shimmering mat of orange and shadows. I’m having second thoughts about my destination. In fact, the only destination I usually have is my home. I only walk to get closer to clarity.
This was spur of the moment, adding some kind of agenda to my ritual. I had avoided it all and realized that I had stopped listening to the stories from others. I already have too many illusions controlling my life and I don’t need to add this to the list. My imagination learned how to fool me too much over there and I won’t let it get in the way of her memory. I owe it to her to pay my respects. I return to the sidewalk and resume my trudging footsteps.
The neighborhood is changing from quaint houses and yards to the student residences. Even in the dim light I can see the paint chipping off the siding. The windows on the upper floors are dark, but the small ones in basements are blazing with light that filters through condensation. I pass a porch where a few guys about my age are talking. Their cans of Coors catch the light and flash at me like third eyes in sweaty hands.
My throat becomes dry when I see the only yellow fire hydrant in the whole city on the opposite corner. Laughter breaks out behind me and I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jeans, clenching my teeth and bowing my head. The fire hydrant means her apartment is two blocks away. I can already see the streetlamp marking the corner. The image appears in my head before I recognize it. Her on the bathroom floor staring at the hideous fluorescent light that buzzes over her fading heartbeat.
What I hate more than people hinting for me to tell my story is people projecting their own ideas on to me. I’ve heard more than I care to count of the disguised condolences that go something like, “How awful. I wish you could put this sort of thing behind you.” It’s like a fake apology where someone pisses you off and says, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” No accountability or remorse is expressed. I have and still do wonder about the unfairness of it all, coming home with the guns still in my head, but it is annoying, people confirming my feelings. No one has any real empathy anymore.
Someone hollers from across the street asking if I want a beer. I keep walking, sliding into the shadow of a tree. The offer hangs behind me and I’m happy to leave it. I’m numb enough without alcohol and I’ve got enough problems as it is. The white lamp is visible on the end of the apartment building. The last time I was here, I had approached from the north. The pavement had been dry and I only heard the tromp of my boots. Second thoughts are pouring in, trying to get me to turn around, to go somewhere else, to do anything but what I’m about to do.
I’m standing on the curb looking across the street to her apartment building, her bathroom. The glow of the streetlamp grows stronger and daylight is upon me. The world before me is much too bright. It’s just like when I stepped off the plane for the first time and had the sun hit my eyes. It’s the same sun as anywhere, but its effect is different there. I see my surroundings are nothing but rubble and my thoughts are no more coherent than the debris. I’m stuck in it, up to my waist.
The dull pain spreads through my legs and I feel the grip on my arm. I look up and see his eyes widen beneath his helmet as he tries to pull me free, his gun waving in his other hand. I struggle and feel my body sliding free from the shattered concrete. I instinctively retrieve my gun and hoist the butt to my shoulder, looking at the surrounding rooftops for signs of movement. He imitates me and in the tense moment, we make eye contact and I jerk my head by way of acknowledgement.
My legs are sore and bleeding, but it’s the least of my worries. The others got out and there’s no shortage of enemies around us. I turn at the sound of a distant explosion and he shouts my name. A push in the back sends me sprawling on the rubble as the sound of a single shot reverberates in the ruined plaza. I fall sideways behind a broken pillar, hoping I’m out of any gun sights as I push my helmet up from my eyes. A cautious glance upward and I see the man on the roof running from nonexistent retaliation.
I call my friend’s name and there’s no answer. No distant explosions or gunfire even offer a reply. I stretch my neck and gaze over the mounds of gritty debris and he’s lying facedown. I don’t need to get any closer to tell he’s dead. Though most of his face is hidden in the shadow of his helmet, the hole above his left eye spills blood over the rubble.
My other comrades appear, returning to rescue two but only saving one. As we ran from the plaza, grenades rained onto the debris. The resulting explosions are with me still, leaving no mark on my skin, but branding my mind. My brain likens any loud sound to the cracking of concrete walls from the power of the grenades.
I open my eyes and feel the water seeping through my jeans. I’m sitting on the curb, still on the other side of the street. The echo of an explosion fades in my head and I wipe a bead of sweat out of my eyebrow. I focus my attention on her door. The crinkly cellophane around the flowers reflects the light of the streetlamps. None of the candles are lit. I stand and cross the street for a closer look, stumbling as I try to shake off the memory.
The door is closed and the only comfort for me lies in front of it. Her friends from school did this. I crouch to read the cards and messages, mostly to distract myself from the feelings I know I can’t express. I want to feel them, but they’ve been buried. The wall is up in my chest and the sadness, anger, and misery are a part of me and beyond me.
I fumble in my back pocket and pull out a lighter. I don’t smoke, but I made a habit of carrying a Bic for the rest of the guys who could never find theirs. It is fitting that I should set her memorial candles ablaze, reprising my role as the igniter.
It starts raining as I stand and turn my back. The small roof over the door won’t keep the weather out for long, but I’m sure others will keep the flames alive. She clearly had other friends who cared a lot about her. I may not have many friends but I’m still breathing and until the day comes when I can’t, I’ll keep walking.