by Amy Kate O'Halloran
They found him in the woods down by the old train tracks. A handgun on the ground beside him. Its black neck just past his hand. Hands warm from the sun shining dimly. It was mid-July. The first time he was ever in the paper. His face. Cheeks like plums, a tower above the rest of us. He always had a smile. He wore it like you鈥檇 wear one of those gold chains with the cross on it. He never took it off. I can't imagine him the way they described him. I keep hearing his laugh. When it鈥檚 quiet, it鈥檚 like the hum of air conditioning or the buzz of a refrigerator, slight but there. He rang me the day he died. He started talking to me like I was his mother. She鈥檚 mad now. That鈥檚 what grief does to you. Her only son dead in the woods. Everyone鈥檚 lips. He tried to OD on sleeping pills but no one really took any notice. He came back to school and that was that. We spoke about it but not with him. Just among ourselves when we鈥檇 get high in the burning white air. He got his stomach pumped. I don鈥檛 think I鈥檒l ever forget that. How he rang me. It was quiet at first, the quickness of someone breathing and the sound of walking, feet soft on the worn dirt path.
鈥淢am. I love you. I'm sorry. Ah I have to鈥�. to do it again, finish it now. I鈥檓鈥cared鈥� Please鈥︹�� The hot wet heaves collapsed into a silence, artificial in its immediacy.
His death demanded the casket to be closed. I imagine him inside, a stretched-out cherub with fleshy, red lips and his curls hanging down over his face, like a shroud. Gold ringlets. But he blew his brains out. A bullet pierced his shoulder, near his heart. He had fucked up. He was trying to bury me with him. Everyone had only one thing to say. Where did he get a gun from? I could see his mother. Sat front row. Hysterical. Crazed. Crying into her hands. The drugs weren鈥檛 doing anything to dumb her. After that I鈥檇 see her on occasion. She didn鈥檛 walk. She glided the pavements with empty eyes. I looked up to the sky, grey like dishwater. Windmills in the far distance stirred it. Wind blew me back. Don鈥檛 worry Chris boy. She鈥檒l be up after you. Don鈥檛 you worry.
In a windowless room, I lied. I nearly denied knowing him. We went to school together, had some of the same friends. They ask about my nickname. The girls gave it to me. I don鈥檛 last long. I dump them, they鈥檇 get mad and it would be a thing among them. Nothing to do with guns, no. They sip their coffee through a smirk. I drink water until it pushes at the back of my eyes. When I come back they say I鈥檓 free to go.
I haven鈥檛 been free since mid-July and won't be again. I finished school. And retreat back into my glory days, day drinking, stumbling through the red strobes. I try to sink girl鈥檚 souls by burrowing into them. I'd crash every time. I don鈥檛 have the effect I once did. I鈥檒l be like my brother. I鈥檒l pick one, the best I can get and I'll knock her up. Then my kid can do everything right and not be like me. That鈥檒l make my mam happy, a woman devout in her religion, a widow who had the cancer burnt out of her. God did it. I wonder if Chris knows God. Have you meet him yet? Was he with you when you were in the trees?
Quarryman
Contact us