The Last Time I Died (23 page)

Approaching Cordoba’s building, I remind myself that I’m that much closer to being whole again. That much closer to realizing the potential Lisa saw in me. I’m clearing out roadblocks and I’ll never again be unavailable. I’m evolving.

I know a lot of this is mania but why can’t I make it true? Why can’t I live the dream? This is the kind of transformation that brings people back together forever.

Her front door lock is broken. The door is slightly ajar.

Before I can process this, I run head on into Goose’s smirking face.

He’s on his way out of her building and in what would appear to be a rush but stops when he realizes who I am. That fucking grin. And me fully recovered. I force myself to breathe evenly. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is one more thing my new self can check off his to do list, huh? I’m going to kill this piece of shit and this time it’ll be a fair fight.

—What are you doing here?

Goose smiles a little broader as if he knows I’m ready to throw down. He jerks forward enough to make me think he’s throwing a punch and I don’t flinch one iota. He shrugs it off with a chuckle but I know he’s recalculating his attack plan.

Why would he be in Cordoba’s building? Is he a patient? Could he possibly be seeing her as well? For what? What are the chances that the two of us would be using the same underground doctor regardless of the reason?

Unless he’s not a patient. Unless he followed me here when I came before.

To do what? Who even knows what’s going on in this building besides me and her? My anger and aggression and confidence has quickly curdled into a whirling eddy of questions and I have almost forgotten that I intend to murder the fucknut in front of me.

Goose tires of waiting for me to make a move. He shakes his head, clucks his tongue, and walks past me, bumping my shoulder as he goes. Like I’m not even worth the effort. The option to follow him is wide open. Run after him. Tackle him. Beat him.

But I’m right here. I’m ready to die. That’s what I need to be doing. I need to get to Cordoba.

Oh shit.

Cordoba.

I hit the stairs running and take them two at a time. Her front door is wide open and I can smell the blood before I get into the office. Inside the stark front room, Cordoba lies sprawled across the couch with her head turned awkwardly enough that I know for sure she’s dead. My shoulder hits the doorframe as I walk backwards without even realizing it. I’m repulsed but I can’t stop staring. Her neck is broken and both eyes have syringes jammed into them. Her legs are crossed at the ankles and her arms are spread wide as if she were going to hug me for the first time. She has been posed. This is what I get for being optimistic.

He killed her.

He knew how important she was to me and he came up here and killed her. Why her and not me when he had the chance? What’s the point? To torture me? Squash any chance I have at rebuilding myself? Imprison me in my own life? I was so close to picking the lock and now that’s over.

I’ll never be brought back again.

I have nothing. I have nothing and nobody and I’ll die alone and ignorant and it won’t be long from now.

I’m dead already.

There’s nothing left for me. Cordoba was the last friend I had in the world. I know friend is the wrong word. Accomplice, maybe. Either way, she was it. Ella might as well be a stranger for all the honest emotional interaction she’ll allow herself with me and I’ve done such an admirable job of alienating myself from anyone else who ever showed me the smallest kindness that I am a self-made social outcast. I knew Cordoba for only days but I feel even emptier now that she’s gone. I should call the police or see if she has a next of kin that should be notified, but she’s dead and neither of those two actions will bring her back. Besides, I know she was alone like me. Dead like me.

Cordoba’s bloody, syringe filled eyes stare up at the ceiling. I follow the gaze to see that written in blood, I assume shot from the syringes before using them to defile her face, is a message. To me.
Happy now?

Where is he?

Where is that fucker who thinks I will not fight back?

I’m still flying from the magic meds and feel like I could tear an ox in half. The buzz in my head is forcing euphoria on me. Cordoba lying there with needles in her eyes is infusing this internal rapture with shrill, shooting adrenaline streaks of horror. They’re feeding on each other. One amplifying the other. The realization that I am out of options fuels my absentee gunmetal gray cloud of depression to return with a vengeance, roiling and churning on top of everything else. Medically induced happiness steeped in profound shock and top notes of suicidal tendencies. My new base line.

(Sigh)

The saddest part is that this is entirely our man’s fault.

Every tragic turn of this hopeless tale has been effected by the old boy’s own clumsy hand. Every heartrending abomination of his recent past can be traced directly to his own actions. The inveterate self-saboteur’s predicament is bleak at best and it is plain to even the dimmest of outsiders that his best next action would be to resign himself to alerting the authorities and accepting his share of whatever blame is to be doled out. And naturally, a commitment to a hospital or mental facility is in order as well.

But, as you must already know, he will do neither.

His state of mind is not one of acceptance or contrition or supplication, but rather revenge. He has suffered provocation beyond endurance. There are no degrees of emotion involved. His perspective is pure and undistracted. The incandescent rage of indignation boils over and our man rejiggers his agenda accordingly. A grievous sacrilege must be avenged. Beyond that, there is no further thought.

He calms himself, if only to focus harder on what he will do next. His eyes scan the room one last time, not for sentimental reasons, but to soak in fully the details of Cordoba’s untimely demise. He nods, now fully realized in his murderous state of grace. Calmly, he exits the good doctor’s office and moves down the stairs, gaining momentum as he goes. By the time he crosses the threshold of the building, he is running at full speed, and you would be well advised to steer clear of him. Collateral damage is no concern to our man.

Pity, really. There was a time when the old boy held promise as a husband, as a lawyer, as a human. Not so, anymore. Not so at all.

And now there is nothing left but to congratulate our man on his previous accomplishments and bid the malignant whelp Godspeed in what is left of his disquieting adventure.

Best of luck, old boy.

*It’s three months ago.

I’m alone.

I stand in a cemetery about thirty yards away from the funeral Lisa’s family has arranged for her. I know most of the people sitting around the grave. They don’t know I’m there. Or they do and they’re ignoring me.

Someone is talking. It must be the rabbi. I recognize the voice. Same guy who married us. The only person here who can’t hear him is Lisa. She went black. Gone. They’re all sitting around an empty vessel.

Lisa once told me she’d prefer that no fuss be made over her body when she died. Burn it. Donate it. Toss it. Whatever. I know she told her mother the same thing, but here we are with what I’m assuming is an expensive casket and a grave with a stunning view of Southern Philadelphia that must have cost plenty. What a waste.

Someone notices me, points me out to Lisa’s mother. They whisper together and shake their heads. They’re wondering why I’m standing out here. I don’t know if they think I’m being disrespectful for staying this far away or getting this close.

I turn and walk away like it never happened.

*It’s two months ago.

The doors close.

I’m sitting on the subway at the beginning of what I know will be at least a four-hour ride to nowhere. I know because I’ve done it every night for the last eight nights.

I’m staring at a secretary who’s knitting fingerless gloves for someone she cares about and wearing her riding-the-subway-home shoes when it finally hits me that Lisa is never coming back to me. I can’t explain the logic behind holding out hope this long but there it is, newly shattered on the floor in front of me.

Okay, then.

I stand up and walk out of the car and into the next car and then the next and then the next. I hate when other people change cars when the subway isn’t too full. I guess their point is to simply keep moving. I know that’s my point.

The last thing she said to me was that sometimes things in life don’t work out and that we have to accept that. Worst philosophy ever. Things could have worked out. Somehow.

I get to the end of the train and turn around. There are other people in the car. A nanny with her four-year-old charge. An Asian couple. A family of German tourists blabbering about how to get to Ground Zero. There’s a teenage boy by one of the doors. Standing there with his backpack and his earbuds and his life potential.

The train comes to a stop. As the doors open I make sure to bump the kid’s shoulder good and strong. He’s relaxed and slack and has one of those bodies that I can already tell has to be beat a lot to feel anything. Like melted rubber.

He doesn’t react the way I want him to so I shove his soft shoulder. Finally, the little turd reacts.

—Yo, what the fuck?

I swat his iPhone out of his hands. It hits the floor and we both know it’s broken. No more gangsta rap tonight, Junior.

He swings and I lean into it making sure his fist hits me square between the eyes. This generation is so entitled they can’t even punch without a little help.

Perfect. I see black for a heartbeat and then my vision comes racing back, clearer than ever.

But I don’t fall over or pass out like he’s seen in so many movies, which scares the little shit. He starts backing off and it scares him worse that I move toward him. He backs up faster and faster, turning his hips to half run with his face still watching me. Finally, he turns all the way and bolts toward the exit. I want another fist in my face, maybe two or three, but it looks like that’s not happening.

He’s gone and now it’s just me and a few stragglers who watched the whole thing go down from a safe distance away.

Lisa’s never coming back. I know that now.

I practically break the door off of its hinges when I hit the sidewalk outside Cordoba’s building.

I’m running. I have energy to burn. He couldn’t have gotten far unless I was in there for longer than I think. Anything’s possible. It felt like sixty seconds, but it might have been an hour.

Up Essex. It’s not crowded and I can see to the end of the block. I’ve lost all my hair, but my vision is amazing. He’s not here.

Left on Hester. Nothing.

Up Orchard. Where is this shitstain?

And then I stop. If I keep chasing him, I’ll never catch him. But I know how to find him.

I turn and I casually walk back the way I came. Come and get me. It’s not long before I know I’m being followed. I feel it. I keep going another half block to make sure and then I turn into an alley between a Chinese restaurant and a thrift store. And I stop.

When I turn around, he’s there. The Cheshire cat of my newfound nightmare. Grinning like it was all his idea in the first place.

Hi, Goose.

There’s no discussion this time. I swing away and land a right cross on his jaw. Who’s strong now, asshole? I follow that with a left to his nose that has to hurt. His head is jerking back and forth with the punches but he’s not dropping. He raises his eyebrows and makes his mouth an O to taunt me. Mock fear.

I swing my right hand and this time I put some stank on it. It lands squarely on his temple and he staggers back. This feels good. Better than it should. I’m on the other end of the beating for once and I’m getting a rush like I’ve never had.

Or is that a whoosh?

I throw another haymaker and connect with his cheek.

The whoosh grows from behind me. Holy shit. My eyes twitch and before I can blink it away the entire world wobbles, zigging and zagging back and forth before the whoosh is big enough to make everything go white.

The White.

I’m alone and pristine and content.

I’m not even dead and I’m here in The White. And I know what’s coming. The whoosh is deafening and ramping up, impossibly loud yet unwaveringly reassuring. Something is on its way. I turn to see a single memory screaming toward me. It’s so beautiful. If I had a body, I would be slobbering with anticipation as I wait for this big fat vision to run me over. It hits me and I’m there.

It’s March of whatever year I was eight.

I’ve been here before. It’s the recovered memory from the laundry room. I’ve already seen this. A fucking rerun? Are you kidding me?

I’m terrified. Yes, I remember this part. Why am I here?

I’m watching my mother cry as she stares at the locked door.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! I know that’s my father and he’s angry and my mother is scared.

—Let me in there, God dammit! Open this fucking door or I’ll break it down!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

—Open up!

She grabs the sides of her head and screams.

—Leave me alone! Why can’t you leave me alone!

My mother curls up tighter on the floor and convulses with sobs. I’m watching. Helpless. Paralyzed.

She looks up at me. She talks to me like I’m an adult. A stranger.

—Why won’t he leave me alone?

I have no answer for her. She sobs for a moment before pulling herself together and finishing what she started. Which was tying off to shoot up.

Oh.

My mother was a junkie. Oh, right.

Jesus.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

—I’M COMING IN THERE!

She wraps a belt that looks like it would fit a boy about my age around her arm, yanks it with her teeth, and pumps her fist. I think it’s me she’s talking to through gritted teeth, but who knows.

—It’s none of his business. He can’t tell me what to do.

She flicks a lighter under a spoon and then sucks its contents up with a syringe in a practiced move.

Once the needle is in her arm and the plunger is down, she collapses in a triumphant slouch.