Memory: We are driving through Alabama at night. Susana thinks it would be fun to drive topless. She takes her shirt and bra off and then holds the steering wheel while I do the same. Two exits later she declares that she has to go to the bathroom and asks if we can get off at the next exit.
In my memory the sky is full of stars. I don't know if the sky was full of stars for real.
The truth is that I had stopped missing her by the time she died. I remember riding the bus to work that day after I’d gotten that disturbing email from D.J. I knew something terribly bad had happened. I couldn’t believe someone had actually done it. All my friends are depressed. I am depressed. But no one ever does it. We all just channel our despair into art. We drown it in a cheap bottle of wine with a pretty label and smother it the thrill of a new lover. We feel guilty for feeling terrible despite the fact that we are fed, housed, and physically healthy. We feel confused that we’ve become successful at crafts that seem to be fueled by this despair. And we feel despair over that fact that becoming happy will make us less creative and shatter our entire sense of identity. Maybe I am really just referring to myself. I am selfish like that.
I was sitting in one of the seats that faces sideways, watching Chicago Avenue pass by. I knew it was true. I started crying, but looking back I do not know why. Who was I crying for? Me? Her? The world? I had written D.J. back and told him to call me after 9PM – Central Time. I needed to be at home and alone for whatever was coming. I thought of that morning I’d spent with her in New Orleans.
We had gotten up early on New Year's Eve and went to get some breakfast at Jackson Square. On the way to the restaurant we passed a palm reader who said he was giving an early bird special - two for one. He said he'd give us a comparative reading, where he compared both of our hands. He was not as new agey as other readers I'd been to in that he constantly referred to the scientific reasons for the development of certain lines. For example, he said that having deep life line was the result of having had clenched fists while in utero. He said that babies with a strong will to live clench their fists, even before they are born. Throughout the rest of life passionate people continue to do this as a physical sign of desire and distress, causing a deep, long crease to develop. He looked at both of our life lines and told us that I would live longer. He also compared our hands and said that I would have many lovers and significant relationships. Susana, however, would only have one true love. When it was all over there would only be one man that really mattered. After we left Susana told me that she always knew she would die at a young age. I really didn't think much of it at the time. I tend to think that people put way too much emphasis on the quantity of their lives, rather that the quality. Having a life of adventure and then leaving behind a pretty corpse did not seem like a terrible plan at the time. Wasting one’s youth working at a mundane job and then dying in a sterile room with tubes and ventilators seemed far worse, like a living death.
Should I have been alarmed by what she said? Back then time moved slowly. I was 25 and she was only 23. We still had a long time to me young. Time does not move that slowly anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment