Sunrise Fires (22 page)

“Maybe beers at someone’s house would be more comfortable?”

“Enh. Maybe.” Toss, catch, toss, catch. “Doesn’t much matter anymore. No one’s really around much.”

“Where’d everyone go?”

“I dunno. Busy, I guess.” Toss. Catch. “Pat’s gone. Divorced, and it was messy. Had to move to Minnesota cuz she went back to stay with family, and he was chasing his kids. He’d never see them otherwise. Paul’s around, I guess, but his new girl’s kinda tight with the kitchen passes. Johnnie’s around, too.” He caught the football and sat up. “And then there’s Ryan….” He raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips. “He’s around…but never goes out anymore either.” The tension in the room was tangible but I couldn’t tell if it was anger or hurt that thickened the air between us.

“It is sad to think of not going out there and watching you guys ride.”

“You two back together?” He asked with an air of nonchalance.

“We’re talking and seeing where things go. I’m going to spend time with him this weekend. Maybe I can arrange something - we can all get together for a ride at the track. We can meet at Apex—”

“Told ya,” he interrupted, “don’t have my bike anymore.” He leaned back again and resumed his personal game of catch.

“Then come sit with me on the sidelines.”

“Better to try to get them together at Randsburg in Cali. No one’s gonna go to Apex.”

“Why not? You guys used to love that place. I’ve got some great memories from being out there. Remember my going away?”

“Not everybody has good memories out there…” Chris trailed off, and I suddenly felt insensitive for bringing up the place where he’d hurt himself. “Anyway, let me know what the guys say. See how many of them are willing. Let me know if something comes together.”

“I will, Chris. I will. And if I do, are you in?”

“Let’s just start with you doing it first.”

I left shortly thereafter, feeling like something was definitely off. This version of Chris bore some of the old Chris characteristics, but he had changed quite a bit in the year I was gone. I wasn’t sure that Ryan was right about him becoming a bit of a pompous ass; I felt something else darkening his usual childlike enthusiasm.
No doubt I wasn’t the reason he stopped going to the track, but what was?
I hoped to get the boys together again this weekend and sort out whatever happened to them.

Chapter Twenty

I
met with Ryan at his apartment that afternoon, and we barbecued some burgers for lunch, sipped beer, and were playful. After dinner, we settled in on the couch and started a movie on DVD. Being there beside him was wonderful and warm and felt like old times. It reminded me of how things used to be, and it brought my questions back about the guys, why I’d not seen Ryan’s bike, and so on. “When’s the last time you rode your bike or got together with the guys?” I began as the movie slowed to a boring part.

“I don’t,” he answered plainly. “Sold the bike after…” he trailed off.

“What, hun? After what?”

“After the group sort of stopped riding.” His voice was firm and tense.

“Hmmm,” I paused the movie and sat up, “that’s it? Just that simple? I doubt that very much. What happened, babe?”

He sat up and reached for the remote. “Nothing. Nothing happened.” His tone was nearly angry. “Let’s just watch the movie.”

I held the remote above my head, smiling and trying to return to our playful mood from earlier. “Nope. You’d never give up riding like that. I could cry over you selling your bike. Tell me, hun.”

He sat with his elbows on his knees, arms hanging out limply in front of him. He stared at the floor. “Mark,” he said, as if the single word would be enough. I waited but he did not continue.

I set the remote on the table and turned to face him. “Mark what, hun?”

He looked up at me, tears beginning to pool in his eyes. I reached toward him, but he pushed my hand away. “Don’t.”

“Honey, what happened?” I ignored his rejection and pulled him into me, holding him tightly. “What the hell has you so worked up?”

We sat there endlessly, the silence filling the room to bursting. His tears began to make a small circle on my shirt, warming and then cooling my chest just below the collarbone. And still I waited. My mind went back to Jackie’s announcement in Italy about the boys not riding anymore. She said she had seen some of them but never in a big group anymore.
Was Mark among them? Had she said she’d seen Mark? And come to think of it, I don’t remember Chris giving me an update on Mark either. What happened? And was it what Jackie had said? This thing that happened broke the group up, and now, they never rode together anymore?
I wanted to know. The minutes dragged on endlessly and I began to feel the ominous weight of Ryan’s silence; it was clear he was devastated by something Mark had done and the ticking of the clock in my head got louder and louder by the second.

When he finally began again, his voice startled me. “He’s dead.”

His words smacked me across the face. “Oh!” I gasped. I never would have guessed that. I could not have ever envisioned that he was gone. I searched for words that might soothe and comfort Ryan; how could I possibly soften the pain? “Honey, I’m so sorry to hear that. I know you loved him like a brother. I know it must’ve been hard.” I rubbed his back not knowing what else to say, feeling stunned by the news that Mark had died so young and at a time when Ryan had so much else going on.

Again, the silence dragged on. It was excruciating sitting here, waiting for him to decide what to tell me and then find the strength to say it. I knew there was more to it. Mark’s sudden death was likely devastating for him at the time especially with his father’s illness also weighing on him. I wanted to know how it happened and how Ryan had dealt with it; I guessed it was probably a car accident since it was so sudden, but it seemed strange that he would still be so emotional about it after so much time had passed. And there was no way Mark’s death would stop Ryan from riding. That alone wasn’t enough.

“Will you tell me how it happened?”

“At the track,” he began, “he went there alone. We never go alone!” he blurted.

“Okay. Apex? Where you always used to ride?”

He nodded. Things were now coming into perspective – no wonder Chris had been so sure that no one would ride at Apex this weekend. “The ridge that Chris got hurt on.”

“What about it, babe?”

He sniffled. “He went around from the top and drove off at full speed.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth. There is no such daredevil move as that; it was an impossible jump. The ridges were too close there, and he was sure to wreck. “But honey, that’s…there’s no way he could…it would be…”

“Suicide.” He finished my statement.

All the blood drained from my face; I felt like lurching into dry heaves in rage, sadness, and frustration at my helplessness. Instead I belted out question after question in rapid-fire succession, each one louder and more shrill than the last, “What was he thinking? Where the hell was his head at? How could he possibly have thought that was going to work out? And why go alone?” My head swam with the grief that I knew Ryan felt and with confusion over his friend’s decision. My thoughts skimmed through my own library of memories of Mark searching for signs of the daredevil spirit an act like that portrayed; it didn’t make sense. Mark was not impulsive or adventurous at all; he didn’t have that kind of personality. Confused, I held Ryan as he sobbed quietly into my chest. “I’m so sorry that happened, so sorry that he was so irresponsible, so sorry that he’s gone.” I began to rock with him softly, trying to picture the rest of the crew and how baffled they would have been at discovering what had happened.

“He intended it. It really was suicide.”

Ryan’s words had an immediate, violent, visceral response. “Oh!” I gasped as my arms reflexively drew into my chest and I doubled over. My stomach suddenly turned inside out on its way up my throat, my mouth watered in an attempt to dilute the acid already making its way up from my stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even think. My ears buzzed so loudly that I couldn’t make out what Ryan was saying; something about a note, his own terms, not being found in time. I lurched, dry heaving, my eyes bulging until they felt like they’d pop out, my ears burning from the force of the heave. Ryan’s hand was on my back, rubbing, soothing. I allowed my arms to fall to my ankles and rested my chest on my thighs, folded in half, giving up, sobbing.

Finally, I regained enough composure to speak softly, almost afraid of the answers, “But why? Why? What was so wrong with his life? He had you guys and his family,” I sat up again, anger replacing shock, “and he could have any girl in town. Shit, I think I met half of them through his one-date process.” I spit the words out, “Ryan, why? What the fuck was so wrong with his life?”

He took a deep breath. “That’s just it, Jen. He couldn’t find someone.” He placed a hand on my forearm. “He dated and dated and dated and never found ‘the one.’ His note…” He winced and trailed off.

My eyes searched his face, imploring. He briefly met them and looked away again, biting his lip. He shook his head. “It’s enough, Jen. Enough to know that he was unhappy. Let that be enough.”

“That’s what the note said? Tell me, honey. I don’t understand how you stopped riding, how this event took away your happiness in it, how it convinced you to sell your bike. I loved watching you ride, seeing you so happy and free.” I squeezed his hand and we sat for a long time, breathing, holding each other, weeping.

At last he took a deep breath and began again. “It was one week after they diagnosed my father stage three and inoperable. You had been gone for about two months. They found him at the track, dead for at least two days. And his note,” he choked again, “his note,” his eyes met mine. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “He basically said that if you and I couldn’t make it, then nobody would ever be able to love him…that there was no hope, and he was tired of the loneliness and sick of pretending and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t make sense.”

I couldn’t breathe. He blamed us for his suicide? How could he blame us? He had been so bitter at the going away barbecue.
Wait, could I have prevented this? Oh, my God! Ryan probably felt so responsible.
Tears poured down my cheeks as my eyes met Ryan’s again. “Baby, I…” What could I say? How could I even begin to make him feel better? “I’m so sorry that that happened… it wasn’t our fault… it couldn’t possibly have been. There’s no way… he….” The words came in spurts, and I wasn’t even sure they were the right ones.
How could I begin to soothe a wound that was so old, especially when I wasn’t there to help support him through the first time? How could I say anything that might help him to find solace? And why? Why would Mark write such things? He had to know that it would kill Ryan to know it, to read it. And how fucking selfish and unfair of him.
Anger began to roil inside me. Tears dried up as my jaw tightened into a teeth grinding clench. Suicide alone was selfish enough, but to also blame us was preposterous. I had been selfish, too: selfish with Ryan, short-sighted, focused on my own desires, goals, and fears. And here he was, drying his tears and blowing his nose, spent. “He’s fucking selfish,” I proclaimed. “Selfish and shitty and weak. It was a terrible thing to do, baby. It’s not our fault. It’s not your fault. We aren’t responsible. There’s no way. We can’t be! It isn’t right!”

Hysteria was taking over and I was nearly screaming. Ryan stopped me. “Shh shh shh shh,” softly, he placed his fingers over my lips. “Stop it.”

“But, honey,” my lower lip trembled, threatening to pour new tears down my cheeks, “he….” I took a deep breath and began again. “I…I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t know. And then, your father…” My head bowed as I looked at my hands. I focused on my lap as I tried to make sense of all that Ryan had been through. “I was selfish, too.” I breathed, hardly a whisper.

“What?”

“I was selfish,” I looked up and into his eyes, “I wanted things to go my way. I feared they wouldn’t. I saw only my fears coming to life and didn’t trust you, trust us, enough to hold on…to ask questions, to let myself be more vulnerable, to be there for you, to…” I began to cry again, “to do anything that a girlfriend…that a friend would have done. I’m so sorry, Ryan.”

“I hated you for it.” His statement stung. “I hated you despite how much I still loved you. Not for the suicide, you didn’t know. How could you? Just for disconnecting…you just bailed.” His jaw was set and his face stoic. “For months I didn’t ride. The track reminded me of him and the stupid idyllic picture he had of me and you. It seemed such a farce. We seemed so fake, like somehow I didn’t know anything about us at all. Like our relationship had all been bullshit. Like I had been some companion for the present. I felt so out of sight and out of mind, and I hated you for it.”

I sat there, letting his feelings wash over me. I had been so alone, felt so abandoned, been so sure that he had abandoned me. That he didn’t want me, that I had been cast aside. Hearing the other side of it changed my perspective on everything. I remembered the phone call and how devastated I’d been, the grey feeling of my apartment and the feel of my pillow, damp and musty, for the next three days from my endless tears. And my anger and resentment were misplaced all this time. My confusion over having been jilted completely was incomprehensible all of the sudden. The phone, e-mails, a letter, or carrier pigeon might have begun to mend this so long ago. But instead, I had gone this other way and screwed it all up.

“The guys…” he eventually continued, “we tried to set times to ride, but eventually, we all dropped out and just stopped showing. My dad’s illness made it worse. Johnnie helped me move back into my mom’s, and then I don’t think I saw him for four or five months. You asked about the guys the other day. The truth is I really don’t know about them anymore. Chris is the only sap who can’t let go of the fact that it’s over. He tries to get us together, and we all avoid or make excuses. He’s such a pompous ass now, anyway. I dunno, Jen. Everything just was different. My bike was the least of my concerns. Riding didn’t bring me the escape and comfort that it used to. It brought memories of what had happened since that summer. The track. The curve where we had your barbecue. The spot where Chris got hurt. Imagining finding Mark. Picturing you on the sidelines, watching, laughing, and joking and then when we were done riding, all of us hanging out to eat. None of the good shit existed anymore, and in all the places where it had, all I could find was …pain, death, morbid shit.” He took a deep breath. “So I focused on my mom, helping her get on her feet again after Dad passed. And I worked my ass off and took on all the overtime they’d give me. I figured, fuck it. Take care of the shit I know and,” he shrugged, “I sold it the following spring, maybe around May.”