If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go (25 page)

•   •   •

T
hey say that after the first death, there is no other, but of course there is and always will be: Michael Courtney, falling backward off the boardwalk and breaking his neck while stoned on Valium; Cully McKee, drowned with his surfboard when he went wave-catching after Hurricane Elizabeth; the Torreo brothers, two poor, dumb guineas trying to make a buck, who burned to death while torching a house on the bay, an insurance scam gone awry; Tony Furimonte, killed in a bar fight in Providence, surrounded by people who didn’t know him. At the funeral, Nanny wept and wailed and clung to Voodoo, whose lips curled into a small, smug smile, knowing that finally Nanny would be all his, at least until the rich boss came along and carried her away to a distant castle. And then there was Raven, diving off the balcony of the Sea Lion Hotel. Poor Raven hadn’t been right for years, the drugs eating away at his body, his brain; once, he disappeared for eight months before showing up on Aunt Francie’s doorstep, asking for a ham sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off and a 7Up. Everyone rejoiced over his homecoming until we realized that nothing would ever bring him back, not shrinks or electric shock or the people who loved him. Raven, so good-looking, smiling with his mouth closed so you couldn’t see the missing teeth, rotted from speed. We often wondered what drove him off that balcony, what final picture came into his mind. “Maybe he thought he really could fucking fly,” Rita, his old girlfriend, said with a bitter, twisted smile.

•   •   •

A
s the years folded over one another, you thought about the dead people occasionally and wondered if they’d been saved from their own lives for something better. Sometimes, you could see them: smiling up at the sun through movie star sunglasses; dancing on a star, wearing patent leather platforms; soaring through the air against a cloudless sky. Best of all was when you heard them singing. The singing was so sweet, you had to stand still and close your eyes to listen. And for a minute or two, you stopped being afraid.

last call

I
had just put the wooden divider on my register to signal that it was closed when I looked up and saw Liz and Nanny and Voodoo coming through the automatic doors. I waved and started walking toward them. “Perfect timing,” I said. “I’m just going on break right this minute. Let’s go to Leo’s and get coffee, I’m starving, we can—”

“Katie, man,” Voodoo said quietly. “Take a walk, okay?”

I looked at their faces. Voodoo’s eyes were red, but that was pretty normal. Though his hands were quiet, hanging down his sides. “What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

Liz took my arm and we began walking through the doors, out to the street. We walked into the alley between the A&P and the Sunoco station where we usually took cigarette breaks when the weather was nice. Liz and Nanny had joined me here many times.

“What’s up, man?” I looked at the three of them, and Liz said, “Katie, Mitch—they found Mitch in his room this morning. He’s—he’s gone, sweetie. He died sometime over the past two days, they think.” Liz’s eyes filled with tears. She looked away.

“Over the past two days?” My voice scaled up.

“He was in his room,” Voodoo said patiently. “You know how he gets holed up, drinking, sometimes you don’t see him out for weeks. And we had that wicked rain on Sunday and no one was out, so nobody thought to . . .”

“It was Len who found him,” Nanny said. “Knocked on his door to give him his mail and he didn’t answer, and Len said there was a—a smell—” She broke off, crying, and burrowed further into Voodoo’s shoulder.

It was a beautiful day. A blue skies, white sails on the water kind of day. It was the color of the sky that made me ask, “Are they sure? That he’s—I mean, remember that time we thought Bennie had OD’d and then they pumped his stomach and—”

Liz broke in gently. “Sweetie, they’re sure. Len called—the ambulance, medics, whoever they were.” She put her hand on my arm. “They’re sure.”

With the arm that wasn’t around Nanny, Voodoo pulled me close. “We didn’t want you hearing it from strangers, man,” he said. “You know how shit gets around.”

•   •   •

A
t first, no one seemed to know how Mitch had actually died.

“Probably drank himself to death, the way he could put it away,” Raven said. We were all up in the lounge at The Starlight Hotel. I had come down to Comanche Street straight from work. It was still early; the sun hadn’t set. Filtered light poured through the windows behind the bar.

“You think he—like he meant to do it?” Rita, Raven’s girlfriend, said. Raven had his arm around her, holding his beer in the other hand.

“I don’t know, man,” Raven said. “There should be a coroner’s report or something, but Mitch didn’t impress me as a suicide kind of guy. And
if he did do it, he would have eaten his gun, not taken pills or anything—I mean, anybody know, did he cop from any of you guys?”

Billy and Conor shook their heads no.

“Look, he had the leg thing, and he wasn’t the healthiest guy—”

“Yeah, man, the times we hung out, I don’t remember him ever eating anything. Never kept food in his room—”

“Len, man, you’d know—he ever order room service? A burger, anything like that?”

Len paused, his hand on the Heineken tap. “Come to think of it, no,” he said thoughtfully. “Never sold him so much as a package of beer nuts.”

“Fuckin’ guy drank so much, he probably forgot how to chew.”

“C’mon, man, show some respect.”

“I am showing respect. I respect anyone could drink that way and keep it together for as long as he did.”

Raven raised his glass. “To Mitch,” he said solemnly. “A true soldier in the battle of life.”

“To Mitch,” we echoed, and everyone drank. Len turned the bar lights up, then dimmed them again. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was playing on the jukebox. Mitch had once met Mick Jagger in Golden Gate Park and thought he was the coolest living person on earth.

“What’s going to happen,” Nanny asked hesitantly, “with the—I mean, what about his family? Are they going to take him back to San Francisco?”

“Yeah, what about that? Anyone know anything about his people?” Voodoo asked. “Katie? You guys were tight. He ever say anything to you?”

“No,” I said regretfully. “We never talked about family.” It was actually hard to remember what Mitch and I had talked about. Nothing and everything, really. After I’d overheard Mitch and Luke talking about Vietnam that one night, I’d tried to subtly pump him for information
about Luke, but he’d just shake his head and say, “Already told you what I thought about that number. Give it a rest, angel.” I had no idea what he really meant, but he refused to explain and changed the subject, speaking very fast the way he did right before he was completely drunk, and not allowing me a word in edgewise.

“Never said anything to me,” Raven said.

“Well, we should find out, shouldn’t we? If he had family?” Cha-Cha asked. “Because even if they take him back to Frisco, we should do something.”

“Really, man,” I said. “He was part of our people. We should definitely do something.” I pushed my empty glass forward on the bar for a refill. “Len, he ever say anything to you about his parents or anything?”

Len filled my glass with fresh ice. He gave me extra maraschino cherries without my having to ask. His fingers touched mine, briefly, as he handed me my drink.

“There’s a wife somewhere,” he said.

“Get out!” I said.

“No way!” Billy said.

“Are they still married?” Liz asked.

“All I know is there’s a wife somewhere,” Len repeated softly. The Stones were singing “Honky Tonk Women,” and I felt tears sting my eyes. I looked around for Luke, but he wasn’t with us. I wanted to see him. I wanted to tell him he had to take care, take care. There were so many ways he could end up if he wasn’t careful.

“Maybe my brother knows something, man,” Conor said, like he’d read my mind. “They’ve been talking a lot since he came home.”

“Where is Luke?” Rita asked. “I thought I saw him when we came in.”

“He was in the bathroom, punching the shit out of the urinal,” Billy said, rolling his eyes. “Screaming ‘Fuck!’ over and over. Surprised you didn’t hear him out here, man.”

Conor sighed, set his drink down and walked toward the bathrooms at the back of the bar.

“Fucking McCallister, man,” someone murmured. I thought Raven or Ray Mackey would say something, but nobody did.

•   •   •

I
t turned out there was a wife, and they were separated but not divorced. Len called her; he’d gotten the number from Mitch’s tattered phone book when they were cleaning out his room, not knowing if she was a mother, sister or aunt, only that she had the same last name as Mitch. Her first name was Rosemary and they’d been separated for three years and there wasn’t any other family that she knew of. Mitch’s father had died years ago and his mother had passed while he was over in Nam. She took the news calmly, not at all surprised that the cause of death had indeed been acute alcohol poisoning, and thanked Len for calling, but said that Mitch had become a different person from the one she had married and she really didn’t know him at all anymore. When Len asked her what she wanted to do about the body, the funeral arrangements, she sighed and said that it really wasn’t her problem. “I don’t mean to sound cold, but we didn’t part on the best of terms,” she said. She thanked Len again and hung up.

“Bitch,” Liz said. “Talk about cold, Jesus.” It was Friday and we were back at The Starlight Hotel. Mitch had been dead for almost a week.

“Hold on, now, honey, none of us really knows the whole story there,” Len said, and I looked at him and knew he was thinking about his sister and the screaming husband.

“But—but if she won’t do anything and there’s no other family . . .” Nanny’s voice trailed off. “I mean, how long will they keep him over at Farrell’s? They can’t just throw him out, can they?”

“Unless there’s burial insurance or some kind of policy—” Raven shrugged.

“There isn’t,” Len broke in. “I asked the wife. And we didn’t find anything when we went through the room. Except empty bottles underneath the bed.”

“They could put him in Potter’s Field, man,” Cha-Cha said softly.

“Ah, no,” Nanny and I said together.

“Really, man, fuck that,” Billy said. “I mean the guy won the Purple Heart, for chrissake—”

“It’s not something you win,” Luke said drily. He was sitting in the corner of the bar opposite everyone else, smoking. “It’s not like it was a carnival and you get the third toss free.”

I looked at Luke. The sound of his voice made my heart jump a little. I realized I hadn’t heard him speak since he’d been back. Not like this. His voice sounded gravelly, older than before he went away. I had heard him so often in my head, it took me a minute to realize how different his voice was from what I remembered.

“Whatever,” Billy said defensively. “I mean, shit, what if we called the VA hospital and asked them? I mean, shouldn’t he get a—a military burial or something, you know with a flag over the coffin and shit?”

“No,” Luke said quietly. He got up and walked over to the table. Usually, everyone stood or sat around the bar but tonight we were at one of the longer tables, by the fireplace. It was filled with dead cigarette butts.

“What do you mean, no?” Billy asked.

“It’s not what he wanted,” Luke said. His hair was caught back in a ponytail. His voice held a note of quiet authority. “He hated that military shit. He didn’t want a thing to do with any of it, you dig? Didn’t even like going over to the VA hospital for his meds but he couldn’t afford them otherwise. He wanted his ashes scattered on the water. That’s what he wanted.”

“Yeah, well, why didn’t you speak up before, man?” Billy asked.

“We only just found out about the family,” Luke said. “Couldn’t act on anything until they weighed in, could we? Now we know.”

“We’re his family now, man,” Voodoo said solemnly. Everyone looked at him. “That was me, not Jimi,” he said.

“Really, man,” Conor agreed. He was looking at Luke, smiling. He seemed happy that his brother was participating in something for the first time since he’d come back. Even if it was burial plans for one of our friends. “So Luke, man, did he say anything else? Like, did he—”

“Why did he tell you that in the first place, do you think?” Raven asked quietly. “I mean, were you guys just sitting around, talking about the most far-out ways to say adios to the planet? Or you think he really was planning to—”

“It came up,” Luke said, running his hand down the side of his face. “It just came up. During the course of conversation.”

Billy snorted. “Must have been a really cheerful conversation,” he said.

“Fuck you, man,” Luke said, like he was tired of the whole thing. “It came up, it’s what he said he wanted. If it was me—”

Billy stood up. “But it’s not you, is it? It’s not—”

“Take it easy, Billy,” Conor said, going to stand beside his brother.

“You got a problem, man?” Luke asked conversationally.

“Yeah, I got a problem,” Billy said. “With guys like you, walking around like—”

“Would you all knock it off!” Everyone turned to look at me. I was standing up now, facing them. “What’s the matter with you? Mitch is dead, laying up at Farrell’s almost a week now, and you’re sitting here acting like it’s showdown time at the O.K. Corral? It’s not about you,” I said, looking at Billy. And then I turned to Luke. “And it’s not about you,” I said. “Not everything is about you. It’s about Mitch, about saying good-bye to Mitch, Goddamn it! He’s the one who’s dead!”

Everyone was quiet. I could feel them all watching me, and the last thing I remembered before stalking off to the bathroom was the startled look on Luke’s face as he stared directly into mine for the first time all summer.

•   •   •

W
hen I came out of the stall in the ladies’ room, Liz and Nanny were waiting for me.

“A showdown at the O.K. Corral,” Liz said, her lips twitching, and then the three of us were laughing hysterically, leaning against the sink, hugging each other.

“I feel like a total jerk,” I said, wiping my eyes, though I didn’t, really. I just wanted someone to tell me that I wasn’t.

“No, Katie, man, that was great,” Nanny said, blowing her nose. “It really was.”

“Really, man, what a bunch of assholes,” Liz said scornfully. “Getting into some ludicrous pissing contest at a time like this.”

But now I was feeling embarrassed. Billy and I were tight, I could make it up to him later, but what must Luke be thinking? I had barely said five words to him all summer and now I’m yelling in his face what I should have been yelling in my own. Because right now it should be about Mitch and somehow it always ended up being about Luke and I was losing patience with it, with myself, with the whole sad, sticky summer.

“Katie, when you ran off like that, Luke kept looking at you, he said, ‘Who’s that chick again?’”

“Really,” I said, like it was no big deal to me.

“Luke fucking McCallister,” Liz said, examining her face in the mirror. “Man, I don’t know. I always thought he was more—more manly or something, right? Instead of this, like—shit, am I getting a zit on my friggin’ eyelid?”

“Fuck you, ‘manly,’” Nanny said. “He was over in Nam, for chrissake, what ‘more manly’ do you want?”

“Come on,” I said, opening the door, growing impatient with them, with everything. “Let’s get going.”

We walked back to the long table. I went over to Billy, put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Billy, man, I—”

He pulled me down on his lap and gave me a huge hug. “No, baby, you were right on,” he said. “Right the fuck on. But don’t let it go to your head.”

I stood up and asked, “So? What’s happening? What are we going to do?”

I looked around the table and when I got to Luke, he looked at me again like he was seeing me for the first time. He was twirling a set of car keys. “I’m going over to Farrell’s,” he said. “Get some info, see where we go from here.” He put the car keys in the pocket of his jeans. I remembered then that Luke had a car; he’d driven a maroon Cutlass black-top that Conor had driven while he was gone. There had usually been a crowd in the car with him, a girl sitting next to him, laughing through the window. The radio blaring. Sometimes he’d had his arm around the girl, sometimes not. Still looking at me, he asked, “Feel like taking a ride?”