52
AT the end of your days, you claimed that you weren’t a writer. But I think you would appreciate the poetic symmetry regarding your burial. It was a long, lonely drive upstate, more than four hours outside of the city. It was tough going in the Buick, with you in the trunk with your green pillow, silent as Little Compton in the winter. I drove past Nicky’s Pizza and I kept going and I found this diner. Nicky’s and his brother’s extra homes are nestled in nearby Forrest Lake, a private area just outside of Chestertown. This is a pure township, Beck, old-fashioned and pleasantly anchored to an antiquated way of life. I eat a grilled cheese sandwich because I have to, because burying you in the cold forest will be demanding, even though everyone who comes into the diner can’t resist remarking on the mild winter. So mild, I wouldn’t need a red Holden Caulfield hunting cap from Macy’s even if I still had one. I will not cry. Not here.
Most in the diner are local, and those who aren’t local have driven in for a car show. The waitress asks me if I’m here for the car show and I say that I am and I check my phone and I have to go to the bathroom again, because every time I check my phone, it’s like you die all over again. Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands and I cry, quietly, so as not to attract attention. Your death is a song on repeat and I splash cold water on my face and try not to think about the fact that I will never hear from you ever again. I won’t, Beck. You are dead.
I know that Nicky is not stupid. He wouldn’t bury you on his own property. But he would drive into the nearby woods off Forrest Lake Drive, as I do now an hour after sunset. I see a pink-and-white sign. There is an event, “Chet and Rose’s Wedding” is happening tonight at the camp at the end of the road. But I will not be deterred. I veer off-road into the blackness that’s purer than the beaches of LC and darker than the depths of your solipsistic soul. There is no ocean here to soften the starless blow of eternity. I brake, slowly. Chet and Rose are the ones with bad timing, not me, damn it.
The night is so empty that I can hear the wedding when I shut off the Buick. I strap on my night vision goggles and grab my shovel and step out into the darkness. I try not to listen to the wedding as I shovel. But it’s hard. Chet and Rose take their first dance—Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”—as their friends and family clap. I wonder what our wedding song would have been and I ask you but you don’t answer. You are dead.
I dig. I have never been and will never be as alone as I am while I dig. Upstate New York clings to the cold like no other place. Only here would I have to listen to Eric Clapton shut off lights and praise his loyal, beautiful, girlfriend as I, alone, sweat and shiver and prepare to put you into the dirt. Life goes on, so literally, and I stab my shovel in the bitter earth. I bend over to catch my breath. I look over at you, wrapped up in a wooly blanket from Bed Bath & Beyond, silenced in the open trunk. I am breathing normally now and the revelers are doing the Electric Slide and would we have had a wedding like this? I suppose it would have been on Nantucket because you’re the one with a family. I would have invited Ethan and Blythe and Mr. Mooney. Mr. Mooney wouldn’t have come. But he would have transferred the title of the shop to you and me. I know it. I want the wedding to stop and I would like to scream at the top of my lungs but I don’t want to alarm you. But I can’t alarm you. You are dead.
I dig and the party goes on. There are toasts and cheers and Stevie Wonder sings about his precious daughter—Isn’t she lovely made from love?—and we’ll never have a daughter and I lose my temper and throw my shovel. I crawl into the earth and let the music beat the living fuck out of me. I can’t fight it anymore and joy at the far end of the woods has become monotonous—I’m not one of those people who ever thought “Get Lucky” was so fucking special. I can almost taste their vodka and I am the uninvited guest, out of sight, alone. What soothes me, what allows me to keep digging, is the likelihood that Chet and Rose have a website, a registry. Knowing that I will be able to find them, to see them, is a comfort somehow. Neil Young sings for Chet and Rose—“Harvest Moon” that hurts—and Neil Young will never play for you and me on our wedding day and you don’t hear him now. You are dead.
I lift your body out of the trunk and unravel the area rug that encapsulates you. You are still beautiful and I rest my head on your chest and tell you about Chet and Rose. I will probably die alone, under an insignificant moon and you won’t be there to mourn. You soar on to heaven and I have to summon the strength to set your precious corpse in the ground. Chet and Rose are surrounded by friends and family but I, alone, lift your petite body and maketh you to lie down in green pastures. It would be nice to have a moment of silence; Chet and Rose are rude to be so loud. But I can’t blame them; they can’t see me, can’t hear me. They’re in their own world, where good things happen, a quarter mile and a million light years away. I kneel on the ground and recite the 23rd Psalm. I memorized it for this occasion. You are dead.
There is no way to know what happens to us after the wedding we won’t have, after life. I walk in the woods and look at the world with inhuman night vision and see all that man was not built to see. I don’t know if you will dwell in the house of the lord forever but I lie on my back and listen to the party for Chet and Rose grow as quiet as the night, as death. They will get tired and their party will end and if anyone was ever going to live eternally in the light, I think it would be you.
I cover you with dirt and rocks and branches and leaves and you are so much more than a body. The walk back to my car is a short one. The drive away from Chet and Rose and your body is a long one in the dark of night. I don’t know that I’ll ever make it home, and even when I do make it into my apartment, I remain unsure of whether or not I will ever have a true home. I will never have you. You are buried by Forrest Lake, near Chet and Rose, somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience.
I don’t open the shop the next day. I can’t. You are dead.