The Mission, continued: Everything breaks. Everything burns.

I rolled to my side and lay stiff, my back to him.

He wrapped his arms around me. After a moment, he sniffled.

“You. Uh. Are you okay?”

“It’s just . . . I . . . you know my friend died last Saturday.”

I did. I’d run into him the Tuesday before at a bar he frequented. I’d been depressed in the aftermath of selling my beloved 11 year old car for parts. 

“If it makes you feel any better,” he chirped, “one of my best friends died on Saturday!”

“Actually, it . . . that doesn’t,” I started, but it didn’t seem to matter. For the next 20 minutes he told me and our friends, who crowded the bar, about the days he’d had to take off work, his subsequent bender, the memorial service in San Jose he would be going to on Thursday. He was broken, he said. His friend had been a brilliant young musician, 3 parts Kurt Cobain and 1 part Beetlejuice.

Before he left the bar he absently kissed my forehead and promised to call. Now, five days and an awkward meeting later, his tears dripped down my spine. I rolled over and touched his face.

I’d been angry at him. I was still angry, distantly. All evening he had dominated the conversation with an aggression I associated with cocaine. He had been needlessly hurtful all night, periodically blaming the stress he was under because of his friend. Immediately after sex he’d insulted me.

Now, though. He’s crying, I thought blankly. He’s crying.
“Honey . . . ?” i started tentatively.

“I don’t -- I don’t know what to do now that he’s gone. It’s just . . . he was so young. So fucking young. And he was -- he was kind of an asshole, sometimes. But he was the best of us. You know? I said that, I said it at the memorial service on Thursday. I said “He was the best of us. I wish any one of us had gone ahead of him.” And I do. If I could go back and die instead of him, I would.”

He was wrapped around me now, sobbing against me. I kissed his forehead. “I’m so sorry baby. Can I ask -- can I ask what happened?”

“He was 21 years old. 21 f-fucking years old. He’d been drinking since he was 15 so it wasn’t even, it was like a joke to them. I guess he . . . they said it was alcohol, alcohol p-poisoning. On his 21st fucking . . . his birthday. Jesus christ. Our friends, when they saw -- when they saw what happened the next morning they called the cops, they called the ambulance. And then they had to go -- they had to fucking go tell his mom. And Tony said when he walked into, into the house, she could just tell, she started screaming. His mom fucking -- her child, she lost her child. We all lost him. I can’t fucking -- he was the best. The best of us.”

“Shhh, honey,” I rubbed his back. “I’m so sorry. Shhh.”

"The crazy motherfucker -- when he was with his old band, out somewhere in the midwest, he got busted for weed. So he finished the tour and came back to California and then flew out to serve his time. Fucker learned how to do prison tattoos there. Used to give himself the worst fucking tattoos all the time, I never fucking -- I never understood why. But he just, that’s how he saw the world. He just wanted to try everything one fucking time.

“He just, everyone’s so fucking broken. He was so talented. His band just signed to a label. And. Christ, I can’t believe -- it's so fucking raw. I got the call and just, I turned off my phone and got fucking fucked up. I t-told my boss and he, he understood. He understood after I told him what - what happened. I couldn’t take it anymore. He was the b-best”


“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry, I wish I had something to say. I wish I could make this better.”

It went on like that.

*********

I got dressed in the dark the next morning, afraid to wake him from the teary sleep he’d fallen into around 6. As I sat to put on my shoes he mumbled “Thanks for last night.”

“Oh, uh. You’re, you’re welcome.”

“For. For being there. It meant a lot to me.” He sat up and wrapped his arms around me like a child. His pulse beat against my lips and I felt a crush of affection that I had once almost mistaken for love.


“It’s, I was glad to be here. To do it. And if -- if there’s any way I can donate to his family or, or anything. Let me know, okay? I know they don’t know me or anything but, I’d like to do something. For them. If I could. No one should have to -- no one should have to.”

He took my face in his hands and kissed my cheeks again and again. I felt the tears dripping between us. “You’re so good,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking sweet. I wish - I wish you could have met him. I wish you could have heard his music.”

********

We had changed. We had survived something together. Our fitful, sputtering fling was something that someday might be real.

His friend’s music was part of our shared history, now. I wanted to hear it.

That night I googled the name. I found a tribute myspace, a series of news releases on his death. I opened the first, scrolled through the familiar details -- the musical promise, the 21st birthday, the drunken stupor, the distraught single mom. No band name. I moved the cursor to the “back” button.

Stopped.

I went to another news clipping.

Another.

The tribute myspace.

The band’s.

A press release.

An obituary.

I swallowed.

******

Weeks before we’d lain in the darkness. I poked him in the ribs.

“I cannot believe you don’t have Facebook. Are you a caveman?!”

“I have a myspace!” he protested, then “What?!” over my helpless laugher.

******

I found his myspace and skimmed the blog he sporadically updated. I found the post in seconds.

“________ died yesterday. I don’t know what to do now he’s gone. He was the best of us.”

Above the first sentences was the date from all the news releases.

October 1, 2007.