Jim is Dead

“Oh, my god, Jim is dead...” Everyone probably thought something like that.
Jack sat on the deck against the wall and smoked a cigarette. He stared down between his legs. He was the first one I saw when I came out onto the deck. Chris saw me come out. He was wrapped in a blanket. He walked up to me and embraced me. He started weeping. I held him tight as he cried and little tears of my own started to form. I could feel his tears on my neck. The worst was the soft sounds of anguish he produced. And quietly my tears rolled down. I looked over, tears fell from Jack’s eyes to the wooden planks of the deck.
There were little groups like this scattered over the deck and in the house. Some girls who barely knew Jim sat and rubbed backs with a hand and offered condolences in quiet voices. I’m surprised that girls around didn’t ruin everything. This is an affair for brothers. Inside people lay on couches, staring blankly into space or holding each other and crying, some quietly asking how this could have happened. Probably fifteen people total. Our embrace broke and Chris looked at me, ‘I love you, brother.’ ‘I love you too.’ His cologne is strong and kinda cloying. Ian comes out onto the deck with a fifth of Jack Daniels and sits down at the table. He breaks off the plastic and opens it.
“Everyone come here,” he says this as sternly as he can, there’s a little wavering in his voice. Jack gets up slowly with his head slumped and puts his cigarette in the big stone ash tray on the table. He lights another one. And I light one and give one to Chris and light it. Megan comes out with her arms full of shot and regular glasses. Ian starts pouring into every glass. It’s quiet on the deck while he pours, even with people coming from inside. A person asks for a cigarette here or there someone sniffles and sighs that rattly sigh of trying to stop crying.
“Three more glasses,” Ian calls inside to Megan. She brings them out and sets them down. I start passing out the shots to everyone, the last glass is for me, and I leave it on the table and tell Ian without having to that he should pour more into it. When I pick mine up, Ian begins,
“We lost a brother today; everyone needs to know that. There’s no bargaining. There’s no denial, there’s none of that shit. This is what it is: Jim is gone. We are here. We drink this whiskey to his memory.” He held up his glass. Everyone followed. Some of the girls clearly don’t drink whiskey straight and it shows in the ways they nervously eye their glasses of brown liquid. Megan is the only girl that doesn’t look at it oddly, a trooper.
“Here’s to those that I love, and here’s to those that love me, and here’s to those that love those that I love, and to those that love those that love me,” he says slowly and purposefully, not the quick and loud ramble it normally is. I follow up with a loud, ‘OI!’ And some people laugh a little, and we drink. I don’t like to drink my whiskey all at once, but I do, and it feels good this time, even though I’m worried I’ll vomit. Then Julian is at the railing vomiting down into the black. Everyone’s laughing. And he’s crying a little and laughing as he spits and wipes his mouth,
“Well, shit. I need a cigarette and a beer.” A case of PBR seems to materialize on the table, probably Megan again. I’ve felt fear before when looking at the word MERIDIAN on a case of wine, felt a haunting from the Trader Joe’s logo, been uneasy because of Times New Roman, but I always feel like nothing bad could really happen when looking at a PBR logo; and I feel that now, with Jim dead and not even in the ground or burnt up to ash or whatever. I grab a beer and walk to the railing, it really is a nice night, a little chilly but not bad. Death in the spring is a little odd. I expected it to be colder when people are dead.
Jack comes up to me and puts his arm around me. A tall and beautiful black haired girl once said to me in a particularly bitchy tone, ‘you are too short to even be remembered,’ and walked away. I don’t know why I’d think of that now, just that all my friends are taller than I am. Jim was taller than me. I wonder how coffins work. Jenny comes up on my other side, I’d forgotten she was here.
Jenny and Lisa and Sunshine drove here from california to hang out for a week, and this is what happens. They leave tomorrow. This is their last night...sitting quietly and awkwardly with a bunch of people who just had a friend die, someone they didn’t even know. I turn and kiss her a little. It doesn’t feel right really, and not just because of Jim. It’s probably over soon. I slept with my ex after I came back from california. I don’t know anymore. It’s all confusing. I guess there’s bigger shit to think about. Life and death or something.

Jim is dead two days now. We think our time is better spent trying not to dwell on it. Our time...indeed. We’re just sitting in the living room. The funeral is tomorrow. I am drinking a beer and I am on the couch, lounging as hard as  I possibly can. Everyone’s banter is funny and witty today. Everyone’s on their game. Franco is popping and cracking out of the little blown out speakers. It sounds perfect. The funeral is tomorrow.
Jenny and the rest left day before yesterday. We went back to my mother’s that night and slept together, and again in the morning. She cried afterward. She asked if I would come back to california. I told her I’d try next month, that I have to be here for the funeral and all that. I don’t know. The funeral is tomorrow.
Last night we pounded the pavement hard looking for more beer and more whiskey. Gene and Jack paid for me. Julian and I watched Wargames in the living room after the other’s went to sleep. I woke up at their house and opened the Jack Daniels beside my pillow. Now we’re here in the living room. Julian, Jack, and Gene are playing old Mario Kart 64 on the little TV in the corner; I’ll probably join them soon. Chris and Ian and I are just insulting each other quietly and cleverly and laughing. There’s a knock on the door.
Jim is dead two days now. Everything was going fine until his parent’s walked in...Mario Kart is paused and the TV turned off. We put our beers behind end tables and lamps; we hide the instruments of our good time. They’re wearing all black. We all shake hands with them. The peaceful goodness of our afternoon is fading away into the black of their clothes.
Jim is dead two days now, so they came for his things. There are two movers outside with a truck. They’re not wearing jump suits like I expected. They follow them into Jim’s room and start packing things up. The front door stays open the whole time. It’s pretty cold.
It’s dark when they leave. And Jim’s mom’s eye makeup has run. We don’t shake hands this time. We’re standing in a line. Jim’s dad is talking about the funeral tomorrow. Ten AM at a church across town.We all know Jim never believed in god, even for a second. We all thought ‘Oh, my god,' but Gene is the only brother who believes in god, and he just converted to Judaism.
So they left with his things. We stand looking into Jim’s empty room. There’s some random scraps of paper on the ground, and just stuff like that around. I am going to sleep at my mother’s tonight. Ten AM at a church across town.

It snowed. Chris’ brother Allan and a girl I met once named Carrie pick me up in the morning. I am not comfortable. I’m wearing some grey slacks I haven’t worn since high school. I don’t like how they feel, but besides jeans it’s all I’ve got. My Man In Wool jacket is too dirty; still in the suitcase from california, kinda smells like body odor.  I am not comfortable. I’m wearing some grey jacket that might as well have come out of World War I. It’s all I had really. All from the closet in my old room. My sister tells me she’ll find me later today. I am not comfortable.
The city is quiet and the sky cloudy. It’s still snowing some and we’re moving slow through the snow to the church. We are driving by looking for parking and I see Ian and Jack and Chris standing off on the side of the church. Allan and Carrie stop to let me out. They go off to park and go inside. We smoke two cigarettes and steal sips from the flask in Ian’s jacket as we wait for it all to start. Gene didn’t come because of the church thing. We all said fuck it. Ian and Chris are going to speak. I’m here for them really, this is harder for them. They ran away with Jim in high school, went up the coast to Oregon, did drugs, got caught and had it all go bad. It’s really pretty out with the snow falling in big flakes. We can see our breath, not too cold though, maybe it’s the smoke. But it certainly doesn’t feel like Spring. And, to me, that certainly makes sense.
We go inside. There’s a big picture of Jim in uniform, with beret and all, in the foyer. I’d never seen him that way. We all get a little pamphlet with the same picture and some scripture on it. I don’t look at the program inside it. The walls are all dark, made of some rich wood and the pews. There’s all these flowers up front and the picture is there again. I can’t see where they would hold a service in this church. I don’t know where the preacher would stand or anything, there’s a kinda stage, but it’s all flowers, seems like a low wall. There’s no body. No casket. He was cremated. That’s good I think. Better to not have a coffin sitting there with a body in it. So strange to just have a corpse sitting in a room with a bunch of living people. Dark curtains and that same wood everywhere.
I can’t smell anything but cologne and perfume. I worry it’ll overpower me and make me sick. I just end up sinking into it and listening with a kinda ringing in my ears; the ringing of a lingering and unreal silence. Some preacher preaches. Jim’s parents both speak; his mother cries. Some relatives none of us have ever seen speak. Ian goes up. He tells a story about when they ran away. A story about their friendship. I have a lump in my throat, because he’s barely holding it together.
Chris gets up to speak. It’s almost palpable how uncomfortable the family is about these two taking up to the front, talking about a part of Jim’s life they all wish hadn’t happened. I wish I had something to say, but Jim and I were never all that close. But he was a brother.

Chris begins:
“One time Jim and I were out behind the park in our old neighborhood. The dam had a bunch of frozen water behind it. Our first thought was just hanging out on it. So we went out on the ice and decided to try to make a floating island of ice we could stand around on or something.
And we’re pounding down on the ice with logs and breaking parts of it so we can float. Working hard at it.
The ice shattered under me.
And I fell in.
I’m not sure how deep it was, or anything like that.
I can only remember just immediately being freezing in that water.
And I can’t swim, I’m not even supposed to go into water when it’s cold, or so the doctor says. And I’m just coughing and trying to leap out of the water or something and grabbing at the ice on the surface and slipping off and panicking...
...And Jim reaches down and grabs my hand.
Jim pulls me up and he’s sliding on the ice and all. I’m grabbing ice with my other hand and kicking and trying to get out.
He falls down and starts crawling and pulling me away from the hole. I’m shivering and freezing on the ice. He pulls off my shirt takes off his jacket and puts it on me. He tells me I’ve got to get my pants off so I don’t freeze. So he unties my shoes since my fingers aren’t working. And we get my pants off.
Then Jim...takes off his pants, and I know where you think this is going, but it’s not. (there’s a laugh from our group)
And he gives me his pants.
He helps me put on my shoes.
And we walk home to my house in the cold...Jim in his underwear.
Jim saved my life that day.
And that’s my best memory of him.”
The brothers are all laughing. Chris told the story with actions and words and sound effects and screams and all that. Showmanship is his thing. Acting is his thing. A lot of people were laughing actually. And we’re laughing extra hard, because this is a fuck you to the whole affair. A funeral in a church for our brother.
This story is really funny...because it’s a lie. Completely made up. Not that we all don’t have memories of that ice behind the dam, but this never happened. Nothing so dramatic ever happened out there. But this story gets told at weddings, about our grooms, and now apparently at funerals, for our departed.

Then someone from the army is in full uniform at the front. It’s somber again. He’s talking about Jim’s service time. Everyone is standing. I’m silently crying. Crying because I looked forward and saw Ian crying and I put my hand on his shoulder. Megan rubbed Ian’s back and held him. And I just couldn’t watch that really. Carrie put her hand on my shoulder. I worry about Megan sitting back down into a puddle of my tears. I suck it up and shut up. And then a trumpet or something gets blown by the army guy and another one shows up and a flag gets presented. And I wonder about this army guy. I don’t think he ever met Jim, but those army guys are probably like brothers, I guess.
Things wrap up and everyone goes to the reception in the shitty gymnasium. Weird Christian flags on the walls with odd Latin and stuff like that. Basketball hoops folded up to the roof. One of those weird windows to a kitchen where metal garage door thing comes down. The food is mediocre looking. We go straight out to smoke cigarettes and get the whiskey in us. We’re going to go back to the guys’ house to have a real wake. One Jim would have liked to be at.
We are back inside and the gym seems really full, like all these people weren’t in those pews, like they showed up afterward. Aside from Jim’s parents and the brothers and the girls with us or whatever I don’t know anyone. Older people, probably relatives ask if I was close while I want more whiskey and cigarettes and I munch at bland food. The cheese and crackers are the best of the lot. I brush crumbs (real or imagined) off my lips. I tell them I was, and we shake hands as if that bullshit little ceremony with a preacher and all actually brought those in the room closer together. I don’t even wipe my hands on my pants before I shake hands, I don’t care if I sweat on them. I never saw them before and I’ll never see them again. I throw away my little plate, not wanting some stranger’s hands on my cheese. I’m not even hungry anyway. Then I go shake hands with the uniformed higher up from the army, just like the older people shook my hand...totally meaningless really, all around. There’s some little book we’re supposed to sign if we want. I leave some Borges quote in it; no signature.

Allan and Carrie and I stopped to get some beer on the way. There were a few people at the house. I smoked a cigarette and drank a beer alone before any more showed up. It was still snowing, and the grey and the quiet were really nice out there. I caught myself trying to breathe out all the smoke and realized it was my breath. I laughed at myself and looked down the hill through the trees. There’s those apartments down there, but I didn’t really look at them; I just looked in the middle of it all. It was really beautiful and my beer was cold and my smoke cold, but I felt pretty warm. And I just watched it snow, fall on and through the tall pines. And I listened to the quiet and felt warm.
Everyone came back from the reception with beer and whiskey in their arms. And there was again 15 or 20 people at the house. People are drinking and smoking as always; my little sister floats in from the deck with a beer in her hand and gives me a hug and tells me people are out on the porch because Gene wants to do something.
There’s a big half circle of people on the far side of the porch. Pretty much everyone is standing around Gene. He’s wearing his yarmulke and that shawl kinda thing. He has a little book and reads a long sing-like prayer in Hebrew. People are crying, but they don’t know what the words mean. Jim’s been dead for days and everyone’s acting like they just heard about it. My sister stands by me and I put my arm around her. We give each other a knowing look and I’ve got a few tears out over all the crying. It’s better that we don’t know the words. Means it’s not religious, it’s just beautiful and sad.
The snowfall has gotten a lot heavier. There’s a fire in the raised little pit on the deck. People are sitting around just reminiscing about Jim. Chris is drunk under the table in the kitchen. Jack has gone to a dinner with his grandma or something. Most girls have gone home. It’s getting dark early because of the clouds. My sister is just hanging around laughing at the jokes and stories, getting drunk. I kinda want to be alone, and figure shooter video games are close enough.
I’m not really paying attention to the game, kinda listening to my sister talking with Julian in the kitchen and I think Allan and Gene and Ian and Carrie are upstairs. I bet Carrie is vomiting up there or something. The thought reminds me of Jenny and california. I should probably call her or talk to her online or something. I don’t know, maybe I will go back even though I hate it there. I don’t know. There’s a knock at the door.

The police officer comes inside and stands by the stairs. I am asking if we’re too loud--explaining our friend just died, that we're having a wake--hoping my sister is hiding out. But nobody expected this so why would she hide. There is an ambulance outside and the paramedics come in with their gurney all folded up. I’m telling the cop I have no idea what’s happening. ‘Someone called about an attempted suicide.’
Gene runs down the stairs wearing the pajama pants he changed into a few hours ago. The cop grabs his arm and pulls him, ‘who’s this guy?’ he almost shouts.
“I live here!” Gene says wide-eyed. He didn’t even notice the cop on the way down. We’re both frantic.
“It’s OK he lives here,” I repeat. I am really confused now. I know none of my friends are stupid enough to do something like suicide today. Ian even told us outside that anyone with those thoughts knew their responsibility not to act on them. The paramedics run upstairs. Gene has to stay down with me and the cop. The cop is asking all kinds of questions. Gene is answering them the best he can.
Carrie didn’t even know Jim. She didn’t even meet Jim. What the hell is wrong with her? The cop finishes taking Gene’s statement. I’m livid. I thought she was attractive too...so obnoxious. I didn’t even watch them wheel her out, I went to smoke. My sister sat outside with me. Neither of us cares whether Carrie lives or dies. The cop left and Allan followed them in his car. All the while Chris is passed out under the table and I think Ian and Megan are passed out upstairs. Gene and I sit outside and smoke cigarettes and drink and talk for a while. My sister makes us laugh by way of explaining the many and varied ways that Carrie is a ‘stupid cunt’. She’s funny when she’s got venom in her mouth.
It’s fully dark now. And it’s difficult to see deep out into the trees behind the house with the low light and the snow curtains still falling. The house is dirty, there are empty beers everywhere. There are all these lights on that probably don’t need to be. The floors are sticky from beer and wet with muddy footprints. It’s a little cold inside. The place feels derelict. It feels like a place people are moving out of. To be inside the house is exactly like drinking from early morning to night.

Allan’s parents show up randomly with another 30 pack of beer. Late to the party as it were. Jack comes back from dinner. We all go inside and tell them about everything.
“She didn’t even slit her wrist longways, it was fake," my sister is still going on, “Allan left to go to the hospital.”  We drink with them for a while. My sister is even drinking in front of them, friends of my mother, and they don’t care. I don’t care if they care either. Chris is still passed out under the table, they don’t care. Allan’s dad asks if Jim and Carrie were dating or something.
“They never even met,” I say with a laugh, “Jim is dead and that bitch fake-attempts suicide." I start to feel kinda dirty, sexist asshole, isolated. I don’t know if I am angry, or just exhausted or drunk or sad or numb or anything, “At least no one’s crying anymore.”