“Sleep is for the dead.”
He said that; no bullshit. He said it only hours before; I was there. It was a common phrase, of course, and all the more common in his vicinity. Tony had been up for about 30 hours, studying—grinding, as he put it—all Vyvanse and business math. I was there, and I corrected him. Sleep wasn’t for the dead; they’d wish it was, if wishing was for the dead either. His blue-gray eyes—overcast—rolled into a long blink, taking his entire head with them; one feat of sarcasm was almost enough to leave him drooling on the keyboard of his laptop, by this point. And looking back I wish it had, for he didn’t sleep much at all that night, or for several nights thereafter, and being awake for that long takes its toll.
Maybe that was why he really couldn’t see it—that lack of sleep, though I’m sure it was more than that. Never mind fathoming, understanding, internalizing it all; the kid genuinely couldn’t even see it. No, even when the texts and emails detailing the death of his cousin swarmed his phone, like hornets, my friend Tony just couldn’t manage to get the picture—to really soak it in. I sympathized with him; sleep was for the dead, and Tony was so profoundly awake that he felt underwater. I’d felt that before, too, and the water was murky.
I, on the other hand—well, I watched it. The man died 50, maybe 60 miles from the hot, damp room in which Tony and I sat, and I watched him do it. He choked to death right there in the waiting room of a hospital, and I watched him do it. I’d never seen the man, never so much as been served by him at Wawa, but I watched him die right there in the face of my friend, pressed to his cell phone as though inspecting the corpse for signs of life, and growing hot and damp with the room, and with my palms as I sat there petrified. Hell, I nearly felt it; psychologists say that some of the most powerful empathetic responses experienced by humans are triggered by the facial expressions of others, but who’d have thought one could empathize with death itself? If Tony had looked up at me he’d have seen what physicians call rigor mortis, but as I said, he didn’t see any of it. My fingernails sank into my palms, my feet cramped, and my jaw clamped shut; I was sure either my top or bottom row of teeth would shatter the other. You sit still when you watch someone die, but you’re anything but limp.
This is all the more true when it’s someone you know. And no, I’d never seen the man before, not once, but I heard him die right from Tony’s mouth, and damnit if I never laid eyes on the track marks tattooed on his forearms, and damnit if I didn’t laugh myself to the brink of oblivion when he explained to the nurse one day that he was afraid of needles; damnit if I never watched that man grow pallid and frail and bedridden as he waited for two years on one saving dose of reassurance from the cool, dry countenance, the easy laugh of his young cousin. And I swear I heard the man choking, fighting desperately for breath when in vain his young cousin attempted to swallow through his tears and talk him into resurrection—promised he’d suck it up and visit the Goddamned hospital. And Jesus, did I wish it was even the least bit funny that no one should hear him choking while he was still alive. God, did I wish we could laugh about this— just the three of us—until we ran clean out of breath.
And I had no idea why the hell Tony went to the trouble to tell me about all that—to talk his older cousin to life for me as he sat there scarlet—cheeks and eyes and lips—everything scarlet, and felled a forest of neatly pomaded brunette spikes, clutching at something just above his head. I thought at the time that maybe he was simply thinking aloud—trying to make sense of it all, but with an audience. And then I got a call at five o’clock that morning. I’d left the house at his request and returned to my apartment to get some sleep. Just as I unlocked my front door, I got a call. I almost didn’t answer. I could be asleep for all he knew, and I needed it. I let it ring four times, and then gave in. There was no hesitation, and no pleasantry, only a demand.
“Come to the funeral with me.”
“You sure it’d be appropriate? I feel like that’s more of a family thing.”
I was skirting the edges of his request, patrolling for an exit.
“I got no one else, fam. Ain’t no one else seen me in this shit. Plus it’s mad far; I won’t make it on no sleep.”
“Where is it?”
“Long Island; we’ll stay at my mom’s place.”
“What day?” I inhaled, already sizing up my escape—an exam, community service, a date, even.
“Saturday.”
And just like that he had me—hit me in the one place I was vulnerable. Saturday, well alright then. I told him I’d drive if we could use his car. What choice did I have? After all, I’d known the guy for hours now. He was A.J. Carmichael. He’d made it all the way to 37 years old. He would be remembered as a pretty athletic guy—swole, as Tony described him—and he was, until he overdosed and wasted away in the hospital. And when you were about ten or eleven years old he could make you believe that he’d manhandle your world if it came after you—make you believe it was that small, at least if you were Tony. He could do it with only one hand, too— mess up your hair and give your head a gentle shove.
Tony talked in his sleep on the car ride up, and I listened as A.J. kept on dying. I know that sounds hard to believe, and I didn’t buy it either. We both knew he couldn’t really sleep, but he couldn’t say these things to anybody that knew he was conscious.
“Never even visited him…two whole years…didn’t even fuckin’ call…thought I still had time…” he murmured, as if I couldn’t tell his eyes were half-open, sucking the gray from the atmosphere.
I spared us both and said nothing. Instead, I stole some of his Vyvanse so that I could stay awake and on the road, knowing he wouldn’t give up his charade.
Something had shifted in him by the time he awoke; a layer had been put back on— replaced, even. Maybe he had really slept for a bit; I stopped paying attention about two hours into the trip. I wasn’t sure anymore, because when the GPS chirped confidently, “You have arrived,” he didn’t start or jerk or even twitch; he snapped open his eyes without moving his head or body and sighed, “Let’s get this the fuck over with.”
Tony’s mom ambled halfway down the driveway, arms crossed, in a pink bathrobe and matching slippers, and pursed her lips into a meek but inviting smile. By the time I shut the car off and opened the door, Tony was halfway to her, his lanky, six-foot wingspan outstretched, with a soft baritone, “How you doin’, ma?”
I didn’t hear her reply, but as she was still speaking Tony turned around and bellowed, “Yo, hurry up.”
I half-jogged over, tossed him the keys, hugged his mom, and followed them inside. She told me to call her Jenny, though I still called her Ms. Rosso for the remainder of the night, and she welcomed me to the kitchen of her homely, wood-paneled rancher. We sat at a small Formica bar dividing the kitchen from the living room. Ms. Rosso pulled a pack of cigarettes—Camel Crushes—from the breast pocket of her robe, took one for herself, and then tossed the pack on the countertop in front of Tony and me. Tony picked it up without words—a ritual, almost instinctive exchange between mother and son—and removed two, one for him and one for me. She poured three glasses of scotch, two neat and one on the rocks, and set the former two in front of us, asking almost as an afterthought, “You boys want a drink?”
She asked where I was from and what I was majoring in at school—all the standard, perfunctory questions. I was apprehensive about talk of A.J., but knew I’d ask after a few drinks. I asked how close she was with him, or something equally meaningless and intrusive. I knew I wanted to know more about him—know him better—though I wasn’t sure in what way. I apologized for asking almost before she could get a word in.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, kiddo,” she croaked, either because of the crying or the smoking, “It’s a damn shame; it really is—him being so young and all. The boys used to love when he’d come around.”
She cast a pitiful, fawning glance over at Tony, ashing her cigarette into her empty drink. “But that said, I didn’t really know him that well after Tony’s father left. Sumbitch got the boys on the weekends, and that’s when A.J. was off work.”
Then Tony chimed in. “I had no fuckin’ clue he was a tweaker ‘til I was like 15, motherfucker hid it so well.”
He downed the rest of his drink and slid his glass across the bar for a refill. He twitched one nostril and glanced at his mom from the corner of his eye, and then leaned in close. It didn’t seem like either one of them really cared if she heard—only like it was better form to pretend that was the case, so he half-whispered, “I asked him to hook me up like four times that year. Motherfucker wouldn’t have it. Had no problem fuckin’ himself up though.”
Then Ms. Rosso spun lazily around with our drinks as if it was just good timing, even loosing a halfhearted yawn as though meth had only ever existed in posters put up to scare middle schoolers. “I doubt if anyone else knew until he ended up in the hospital,” she mumbled, keeping eyes with a ring of condensation on the counter.
I admired her actress’ poise. Tony said nothing, but took an ambitious slug, inhaling with a sharp hiss and shaking his head at the floor. He paused for a moment or two longer than was comfortable, and then, as if forgetting something, allowed his eyes to dart upward from beneath a heavy brow. “You know what, though? Fucker never missed a single Goddamn baseball game. Couldn’t hold a job; couldn’t keep a girl; couldn’t even keep from fuckin’ brown-baggin’ it in the dugout, but he never missed a game.”
“Shit coach, though,” Ms. Rosso chuckled with a tilt of her glass, “even you knew you weren’t no shortstop.”
Tony answered with a snort and grinned into his glass. Eventually he raised his entire head, asking with a boyish smirk, “Yeah but remembered when fucking Ramone passed out all the way over in left field?”
Ms. Rosso’s face loosened into a smile, and for the first time the wrinkles around her dimples seemed to fit. Tony continued, “So we had a scrimmage in August when I was like 13. Sun’s beating down—kind of sun that you feel like it’s burning all the air out of your lungs when you breathe. And this fucking kid Ramone was standing all the way back by the fence when he hit the ground like a gym sock—nothing but limp. Fucking A.J. is the only sumbitch that knows what the hell’s goin’ on. Motherfucker heaves himself up into the stands, snatches…fuck, who was that redhead girl? The diabetic one? Jody something-or-other. Anyway, this big motherfucker hoists himself into the stands and rips Jody Something-Or-Other’s lunchbox right out of her hands and jumps down. Not graceful-like either. He jumps down and lands all funny like a figure skater falling. Turns out he sprains his ankle, but still this fucker picks himself up and immediately goes barreling like an overbuilt freight train out to left field, sucking wind all the way. A.J. almost passes out himself, alright, but he doesn’t because he thinks he’s fuckin’ Superman or the Hulk or some shit. Anyway, he dumps Jody…Scalisi! That was her fucking name. He dumps Jody Scalisi’s lunchbox all over this poor kid Ramone and rummages around until he finds Jody’s insulin and stabs this kid in the fucking stomach with it. I swear to God. Not the leg; not even the ass; the Goddamn stomach. Dumbass had seen the kid take his insulin a million times and has no idea where the needle goes. Anyway this kid sits up and doubles over because he just got stabbed in the fucking stomach, and keep in mind the whole ballpark is dead-quiet at this point, just watching. I shit you not, my cousin A.J. scoops this kid up and lifts him over his head like a trophy and screams at Ramone’s mom, ‘HEY MRS. CALDWELL I JUST SAVED YOUR FAT-FUCK KID!’ I swear to you, alright, I swear to fucking Christ, the Caldwells had A.J. over for dinner after the game to thank him.”
By the time Tony finished his story the countertop was tinted brown by scotch that had been spilled and spit amid our cyclone of laughter. Ms. Rosso threw us a rag, slid us another round of drinks, and heaved a descending sigh, saying she was off to bed. Tony and I lit up a joint, and then he threw on some music, or tried to. When he finally gave up on his mom’s old stereo we went back out to his car. He cranked up some angsty shit—shit I hadn’t heard since middle school—punk rock, and immediately started laughing so hard it looked painful— convulsing, almost, a vein pulsing from his temple and saliva oozing from the corner of his mouth. Evidently it was a joke. I wasn’t sure I got it.
We woke up at 4:00 p.m. the next day to Ms. Rosso knocking on the driver’s side window of the car like it was normal. We ate cold scrambled eggs from Tupperware and started getting ready for the wake. Ms. Rosso gushed over how handsome Tony and I looked. Tony gave her a wink and a hug, and I didn’t know quite what to do, so I gave her a hug, too. Once we were in the car, only the necessary words were exchanged until we reached the funeral home. At this point it was about 7:00 in the evening.
When the car was parked I headed immediately for the august mahogany doors at the front of the building, until Ms. Rosso wordlessly brushed my shoulder, and I followed her around to the back. It was an outdoor affair, and beautiful—the last gleaming drops of sunlight reflecting off the glass case that kept the bugs away from A.J. as he stood rigid and dignified, if horizontal, in his sports car of a casket. It was sleek, even without the glass—black with chrome handles, and a matte gray racing stripe right down the middle—streamlined, almost—like he was going somewhere. I thought of a time capsule I’d buried when I was seven—how I drowned it in flashy silver spray paint so it could keep up with the times.
Around him formed a small mass of relatives—not quite a crowd—comfortable, almost. Each member of the modest gaggle held a citronella candle (I recognized them by the smell) on a paper plate; there were 26, and I made 27—27 citronella candles to drive the mosquitos away, and also to let A.J. or the looming night know we wished he hadn’t died, or something like that. It’s hard to know what exactly 27 citronella bearers—faces rippling in gold from underneath, as those of drowned men’s faces underwater, and viewed by flashlight—murmur into the dusk, especially ones with a good grasp on the notion of mortality. I guessed by our whispers that we wanted A.J. or the night to know that the food was a little overcooked, but still palatable; and that the food was atrocious; and that a few of the citronella bearers were going to Outback Steakhouse afterward; and that the sitter was doing well and the kids were in bed; and that he looked peaceful, lying there—almost like he was sleeping; and that we wished he hadn’t choked to death in the lobby of a hospital quite so soon. 27 citronella candles whispered all that and more into a warm, wet breeze from the south (which, strangely, as it suddenly seemed, stoked some flames and extinguished others), and also kept the mosquitos at bay.
Near the end of the viewing, the van carrying most of the children finally arrived. It had been delayed, one of the candles whispered, because Judy’s kid had to take a piss. They arrived just as their late uncle, or cousin, maybe, was chauffeured away. I couldn’t say for certain exactly where he went—where he was taken. For all I know he was whisked off to a NASCAR track somewhere, but I will say this: he was definitely away.
As soon as the cars were parked the kids flocked to the buffet table, circling like vultures around the overcooked scraps, running and laughing and shoving and stealing. Tony leaned over, a shade of liquor on his breath, and muttered, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We blew out our citronella candles, dropping them in the parking lot as we walked briskly to the car, before the mosquitos could get to us.
We dropped Ms. Rosso off on the way back without even getting out of the car. Tony drove this time and seemed to enjoy himself. He blew smoke out the window and listened to Johnny Cash—the Man in Black. I wondered if Tony ever really saw, or just let it go. Unless I missed it, he never so much as glanced into that coffin.
We’d miss the funeral in the morning, but Tony didn’t seem to mind. He told me once that, when he died, he wanted someone to just bury his ass in someone’s backyard—maybe someone he hated. That was starting to sound like a pretty good idea. I crossed my arms and rolled my window up to try and get some sleep, but couldn’t. I just couldn’t shake the smell. Hours had passed, and I still hadn’t gotten used to it. I’d smoked and rolled my windows down and sprayed cologne, but no matter what I tried, the whole damn world smelled like citronella.
This piece was a winner of the 2018 Edward J. Nichols Memorial Award for Fiction and originally published in Kalliope 2018.
For more information on the author, Will Carpenter, check out our feature on him here.