Tamberlin's Account (16 page)

It's dark. My headlights grab at unseen dangers and 40mph seems like the speed of light. In a way, it is.

I see eyes flash in the night—most of them are likely deer and small critters. The rest? I don't know about them.

I end the day to
A.D.I.D.A.S
.

Feb 7 1:48pm

I never slept by my boyfriend—the one I lived with.

Sometimes we fell asleep on the couch or in bed watching movies on his laptop, but once sleep set in, it didn't last long enough to count.

He was restless—it wasn't just the drugs—he was unsettled. If he tossed and turned and I had to leave so I could sleep; it bothered him. If I told him why I had to leave, it bothered him. If he got up and paced and paced and paced and I asked him what was wrong—everything was wrong.

I couldn't hold him in those moments anymore than that poor creature in town.

And I learned, again, to shrink.

And I learned to yearn. All the good wants were there and I was in a home with someone that wanted me there, but it started to get cold—even when I felt things were good.

It wasn't because we weren't sleeping together—neither of us was in a state of mind for that. I was learning about being close to people because of him, but him learning that being close could be safe and good was a greater challenge than mine.

Love wanted to be there. We cared for each other more than I'd ever cared for anyone. And I yearned. I missed him—I felt him slipping away every time an embrace ended. I felt like he was beads of oil on a pan of water and I was trying to hold him all together. So I held him all the time. When he cried I felt the pieces trying to scatter through the gaps where we touched.

When he was high, it was like holding in an explosion.

I couldn’t hold it. He started breaking things—he scared the hell out of me. One time I called Carrie to see if I could spend the week with her. I locked him out of my room and cried until I fell asleep. Somewhere in there were his words, but I could barely understand them.

He listened quietly the next morning while I told him I was going to go home for a week—he raised his eyebrows a little at this and searched my eyes—I explained that this meant seeing my friends, not my family. Obviously.

He looked down.

I told him that I would see him Sunday night and I held his face and made him look at me.

"I'm coming back," I promised. "This isn't the end of anything, but I don't know what to do when it’s like that."

I didn't want to say, when "you're" like that.

"I'll stop." He meant the drugs. He couldn't live in his mind without them—not all the time.

"I'm not worried," I said. I put my forehead to his. I didn't know I was crying until then—when I bent forward I felt hot wetness track down my face. I felt his tears run into the "L's" my hands made along his beautiful jaw. "We don't have to compromise."

The only thing I'd change about him were old wounds that I could only wait to heal. And I could.

I felt "I love you" fill every fiber of my being and light up every part of my soul—before then my friends were the only ones lighting candles in there—I
love
them, but it was different, something so big that I couldn't speak.

I looked into his eyes, my mouth clamped on sobs coming up my throat—even as more tears came I forced a smile, albeit a weak one, as evidence we'd be okay.

I left into a hot and humid August morning and returned on a hotter Sunday afternoon.

When I opened the door, I knew he'd quit. He'd quit everything.

My things just seemed to fall off me. I bashed my hip against the kitchen table as I went through the room. I looked at the chair where I left him as if he should have still been there. Like, "Where'd you go?"

My knees were watery. I felt tears that must have only lain dormant since our "fight" come alive; just like the dead would do in a few years.

I could smell it before I could see it. It's a smell you never forget. But I couldn't see him, only the blood. Everlasting blood. I'm sure I looked right at him and I couldn't see him. It was like being blind, only instead of seeing blackness I saw blood. A starburst of blood on the wall. I am now only vaguely aware that I had been screaming since the very moment the smell struck me.

Somewhere in there I called the police, let them in and told them about the "fight." All the while I felt like I hadn't said anything—that I hadn't moved from the spot, like a plant in a time lapse or something. I was in a time lapse.

Is there anyone we can call, someone asked.

I could barely shake my head. I wanted to say, "They killed him! Everything is because of what they did—

But I was the one who was with him. What should I have said differently? What should I not have said? What should I have?

I feel like I was the straw that destroyed that beautiful, forsaken, broken creature—

And I felt like           I dunno. I felt everything.
Everything
. When someone dies, they aren’t the only ones that see their lives pass before their eyes… That I think sums up their importance in it and, I think, tells us how much it’s going to hurt.

At some point I was screaming - or wailing - or howling - it was a sound, a terrible sound that scared me and felt like it was ripping out of my throat. I screamed "God" for what felt like minutes and cried his name what must have been a million times until I could only creak it out. I felt angry. I felt

everything.

My head felt like it was hemorrhaging, swelling, exploding—my lips felt puffy and I couldn’t breathe out of my nose.

I was dully aware of the constant presence of a paramedic who didn’t leave me until my nearest friends arrived for me. I changed hands. I heard Patrick say, "I've got her." I felt the paramedic’s hand relax and leave my shoulder. I smelled Marie holding me. I felt the car ride. I lay in a bed. I lost time. In a couple days, I guess, it seemed like one night, I wanted to go back.

His family was picking through everything, even my things. They were moving stuff out. They were gonna take my car. They didn't know about me because he had nothing to do with them.

Marie immediately got involved—I watched them throw away things he loved. Patrick called the police. I heard someone say his uncle's name—I found him with my eyes and hated. I wanted to kill him. I could have killed him.

I recovered some of my things, my car.

I was not entitled to him. I was not family—I wasn't known to the family and I wasn't on the lease. I had no right to him.

They took his things.

They took his body.

While I know it’s what he wanted, they cremated him and took away even knowing where he rested—or with who. I didn't even know when or where the funeral was. If the funeral was.

But I knew what they did to him before he left us.

I felt like the whole world should have stopped when he did—and it made me hurt and mad and so confused when it didn't.

Didn't they know what was gone?

Or how?

Or why?

He quit.

You quit things you hate—
if
you can quit them.

He quit.

I thought we could do anything, eventually. What else did we have, but time?

Feb 8 7:22am

I am staring down a massive bridge. It crosses the Mississippi into Missouri.

I hate bridges. I don’t like heights or water. Yippee.

What happens if I’m out there and they mass around me? The coast looks clear, for now. The coast, as a matter of fact, looks
really
clear. Far back along its banks are signs of flooding that’s sometime receded. Perhaps the mother of the destruction I saw before.

Well, rather than putting it off any longer—gonna just get it over with.

I can’t stop wondering, how far up the Mississippi did that bull shark get?

9:49am

Most the right hand turns are telling me I’m really close to where that doctor was studying this. The one from the newspaper. Just a couple hours away, in St. Louis, this guy plunged headfirst into trying to tackle this problem, according to the article. Is it because he just
knew
how bad it was going to be?

I wonder how much he knew. Or knows, I suppose. He could be alive… Shall we check the survival chance statistics?

Within a week he already knew enough to tell us that it wasn’t just humans passing around doses of reality cancer. Maybe he was responsible?

I don’t believe that. This shit didn’t come out of a test tube.

It’s just weird to be so close.

Feb 9 4:04pm

I stopped earlier because I thought I saw something down by the opposite side of the river. I thought it was a deer, but I couldn’t have really been looking.

I am unreasonably far from my truck now, but I feel safe.

Mr. Ages is laying in the snow and weeds beside me. This is so stupid to be in this position—foolish. I don’t care.

I have been laying here for three hours and Mr. Ages hasn’t made a peep. He’s watching too.

At first I thought it was a busy body, but he’s not. I couldn’t tell by looking at him, until I used my binoculars, but eventually I would have known when he started doing things they don’t do.

I named him Neville.

I think the shambled, nondescript mess of branches and trash is his shelter. I can’t tell what shape he’s in because he’s wearing a million layers and his hair is unkempt. It almost looks like he does try to keep his beard at bay. So there’s a knife or a scissor down there somewhere…

Before I saw the “camp” or anything, I saw him wade out into the partially frozen river and close his fist in the air. With fist still raised he moved back to the shore and then fist over fist, in what looked like thin air, he pulled in a fish. I saw a limb bouncing on the trees behind him, where a fishing line was tied.

I said “A-ha” out loud, but not loud. I was kinda startled by the sound of me addressing me. I talk to Mr. Ages, but I realized then that somewhere along the line here I stopped talking to myself. I don’t know what that means after having worried so long about doing it too much.

This world demands quiet.

His world demands that too. He doesn’t make a sound.

He laid the fish on a log—he must have broke its back or something. He waded back in, without splashing and let the current eat the lure. I noticed two other things then too. There was a branch sticking out of the water that kept the line off the bank and I also noticed the bobber.

He went back to his fish. He didn’t even start a fire.

5:11pm

I can tell nothing about him.

His age… his hair is mostly dark, but it’s hard to tell, it’s filthy. I almost wonder if it isn’t really blonde or light brown.

It’s hard to even know what ethnicity he is.

The binoculars aren’t good enough to show me everything. They show me another human who is alone. And this time I know about the person first.

This is intriguing.

He is intriguing. I have seen four others before him—I knew no more about them than I do him. Even with the three I—I wondered what they’d been through. How they came together.

6:37pm

I’ve decided to move on after Neville very quickly and emotionlessly dispatched a number of busy bodies. He propped the small bloody pickaxes, like excavating picks?, against the log where he was sitting and resumed eating fish number two—even with the corpses stink a mere ten feet behind him.

Your eyes only give you clues. Only clues.

There’s a verse in the bible that I can’t stop thinking about: “Take heed that no man deceive you.”

Still I wonder, I
must
wonder what it would be like to find the sweetest kiss in the middle of Hell.

Feb 10 7:56am

The shudders have subsided. Now it’s just me and regret again. You might not want to touch this journal anymore.

Some people would say it’s an antifeminist idea to need a man. But right now I feel
that
, that exactly is what I need—like what’s the point without a man?

When the loneliness and shame subsides I can reevaluate what I need in life…again.

There’s a lot of regret right now.

I should have been going through this with him. I fucked up. I lost. Maybe he was my only chance. I don’t think fate is concrete, just intended. But I think odds are now that I won’t get another chance. Not even if someone else was destined.

Fate is like Human Resources. It makes like you can go to it with your problems, but that’s only to keep you from fucking with its plan to keep business like usual.

Neither is on your side.

Neither, I believe, is infallible.

Well… definitely not now. There’s no fucking HR or PR or PC or PBS
or BBQ or B&W. There’s lots of BS and BO and *BB’s.