Bridge: A Shade short story Read online

around and within

  their violet glow,

  like dry ice at a rock concert.

  Mickey drops the cigarette butt

  into his can of Pepsi.

  It sizzles as the fire dies.

  “He was so heavy.”

  He presses the back of his hand

  against his mouth,

  as if those four words

  are the first drops in a flood

  that will drown us all.

  “Heavy, like a sandbag,

  in my arms.

  And behind that door.

  It took both of us,

  me and our sister, Siobhan,

  to push it open.

  I thought, What idiot got so wasted

  they passed out on our bathroom floor?

  And probably puked all over

  Mom’s favorite guest towels,

  and we’ll have to clean it up,

  and I swear to God

  this is the last party

  we’ll ever have.”

  He shakes the Pepsi can,

  the cigarette butt rattling

  staccato.

  “So the door finally opens,

  and there’s no puke,

  no blood,

  no nothing.

  Just him.

  Clean and dead.”

  I remember watching Mickey

  drag my body into the hall,

  start CPR with Siobhan.

  No matter how much they pressed

  and breathed

  and cried

  and cursed

  and screeeeeeeeamed,

  I couldn’t come back.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Krista repeats my words.

  “Who’s sorry?” Mickey asks her. “You or him?”

  “When I speak for myself,

  I’ll hold up my hand.”

  She makes a Boy-Scouty gesture,

  then lowers her hand.

  “Logan is sorry.”

  He flinches at the sound of my name.

  “What the hell’s he sorry about?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell him.

  “But you were really pissed off that night,

  so I figured I should apologize.”

  Mickey puts his head in his hands

  when he hears my answer.

  “I didn’t mean to yell at him.”

  “You always yelled at me.”

  I pause to let Krista translate.

  “Why would you stop when I died?”

  “I did not always yell at him!”

  Krista raises her hand.

  “You’re yelling at him right now.”

  “Well—he—”

  Mickey chokes out six

  or seven

  incoherent syllables

  before lurching to his feet.

  He stomps away,

  down the boardwalk.

  Fast enough for drama

  but slow enough to follow.

  “Sorry.”

  I hunch my shoulders

  as Krista stands, sighing.

  “Stop saying ‘sorry.’

  Mickey should be saying that.”

  “He won’t.”

  I get up to join her.

  “He’s a douche.”

  ♪

  “Your turn to talk,”

  Krista tells me

  as we catch up to Mickey

  down the boardwalk.

  The first question is easy.

  “Ask him why he hates me.”

  She rolls her eyes,

  but does as I ask.

  “I don’t hate him,” he says,

  but too quick,

  like a reflex,

  like someone,

  maybe a therapist,

  has asked that question before.

  “You think I’m a sellout,” I tell him.

  You think I don’t care about the music.”

  This he doesn’t deny,

  just shoves his hands deeper

  into his pockets,

  slows his pace,

  glares harder at the wooden slats

  in front of his feet.

  “So if I’m a sellout,”

  I continue, slowly enough

  that Krista can translate,

  “then why did we play

  all those songs I wrote?

  Why were they good enough,

  when I wasn’t?”

  Mickey glares at her.

  “I never said he wasn’t good enough.”

  “Don’t talk to me,” Krista tells Mickey.

  “Talk to Logan.”

  He stops short and turns to her.

  “Okay, L—”

  My name catches on his tongue.

  “You were good.

  You were amazing.

  You took my fucking breath away.”

  His eyes skewer hers.

  “But it wasn’t enough, was it?

  No, you had to be famous.

  You had to be famous yesterday.

  You couldn’t wait until we were older,

  when you could handle it.

  You were just a kid,

  a stupid kid.”

  Mickey’s face crumples,

  red with rage

  and something else.

  He clutches his hands

  in his thick brown hair,

  like he could tear it out.

  “And now you’ll never be older.

  You’ll never be

  anything,

  ever,

  but a stupid kid.”

  As I stare at Mickey,

  feeling twelve years old again,

  a whimper comes from my right.

  I turn,

  and Mickey turns,

  to see Krista,

  her eyes wide and wet,

  lower lip trembling—

  classic

  girl

  pre-cry

  symptoms.

  Mickey’s hands come up,

  as if to grasp her shoulders.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry.

  I was looking at you,

  but I swear I was talking to him.

  You were just—”

  She slaps him,

  hard enough

  to knock the self-righteous mask

  clean off his face.

  “Logan’s right,” she hisses.

  “You are a douche.”

  ♪

  Jim Morrison died in the bathtub.

  They buried him in Paris,

  but some people think he’s still alive,

  just like Elvis.

  That he’d had enough

  of this bogus life

  and decided to get

  a brand-new one.

  My brother and I

  catch up to Krista

  near the entrance to the

  Jolly Roger Amusement Park.

  She’s wiping away the tears

  with her fists,

  as if she can pummel her sadness

  into submission.

  “I’m sorry,” Mickey says

  (to her).

  “Can we start over?”

  “No.”

  Sniffle.

  “But we can keep going.”

  “Your turn,” I say to Krista.

  “Tell us why you freaked.

  But first, make Mickey buy you

  a funnel cake.”

  ♪

  On a bench

  by the Ferris wheel

  they eat.

  I crouch a few feet in front of them,

  in the middle of the foot traffic.

  Apparently I never sat on that bench

  in my whole life.

  “My brother died when I was ten.”

  Krista tugs off a long string of fried dough

  and dangles it into her mouth.

  Powdered sugar

  showers over the edge of her lips

  down to her chin.

  I wonder if Mickey wants to lic
k it off.

  I would

  if I could smell

  and taste,

  or think of anyone but Aura.

  “What happened?” Mickey asks.

  “OD’d.”

  A strong breeze

  sweeps her hair into her mouth

  as she speaks and eats.

  She tucks it behind her ear.

  “Officially an accident.”

  “Officially?”

  “I think he killed himself.

  Otherwise he probably would’ve haunted me.”

  Right.

  To become a ghost,

  your death has to be a surprise.

  (Boo.)

  People who thought it’d be easier

  to be a ghost

  than to be alive

  found that out the hard way.

  “How old was he?” Mickey asks Krista.

  “Eighteen.

  Like you.”

  Another bite,

  another struggle

  against the blowing hair.

  “You’re thinking of doing it, aren’t you?”

  If I had breath,

  I would hold it now,

  waiting for Mickey’s answer.

  “I don’t think of dying,” he says,

  “so much as I think of not living.”

  It starts to rain,

  suddenly,

  strenuously,

  as if heaven itself

  is bawling,

  spitting,

  pissing

  on my brother

  and his death wish.

  You go, God.

  If he doesn’t want his life,

  can I have it?

  I’d be a miserable,

  pretentious

  son of a bitch

  if it meant living again.

  I’d be him.

  ♪

  “Keep most of the lights off,”

  Krista tells Mickey

  as we enter our cousins’

  beachfront condo

  where our family has stayed

  since I was fourteen.

  “That way I can still see Logan.”

  “I’ll get you a towel.

  And do you want a dry—”

  He looks away

  from her sodden T-shirt.

  He has a girlfriend,

  after all,

  a girlfriend he’s barely touched

  in 233 days.

  He heads down the hall,

  but she lingers by the front door,

  checks that it’s unlocked.

  “He won’t hurt you,” I tell her.

  “I know,” she whispers.

  “But after that Cindy girl died

  at spring break,

  my parents gave me the Talk.

  They said,

  ‘Just because you graduated a year early

  doesn’t mean you can’t be stupid.’”

  We go to join Mickey,

  passing the open door

  of Siobhan’s room

  and the closed door

  where my younger brother Dylan and I

  used to stay.

  I’ve been there a hundred times

  since I died.

  Mickey stands before his bed,

  his suitcase open.

  “My sister’ll kill me if I steal one of her shirts,

  so take this.

  Keep it.”

  She unfolds the army-green T-shirt,

  and the light spilling from the hall

  reveals the skull-and-shamrock logo

  of the Keeley Brothers.

  I blink hard,

  memories bathing my brain

  like acid.

  “He never wears that,” I tell her.

  “Why does he have it with him now?”

  She asks him.

  Mickey slaps shut the suitcase,

  but not before I see

  the hint of

  dull

  black

  metal

  tucked into the corner.

  “Don’t leave him alone,” I tell Krista.

  “He’s got a gun.”

  She steps back,

  fear in her eyes.

  “Is it loaded?” she asks him.

  He stares at her,

  making the connection.

  “Not yet.”

  She snatches the dry towel splayed across the bed.

  “Turn around. Both of you.”

  I watch him instead of her,

  count the ribs showing

  through his skin

  when he changes his own shirt.

  “Now what?”

  Krista’s stuffing her wet bra

  into the front pocket of her jeans.

  Mickey’s shirt is huge on her

  but not huge enough

  to hide her curves.

  I spy the guitar case in the corner.

  “Ask him to play.”

  We have to get something

  into his hands

  besides that gun.

  Music was always my savior.

  Maybe it’ll be his, too.

  ♪

  He tries a few tunes

  by candlelight

  on the living room sofa,

  but his fingers seem numb;

  his voice, starved.

  Krista looks dubious.

  “Mickey’s much better than this,” I tell her.

  “He got accepted to a conservatory,

  but don’t bring that up.

  He’s not going.”

  I answer her quizzical look with,

  “Because of the money.”

  Mickey stops

  at the start

  of the third verse.

  “I forget the rest.

  You should go.”

  He looks through her,

  toward the hallway,

  toward the bedroom,

  toward the gun.

  “Wait!”

  I jump out of my seat.

  “Ask him to play my song,

  the one he’s writing for me.”

  “Play Logan’s song,” she tells him.

  He glances in my general direction,

  then focuses on her.

  “Dylan told him?”

  She nods when I nod.

  “Brat can’t keep a secret.”

  Mickey sets the guitar in his lap again,

  tunes.

  Tunes some more.

  And then some more.

  Tunes

  tunes

  tunes,

  but never plays.

  Krista shifts in her chair,

  stretches her bare feet,

  which are probably

  falling asleep.

  Her movement stops Mickey,

  fingers on the guitar’s pegs.

  He lowers the head

  and lets the instrument

  roll forward,

  strings facing down

  in his lap.

  “I haven’t written it yet,” he says.

  “Not one note, in all these months.”

  Krista holds up her hand,

  speaking for herself.

  “Why not?”

  He traces the curve of the guitar’s body

  with his palm,

  and I want more than ever to be him

  for one moment,

  touching the smooth wood.

  I would make it sing.

  Finally he says,

  “Writing his song

  would be too much like saying good-bye.”

  I can’t believe I’m hearing this.

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it!”

  Before she can finish translating,

  I point straight at his heart.

  “You’ve been saying nothing

  but goodbye

  since the night I died.

  All you care about

  is me passing on,

  getting out of your life.”
<
br />   Krista speaks my words,

  inflecting them just like me,

  and I wonder how much anger

  is mine

  and how much is hers.

  Mickey says,

  “I just want him to be at peace.”

  “No!” I hurl back.

  “You want you to be at peace.

  And you think dying—

  or at least not living—

  is the best way to find it.

  And I totally don’t get that.”

  Krista says what I said,

  then turns to me.

  “I get that,” she chokes out.

  “He thinks he could’ve stopped you.

  He thinks he could’ve saved you.”

  “I could have.”

  Mickey grips the neck of the guitar.

  “I could’ve kept the drugs

  out of his hands.”

  I shake my head.

  “You saw me turn it down,

  just like you and Siobhan—”

  “I should’ve known,”

  Mickey says over me.

  “I should’ve known

  that record company rep

  would push him harder

  when I wasn’t looking.

  He was always so eager to please.

  I should’ve asked later.

  One question:

  ‘Did you keep the cocaine?’

  But I was too busy

  and too annoyed,

  thinking, He’s a such a big shot now

  he can take care of himself,

  and if he can’t,

  that’s his fault.”

  Mickey closes his eyes.

  “One question.

  It could’ve saved his life.”

  I turn my head

  from the sight of the pain

  that’s twisted Mickey’s memory

  and broken his soul.