The Last Time I Died (17 page)

There is much to do.

I open my eyes to find Cordoba standing over me.

She did it. I’m alive.

She says something that I think is a question. Or a warning. Or an apology. I haven’t the slightest idea.

She’s so beautiful and I love her for this gift she has given me. I want to hug her but my arms won’t move. I want to thank her, but my eyes are closing at the thought. She has opened my heart or my mind or wherever I have been storing all these memories and without her I would have never found them and it’s not too late to make up for lost time and we should talk about this. Just us without so many meddling friends. I want to tell her how much she means to me and that we should never be apart and it’s all a big mistake that we should have worked harder to avoid. Everything I realized I should have told her before it was too late. I feel like this is a miracle and we shouldn’t waste it. I want to promise to not take too much of her time. Maybe we could sit quietly and hold hands and look at each other because sometimes that’s enough. I want to say her name.

I think there’s a tube in my throat.

I try to speak but the effort is overwhelming.

Black.

*It’s a year and three months ago.

I’m sitting in my office pretending to work late but really just drinking.

In the last week or so, I’ve begun to notice that if I’m alone for a long enough stretch of time, I have suicidal thoughts. Not suicidal intentions. These are different. Suicidal thoughts.

Not
Ooh, where’s that gun? I sure would like to kill myself right now.
More like philosophical ruminations of how much easier it would be if I swallowed some Drano or fell asleep in my garage with the car running. Easier than trying to explain myself to Lisa or figuring out what the correct response to increasingly bad news about her father is. I know I should at least respond in some way. I look at her and I know I should do something.

Do some thing.

She’s leaning on me. Counting on my emotional help. Whether she realizes it or not, she’s begging me with her actions to work my arms free of the psychological ties that bind them to my body. Catch me, Christian.

I realize it, but I let her fall right through me anyway. My support an ethereal tangle of confused emotions I should have dealt with long ago. I don’t know what’s in the dark cloud that has supplanted sympathy on my part. I should figure that out. Do some soul searching. Hold her.

But I don’t. And even though I do nothing, even though my cruel, cruel behavior burns exactly zero calories, somehow I know that erasing myself from the planet would be easier.

I don’t have a car or a garage and I know I would hate the taste of Drano. Also, I can’t see myself actually going through with it. I’m a narcissist and as much as I hate my very being, I hold myself, at the same time, far too important to commit suicide.

But still, the logic is there. I could make things so easy for everyone concerned.

I’m not sure these are what a licensed psychiatrist would officially classify as suicidal thoughts. I’m only guessing they are what the calming voice at the end of pharmaceutical commercials refers to while we all watch someone catch butterflies or throw a football through a hanging tire or drift comfortably off to sleep.

If you’re having suicidal thoughts, discontinue use and consult your doctor.

The thinking being that suicidal thoughts lead to suicidal intentions.

*It’s a year and two months ago.

We’re driving back from her dad’s funeral and she hasn’t cried yet.

Not for weeks. She won’t talk to me about her father. I stood with her at the funeral but she wasn’t there. Didn’t say a word the entire service.

We get home and Lisa walks away before we get to the front of our building. She just leaves. Walks up the block. I don’t call after her because I know she won’t answer.

Her father left her a bunch of money, his watch collection, and a letter Lisa won’t read. She sat with him for the last three days before he died. I don’t think she slept for the last two. She was in the room when he died and I know that meant a lot to her. I was at work.

She walks up the block and turns the corner without looking back.

I go up into our apartment and sit on the couch. I don’t make myself a nice tall scotch and sit there and drink it. I don’t chug vodka straight from the bottle. I don’t pour a carafe of red wine down my throat. I sit on the couch and think nothing.

My dry cleaning lies on the bed still in its plastic wrapping. I let it slide to the floor when I get in bed an hour later. I’m so tired I can’t think. Sleep comes easy and I wake up the next morning refreshed and alone.

I don’t see Lisa for three days.

*It’s one year ago.

There’s no note.

No voicemail. No text. Nothing. She’s gone.

I could feel it when I came home. I double-check to make sure. Her closet is empty. Her shoes are gone. The place doesn’t even smell like her anymore.

One picture is missing from the mantle.

Why would she take that one? It’s a picture of us. Not a honeymoon shot. Nothing special. Just a candid shot someone took of us dancing at a friend’s wedding. I always liked the picture and insisted it was the most romantic one we ever took. She hated the way she looked in it.

Why would she take that?

The pain in my side is killing me.

It’s dull and sharp. Both. And it won’t stop. So bad it wakes me up. Can’t Cordoba give me something for this? Shouldn’t I have a morphine drip or something?

Wait, why do I have a pain in my side?

I drift in and out of consciousness for a minute or an hour or a day until I can finally stay awake long enough to move my creaky arms. Each is stuffed with broken glass and I know my melted rubber face contorts with every rusty muscle fiber that gets put into service. I move my left hand far enough to run it over my side where I ache.

Stitches.

Feels like about eight inches of tidy sutures running along my side. Diagonal. Just above my hip. Those were not there when I went under. I’m still groggy from the anesthetic. Not thinking clearly. Did something happen? Was there an emergency that she had to perform surgery to correct? What could she have been doing down there? What organs are in that area? Not my heart. Not my lungs. Not my liver.

Where am I? Am I in a hospital? This is some kind of recovery room but not like I’ve been in before. Wasn’t I just in Cordoba’s living room? Did she have to call 911? Fuck, what if they figured out I was the guy who keeps trying to kill himself and I was transferred to a psych ward? That screws everything up.

Why would a psych ward be doing surgery on my lower back? And where is Cordoba, anyway?

But this can’t be a hospital. The room is too big. It smells antiseptic but doesn’t smell like death is around the corner. Definitely not a hospital.

This must still be Cordoba’s place. Okay. I’m in a different room.

The fog of anesthesia is clearing and I remember being put under.

I did it.

I beat the fucking reaper. I had myself systematically killed and brought back to life in what I’m choosing to believe is a replicable procedure. I am Frankenstein with a victory laurel. Formerly a bag of bones and organs and muscle tissue bereft of life force until the good doctor shot me up with god knows how many volts and I came back to life. Dead. Then alive.

And that kiss. What was that? Right before I died she leaned in and kissed me. With her tongue. There’s so much to process.

The stitches.

Why the fuck are there stitches in my side?

Cordoba walks in and checks the monitors without so much as a hello. Detachment, they call it in medical school. I wonder if she has a borderline personality. She must. Who else could do this work with such cold efficiency? I can appreciate her intellectual curiosity and unbridled ambition, but when it’s not coupled with empathy what does that make her?

—What happened?

My voice sounds like I gargled sand.

—You tell me. Were you successful?

Oh, right.

It takes a second for the newly recovered memory to flash behind my eyes. I need to get this down soon. I’m trying to ignore the kiss and her detachment and what must be her raging case of crazytown to avoid losing what I came back with. There’s only so much room in my head.

—Yeah.

—Good.

—What happened after that?

Why are there enough stitches to indicate a major unauthorized procedure happened while I was under? Surger-rape.

—You paid me.

What is she talking about? Would it be so hard to answer a question with a straightforward statement? Now we’ve got to play this game? She knows what I’m asking. I need to sketch. I need to get this down. I don’t have time for this shit.

I paid her. What could that mean? You cut into my backside looking for my wallet? I paid you by letting you poke around my innards to satisfy some bizarre curiosity you have about—

Oh.

I know why the stitches are there. She wasn’t fixing me. She was taking something out. Something someone badly needed and was willing to pay a lot of money for. Something I could spare. She’s the middleman. I am a commodity.

I know what she means but I need her to say it.

—How did I pay you?

—Your kidney.

—You took it.

—I sold it. I told you I don’t work for free. You’ve got another one.

That’s a hell of a way to negotiate. How can I argue now? That organ is probably already pumping piss out of some diabetic in Russia by now. Besides, it’s not like she’s going to get it back for me. And I do have another one. I should be outraged. Indignant. Furious. But none of those will get me any closer to my goals and at best will result in an insincere apology. Better to be practical. Better to move forward.

—What if I want to do this again?

—You’re covered. Kidney goes a long way these days.

Ah. I rub my hand over my stitches. Well, why not? I didn’t have any big plans for my kidney. And now I’m playing with the bank’s money. Enjoy the piss, Ivan.

—How long have I been out?

—A week. I kept you sedated and pumped you with some stuff I made to speed the recovery process.

Some stuff she made.

—So, did you find what you were looking for?

I want to ask her about the kiss but I force myself to focus on what’s really important here. Maybe after I sketch. The mother-father-wallet-screaming-crying memory is chiseled into the wall of my mind but I know it won’t last. I have to preserve it immediately. She seems genuinely interested but if I’m explaining anything to anyone it’s to myself. I’m not wasting a second on anything that doesn’t help preserve this precious mental cargo. Fuck the kiss.

—I have to draw something.

All I want to do is sleep, but every moment that passes means my memory fades farther back toward wherever it once was. She pauses long enough for me to realize that she thinks I should be sleeping, not drawing. But she must know I’m not going to close my eyes again until I sketch because she indicates a pad and pencils next to the bed.

—Thanks.

She cranks the bed up to a sitting position as I pull the pad onto my lap and start working. Moving my hands is exhausting and the muscle control involved in creating accurate drawings is intense but I’m afraid I’ve already lost plenty to the week of recovery. The images I get down are crude and childish in comparison to my earlier work, but they’ll have to do. I decide to substitute words and arrows for details I can’t capture perfectly. I spend the rest of the day sketching, stopping only when I can remember no other angles or nuances. By nightfall there are thirty-four new drawings.

Cordoba walks in and places a syringe and a glass vial of what I presume is magic recovery meds on the tray next to me.

—You go home tomorrow morning.

I have nothing else. I’m not going to a job. I have no wife. I am alone. This is now my life’s work. The magic meds are my new best friends. My booster club. My pit crew. And Cordoba’s creepy lab is my castle. Frankenstein’s lair.

—How soon can I do it again?

—Three days.

The next time I wake up, Cordoba is gone.

I call out loudly several times but there’s no response. And no note. Just the syringe and a vial of magic recovery meds she left on the tray, now rubber banded together. Hint, hint: Get the fuck out, Kidney Boy.

I feel better than when I came in, in spite of losing a major organ. I’m aching and crusty, but there’s a fire burning inside me now. My body feels ninety-five and my mind feels twenty-six. A sweet hum in the back of my head tells me this is going to work out. I think this might be what hope feels like.

I dress as fast as I can, which in reality is quite slow. God, dying hurts. The wound where my kidney used to be is still sensitive. I feel it with every move I make. On the other hand, it’s been a week already so how much of that is psychosomatic? Probably a lot. I’d love some meds to put that pain to sleep but I’m betting the recovery serum I’m headed home to inject will cover that.

I can’t get that kiss out of my mind. I wish that I could, as it serves no purpose aside from confounding me. Was that some sort of goodbye thing in case I didn’t make it? She’s never expressed an emotion in my presence before and she barely knows me.

Plus she was masturbating. Hmm.

I find Cordoba intimidating. Impotence-inducing intimidating and, even if I could get it up, I’ve got more important things to deal with than a one-night stand with a mad scientist. And that’s not to mention how fucking weird it is that she chose the moment I was dying to lay that on me. I suspect she thought I was out. Maybe I was. Maybe I made the whole thing up. A heroin induced delusion. I know that’s not true and it makes her creepier than ever.

I can see through an open door there’s a hallway to somewhere. The rest of the loft that I’ll never see. The other half of her life. I guess part of me is still human because it’s tempting to take a quick look around before I head out. Open her drawers, riffle through her mail, check her browser history. Get a deeper understanding of who she is. Is there a family? A boyfriend? A girlfriend? Pictures? I can’t see her having any of them, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. From an anthropological standpoint, a little look-see through Cordoba’s personal effects couldn’t be anything but fascinating.