Attention. Deficit. Disorder.
Brad Listi
An impressive debut from a major new voice in American fiction.Days after his ex-girlfriend's suicide, Wayne flies to San Francisco for her funeral. When he learns that she aborted their child, Wayne embarks upon a search for meaning that takes him to unusual places and through some of the most influential events of the past ten years.His journey takes him up and down the East Coast on foot, then over to Cuba where he meets the fishing guide who inspired Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, across the American West in an RV, ending up at the legendary Burning Man festival and an encounter with his soulmate, who turns out to be a six foot three giant of a woman in a purple cowboy hat.Brad Listi's novel is a dazzling exploration of love and death that just so happens to include some drugs, prostitutes, naked cycling, Mantovani and the ingredients for a Molotov cocktail. It is one of the most inventive and rewarding debuts in years.Attention. Deficit. Disorder. is the first great road novel of the 21st century.
Attention. Deficit. Disorder.
a novel
BRAD LISTI
To my parents, Frank and Peggy Listi
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
—SEXTUS PROPERTIUS
Familiarity breeds contempt.
—SYRUS
A penny saved is a penny earned.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
You can’t take it with you.
—MOSS HART AND GEORGE S. KAUFMAN
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
God must hate the common man, he made him so common.
—PHILIP WYLIE
I’ve steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist.
—JOHN COLLIER
There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.
—FRANCIS BACON
There’s a sucker born every minute.
—P. T. BARNUM
Man is a social animal.
—BARUCH SPINOZA
Man is a political animal.
—ARISTOTLE
Man is the measure of all things.
—PROTAGORAS
Man is a blind, witless, low-brow anthropocentric clod who inflicts lesions upon the earth.
—IAN MCHARG
The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence…and it can be fostered by education.
—BERTRAND RUSSELL
Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.
—JAMES NORTHCOTE
All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind.
—ARISTOTLE
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
—DALAI LAMA
Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and a poor memory.
—ALBERT SCHWEITZER
A humanitarian is always a hypocrite.
—GEORGE ORWELL
Sisyphus was basically a happy man.
—ALBERT CAMUS
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
What do I care about the law? Hain’t I got the power?
—CORNELIUS VANDERBILT
Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.
—LILY TOMLIN
Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.
—JIMI HENDRIX
There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
—ALFRED KORZYBSKI
The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things.
—BUDDHA
The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.
—CESARE PAVESE
Always be sincere, even when you don’t mean it.
—IRENE PETER
When a man has pity on all living creatures, then only is he noble.
—BUDDHA
I tend to be suspicious of people whose love of animals is exaggerated; they are often frustrated in their relationships with humans.
—YLLA
He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle.
—RING LARDNER
The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
—H. L. MENCKEN
The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet.
—AULUS VITELLIUS
Rubble is trouble.
—MUHAMMAD ALI
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
—PAUL VALÉRY
A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.
—MARTIN H. FISCHER
A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.
—CHARLES F. KETTERING
The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.
—R. H. TAWNEY
This is my death…and it will profit me to understand it.
—ANNE SEXTON
I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
—WOODY ALLEN
The universe is but one vast Symbol of God.
—THOMAS CARLYLE
Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd.
—WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
—SIR JAMES JEANS
When it is dark enough you can see the stars.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u81d4dedb-dbc7-5c58-9b8a-d63272ca4cfe)
Title Page (#u41f4e4af-7117-598a-a985-cb51ee49ae5d)
Dedication (#u8538b193-cb14-55c2-a325-75c4061bad1d)
Epigraph (#uc424141e-25c0-53b2-8c76-0b807b86661b)
Part I (#u74c0b4b9-1322-5782-b530-dcd92c2f1f18)
1 (#u36b82a3b-6aba-5121-9d9f-ecaa6b476593)
2 (#u02469616-2772-550e-9caa-96291cf8c3fc)
3 (#u35fe9827-3120-5ae3-9940-3e164f9c1ff8)
4 (#u71cf1841-b36d-54dc-b09d-0e6260cfaf00)
5 (#u24864588-f3b5-5345-8518-fd7e5ac0134d)
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20 (#uec578714-2301-58a6-9241-45c347e8bdbe)
21 (#ue0820b8d-900e-5960-a742-366d75d25957)
Part II (#u9c816400-0840-53ea-a229-30ccaa426ea5)
1 (#u8fd34e94-d051-5052-984e-cb6aa38f924e)
2 (#u6b200d89-d1a9-5195-8757-ab0e3ee01667)
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13 (#u9f7ad972-d500-5245-aaa6-e2fecfb435de)
14 (#uaf6a2f62-cc89-534e-807b-7dc27bb18d59)
Part III (#u6ea700e9-77e9-548f-a7db-473a085acb7d)
1 (#u257c181d-fecc-5dcd-8c2d-1257b7bca733)
2 (#u99ce378e-5e63-56f3-b6ca-3b92a93cca4f)
3 (#ue8ce8496-8b9f-5f9d-a8b2-eb428db34780)
4 (#ub75a9604-4e17-542e-9787-5e3cca8412cb)
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6 (#u19a63a35-bc5a-55be-9867-b2e94c96142f)
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29 (#u9a01b823-f776-5cf1-9190-25e07d5d3e9d)
30 (#u3e508173-f908-595d-a92e-3c4cce632ed0)
Part IV (#ua741cb4f-74c9-5648-b47f-81db6242f17b)
1 (#ua026c46a-6234-5077-a089-99e93b503462)
2 (#u52611fa1-cbab-555d-b868-d4679727fc88)
3 (#u058da432-3427-5c43-94a9-175652e0d3cb)
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6 (#u2f7d3f8b-0b73-59c6-a176-fd2a67a93e6c)
Part V (#u607bb3c3-15ca-55b0-b87b-67e1c5a7d19f)
1 (#u4c512f78-f911-5aa7-b63d-62da7b394202)
2 (#udef6bee7-e168-5698-bc79-ecceec80b89c)
3 (#uba7b7559-d7e8-5dc5-8cc8-6139de41e91f)
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8 (#u2889b2a1-7f0b-5d26-9c51-f7f331e4d462)
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29 (#u8d80b3e6-c9a9-5e36-8c67-574d90f9b3ee)
Epilogue (#u7cd349f5-d7e6-59c2-b255-17dfd6ac7d20)
Copyright (#uca397651-aad9-543b-a890-1a6b046f1f0d)
About the Publisher (#u8c46a9f0-54a3-5e51-b451-ad856b807236)
I (#ulink_554ecfbb-cb16-5bb0-a308-de49a1abc7ce)
1 (#ulink_20ae2e3d-a7ca-5c24-92b6-05e17c691a93)
I was at Horvak’s apartment in the Haight, a couple of blocks from Golden Gate Park, on Waller. It was late, and I was there alone. Everything was quiet.
Horvak had caught a flight to Aspen a few hours earlier. We’d passed each other in the sky. Horvak was in an idyllic mountain paradise, celebrating the holidays with family and friends. I was alone in San Francisco, waiting for a funeral. A defeated brand of envy was the only natural response.
Horvak didn’t really know Amanda. He knew her peripherally through me, but he didn’t know her well enough to mourn her. Nothing about her death was debilitating to him; none of it really affected him. Beyond the kind of standard empathy that occurs in decent people, nothing much would transpire within him on account of her passing. There would be no resonant impact. He would escape unharmed.
I’d arrived in town late that afternoon. Rented a car at SFO and followed Horvak’s instructions door to door. He’d left a key in the mailbox. I walked inside and planted myself on the couch and sat there for hours in silence. Flipping channels. Smoking cigarettes. Tending to my confusion. The television was on, but the volume was all the way down. There was a stack of bad magazines on the coffee table, and sleep wasn’t really an option. My head was swimming. I’d come to the conclusion that I had very little understanding of what anything actually meant. That right there was the extent of my knowledge.
Sometime after midnight, I stubbed out another cigarette and rose from the couch. I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain. Down below, life was happening. Cars were rolling by, rattling and coughing exhaust. Christmas trees and menorahs were glowing in windows. Streetlights were shining. The fog was moving in. People were walking along the sidewalks, wrapped in hats and scarves. I wondered who they were, where they were going, what they did. I wondered what their stories were. I wondered what would happen to them. I watched them disappearing, one by one and two by two, lost in the direction of wherever it was that they were headed. And none of them even knew I was there.
2 (#ulink_f62e9344-f0b0-53f8-9596-5796ab72b98f)
The ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. They treated their corpses with spices, herbs, and chemicals, and then they wrapped them in cotton cloth and stuffed them inside of a wooden case. Then they put that wooden case inside of another case. Then they decorated the outer case with information about the life of the wealthy dead person. Then they painted it and adorned it with jewels. The entire contraption was then stuffed inside a coffin, which was then stuffed inside a sarcophagus.
The Parsis, a Zoroastrian religious community in India, place their dead atop twenty-foot-high stone structures called “towers of silence,” so the vultures can more easily devour them.
Australia’s Aborigines have been known to leave dead bodies in treetops.
In New Caledonia and among Borneo’s inland mountain people, dead bodies are placed erect inside the trunks of trees. The bark of the tree is then replaced over them.
The Jivaro peoples of South America inter their dead women and children under the floor. This practice dates back ten thousand years, to the rituals of urbanites in Mesopotamia.
Muslim people bathe their corpses carefully, with warm water and scented oils. Male corpses are bathed by men, and female corpses are bathed by women. Both men and women can bathe a dead child. The corpses are then wrapped in a plain cloth called a kafan, placed in a casket, and buried underground.
Jews wrap their dead in simple cloth and bury them underground too. Once the corpse is lowered underground, family members often toss a few handfuls of dirt into the hole. They might also tear a piece of their clothing, or a black ribbon, to signify their loss. This practice is called kriah, a tradition that many believe dates all the way back to Jacob’s reaction to the supposed death of Joseph.
In certain parts of Indonesia, it is customary for widows to smear themselves with fluids from the bodies of their dead husbands.
In central Asia, mourners often get masochistic, lacerating their arms and faces in honor of the deceased.
In Tanzania, young men and women of the Nyakyusa tribe customarily copulate at the site of a dead person’s grave, as a show of respect.
In some nomadic Arctic cultures, a doll of the deceased is carved from wood and treated as though it were alive. The doll is often kept for years. It is placed in positions of honor. It is taken on family outings. Food offerings are made to it. Widows have been known to sleep with the wooden doll in their beds, in remembrance of the deceased.
3 (#ulink_389e37c2-0081-5335-8d88-dcd6367e95ac)
Earlier in the year, the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and the baseball player Joe DiMaggio had died within a day of each other. Kubrick passed away on March 7, 1999. A heart attack did him in. DiMaggio died on March 8, of lung cancer and pneumonia. I learned about both deaths on the morning of March 9. My alarm clock went off, same as usual, and I heard Bob Edwards talking about their deaths on National Public Radio. I remember lying in bed, looking at the ceiling, hearing the news. I found myself feeling sad in a vague and peculiar kind of way.
Later that same day, I was driving around Boulder, running errands, headed north on Twenty-eighth Street, trying to make a left turn. Up ahead I saw two little girls standing on the side of the road, darling little Japanese girls, sisters holding hands. They darted out into the road, right in front of a guy in an Oldsmobile Cutlass. Traffic was thick, so the guy wasn’t going very fast—maybe twenty miles per hour. He slammed on his brakes, but by then, it was too late. The nose of the Olds struck the little girls, and they popped up in the air like rag dolls. One of them landed on the street. The other one landed on the hood. It was terribly surreal.
Everything started happening fast. Suddenly, I was out of my Jeep and running across the street. I arrived at the scene, and the little girls were lying there. The younger one was wailing. The older one was trembling, in shock. Both were conscious, and there wasn’t any blood. Onlookers were rushing in from every direction. Everyone was crowding in around the girls, trying to comfort them, asking them if they were all right. I felt nauseous. I looked to my left and saw a woman standing there. By the looks of her, she was a mother. She had her hands on her head, as though she were wearing a wig and the wind might blow it away. “Oh my God,” she kept saying. “Oh my God, oh my God…”
I took my jacket off and tried to drape it over one of the little girls, the older one. I’d read somewhere that people injured in accidents should be covered with blankets or coats, to keep them warm, to treat them for shock. The little girl wanted no part of my jacket. She threw it off her shoulders, looked at me, and started bawling. She said she wanted to go home. Having all of these strange adults around her was scaring her. I backed away, holding my jacket. I felt silly—dejected, almost.
Sirens rang in the distance.
The little girl sobbed.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” someone said to her. “Help is on the way.”
“I don’t want to go to jail,” she said.
Everyone assured her that she wouldn’t be going to jail.
The woman to my left crouched down and gave her a hug.
The driver of the Oldsmobile was short and middle-aged. He was wearing a Colorado Rockies cap, standing to my right with his hands in his pockets. He looked a little bit like Al Pacino, and he was oddly calm, talking to another onlooker.
“I didn’t see ’em,” he said. “I didn’t see ’em at all. They came out of nowhere. I had no way of seeing ’em. I didn’t see a thing until they were up on my hood. I didn’t see a thing. All of a sudden I looked up, and bam, there they were. There wasn’t even a crosswalk there. I couldn’t have seen ’em.”
An ambulance arrived, followed by two fire trucks and two cop cars. The circle of onlookers opened up, and the paramedics came through. The older girl kept saying that she wanted to go home and see her mommy. The little one just sat there crying. After a while, people started to disperse. I walked back over to my truck, climbed inside, and drove away. My hands were shaking, and I drove very slowly. It was a cold wintry day, and there were giant towering clouds rolling in over the mountains. It was a very strange afternoon.
4 (#ulink_f0b0feca-bb02-5cfc-8144-f67f8b39cd30)
I dated Amanda during my sophomore year of college. She was a freshman. We started seeing each other in September of that year and kept it going all the way through the following May, at which point we parted ways for the summer. Amanda had an internship lined up back at home in the Bay Area. I was staying in Boulder to work a construction job and take summer classes.
At the moment of our parting, everything was fine. Saying goodbye seemed to bring out the best in us. We said we’d call, we said we’d write. We told each other we loved each other—the first and only time we’d ever done so. We said that we’d keep it going, but it didn’t wind up working out that way, which was my fault entirely. I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain. Somewhere along the line, I experienced a change of heart. The summer apart was no good for me. My imagination took over. I had too much time to think. I convinced myself that I wasn’t ready for anything long-term, told myself that things were getting too serious, that I was too young to be this involved. I needed time, I needed space. Felt trapped. Got nervous. Didn’t want to be tied down. At that point, Amanda was a thousand miles away. I was nineteen. I figured I’d deal with it later.
I went to visit her once that summer, on Independence Day. Amanda showed me all around the city—her favorite museums, her favorite parks, her favorite neighborhoods. She took me to her favorite café in Hayes Valley. On the night of the Fourth, we watched the fireworks from a hillside in Marin. I was feeling awful, completely phony. I wanted to tell her that I was having my doubts about continuing the relationship that night, but I didn’t go through with it. I told myself the timing wasn’t right.
When she got back to Boulder that August, I broke up with her poorly. First, I dodged her for a week. Then I returned her phone calls slowly, much more slowly than normal. It went on like this into September. We’d see each other, here and there. I slept with her a couple of times, knowing that I was going to break up with her. I pretended.
When I finally got around to telling her that I wanted to end things, it caught her completely off guard. She wept. She called me once a day for the next week, asking questions, hoping to reconcile. She wrote me a long, emotional letter and put it in my mailbox. In the letter, she told me that she didn’t understand, that she hadn’t seen it coming, that she wanted to try to fix things. She told me that I was breaking her heart.
I told myself that she was being dramatic. I called her up and we talked. It was painful and uncomfortable. I told her that I didn’t think it was in our best interests to continue dating. I told her that I just wasn’t feeling it enough, that my heart wasn’t in it all the way.
“So why have we been sleeping together these past few weeks?” she said. “Why have you been having sex with me if you knew you were planning on ending it?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I tried to give one anyway, stumbling my way through a stilted and embarrassed response.
Amanda told me she needed to get off the phone because she thought she was going to be sick. We hung up a few seconds later. I felt awful. I wrote her a long letter that night, apologizing, trying to iron things out and put some sort of amicable end to everything. I walked it over to her mailbox at about two in the morning.
After Amanda read the letter, we had one more phone conversation. I told her once again that I was sorry, that I really wanted for us to be friends. Amanda said, “Sure.” She sounded tired and wounded. I think she was crying. No sobs, just tears. I knew they were there by the sound of her voice. A little while later, we hung up. And after that, she stopped calling. In fact, she never called me again. Ever.
I called her one more time, a few weeks later, but hung up when I got the answering machine.
We hardly saw each other for the rest of our college days. She avoided me, I avoided her. The University of Colorado is a big school. Our circles didn’t mix much. I didn’t know how to approach her. I felt she didn’t want to be approached. I wanted her to approach me, but she never did. Maybe she felt I didn’t want to be approached either. Maybe she didn’t know how.
We never approached each other ever again.
Last I’d heard, she was dating a wealthy ski bum up in Crested Butte, and they had a good thing going. Then she was gone.
5 (#ulink_e9d9278d-50cc-574e-9f08-64da18b8f8f2)
suiciden.
1 The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself.
2 The destruction or ruin of one’s own interests: It is professional suicide to involve oneself in illegal practices.
3 One who commits suicide.
In imperial Rome, taking your own life was considered honorable.
In ancient Greece, convicted criminals were permitted to off themselves.
In France, suicide was illegal up until the Revolution.
In England, failed suicides were hanged right up until the nineteenth century.
Greenland has the highest per capita suicide rate in the world, with 127 out of every 100,000 people choosing to check out voluntarily. China is home to 21 percent of the world’s women. More than half of all female suicides take place there.
In the United States of America, suicide is the third-leading cause of all teenage deaths. A teenager commits suicide in the USA about once every two hours or so.
In 1997, a former music teacher named Marshall Applewhite convinced thirty-nine people to kill themselves in Southern California. Applewhite was the leader of a doomsday cult called Heaven’s Gate. He and his followers believed that a UFO was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. They thought this UFO was four times the size of the earth and that it was on its way to pick them up; so instead of waiting around for it, they drank apple juice and vodka laced with pentobarbital and died.
The sheriff who arrived on the scene discovered all thirty-nine bodies. Resting beside each one was an overnight bag and five dollars cash.
Suicide was naturally the consistent course dictated by the logical intellect. (Is suicide the ultimate sincerity? There seems to be no way to refute the logic of suicide but by the logic of instinct.)
—William James
Back in 1993, a book called Kanzen Jisatsu Manyuaru was published in Japan. I happened to read about it in the news one day. Kanzen Jisatsu Manyuaru means “The Complete Suicide Manual.” The book offers detailed instructions on ten methods of suicide, including hanging, overdosing on drugs, electrocution, and self-immolation. It compares and contrasts the different methods in terms of pain, speed of completion, and level of disfigurement. In addition, the book offers readers tips on the best places to kill themselves, naming Aokigahara, a thick wood at the base of Mt. Fuji, as “the perfect place” to die.
In 1998, seventy-four corpses were found in the woods of Aokigahara.
The suicide rate in Japan rose by 35 percent that year alone.
Suicide prevention groups in Japan were convinced that The Complete Suicide Manual was a big part of the problem. The book’s author, Wataru Tsurumi, saw things differently. “No one ever killed themselves just because of my book,” he said. “The authorities are blaming me because they are unwilling to take responsibility for the economic, political, and social problems that are the real cause of suicides.”
In a span of roughly seven years following its publication, the book had sold about 1.2 million copies. With very little advertising or promotion, it was already in its eighty-third printing.
“This goes to show that there is a demand in society,” said a spokeswoman from the book’s publishing company.
6 (#ulink_f9a8e92c-feeb-5f35-a7b5-fb6128bfb34c)
I went to the funeral alone and sat in a back pew, terrified that someone I knew was going to see me. It was miserable being there. I wanted to disappear.
There was no coffin, just a table full of framed pictures of Amanda and some potted plants and some baskets of flowers. The church was packed. A capacity crowd. A fat man was playing a piano. A skinny woman was singing “Ave Maria.” Amanda’s parents were up ahead in the front row, leaning against each other, defeated.
“Ave Maria” ended, and the priest stepped up to the microphone. His face was red, and his hair was shockingly white. He talked about God, life, death, grief, friendship, love, and heaven. He spoke eloquently, with convincing sympathy and erudition, but I failed to find any real comfort in what he was saying.
From there, the priest called M.J. and Nancy up to the altar. M.J. and Nancy were Amanda’s best friends from college. They looked like twins. Blond, petite, and attractive. I hadn’t seen either of them in a long time. They seemed to have changed a little bit. Neither of them looked as bohemian as they used to. Both were dressed in formal attire, and each was holding one side of a prepared speech on a piece of wrinkled notebook paper. Their hands were shaking, the piece of paper was shaking. They were trying to keep it together, but keeping it together was pretty much impossible. M.J. started reading and lost it immediately. And when she lost it, everyone lost it. The whole church went with her. Everyone started sniffling and sobbing.
The woman seated next to me was kind enough to hand me a tissue. I glanced at her as I blew my nose. She was holding Tibetan prayer beads in one hand, and her hair was openly gray. She was an aging hippie, a real one, a Marin County authentic.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she whispered.
I made a snorting sound.
I glanced up at M.J. Her jaw was trembling. She was trying to read into the microphone, but it was a lost cause. She couldn’t get the words out. Nancy stepped in to help her, and together they were able to stammer through the rest of the page before stepping down. The text of the speech was hard to decipher. I was having a hard time concentrating. Didn’t have a clue what it was about. The only part of it that I caught was the part about how lucky they felt to have known Amanda. The rest of it was lost on me.
Then the priest stepped up to the microphone again, said a few final words in closing, and the ceremony ended. Sting’s “Fields of Gold” came on the church P.A. system, the recessional hymn. One of Amanda’s favorites.
As soon as that happened, I was up and out the door in a flash, one of the very first to leave. I wanted some fresh air. I wanted a cigarette. I walked out of the church and down the concrete steps and moved away, over to the left, over toward the road. I pulled a cigarette from my jacket pocket and lit up. It was overcast outside, a Bay Area winter day, cool and crisp and pleasant. The cloud cover was thinning out, and the sun was trying to break through. Cars were going by, and a light wind was blowing through the trees. There was nothing too unusual about it.
7 (#ulink_0a47ff82-b392-583d-a748-a13e3838c2ce)
Fortunately, there was no burial, just a reception back at Amanda’s parents’ house. Amanda’s remains had already been cremated. No corpse with makeup, no lowering of the coffin into the muddy brown hole. I was thankful for that. The worst of it was over.
At some point along the way, I’d decided not to go to the reception. I’d convinced myself that there was no need to go to the reception. I knew it would be polite to stop in and offer my condolences to Amanda’s family, but I didn’t think I could deal with seeing her parents, didn’t think I could deal with offering my sympathies at a reception. I was sure her parents knew all about me, sure they knew about the breakup, my behavior, the fact that I’d broken Amanda’s heart. I figured I’d write them a letter later and skip the reception altogether. I didn’t have what it took to attend. Too much intensity, too much sadness, too many people, too much conversation. Everyone standing around, drinking wine, eating finger food, talking in hushed tones about how great Amanda was, how she would want her funeral to be a celebration rather than a dismal affair, how much life she had inside her, how much joy, how much light. Instead of navigating that madness, I was planning to simply drive back over to Horvak’s place. I’d assume my position on the couch and watch television, and maybe later, if I actually got hungry, I’d order some food for delivery. And maybe I’d have a beer or two. And eventually, with luck, I’d drift off to sleep.
In the morning, I would rise and drive back to SFO, where I’d return my rental car and catch my flight to New Orleans. I’d rendezvous with my family in the Deep South to celebrate the holidays, and my life, unlike Amanda’s, would continue on.
8 (#ulink_0a12082c-0656-509a-bf34-3873cf66165e)
I was standing around smoking in the church parking lot when I noticed Alan Wells walking toward me. Wells was another friend from college, born and raised in Berkeley. He was a big, bearish guy with lamb-chop sideburns and a head full of curly blond hair. He wore silver hoop earrings in both ears and had known Amanda for years. I’d first met him in Boulder, three years earlier, shortly after I started dating her. I always got the feeling that he didn’t like me very much.
He walked right up to me, half smiling, and extended a hand. I shook it and we man-hugged, slapping each other on the back. We talked for a while, trying to sum up Amanda’s death. It was a strained conversation. Nothing much was said. Suicide seems to leave you strained, with nothing much to say.
“She was the greatest,” he said.
“She was,” I said.
“I’m still in shock,” he said.
“I feel remarkably dumb,” I said.
Wells then asked me how I was getting to the reception. In a moment of reflex, I told him I was driving. I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I didn’t want to go. He asked me if I was alone. I told him I was. He offered to ride along with me, and I told him that would be great. I had no idea how to get to Amanda’s house. For some reason, I couldn’t remember the way.
Wells then excused himself momentarily and walked over to his father and stepmother, who were standing near the doors of the church, to let them know he was going to catch a ride with me. His stepmother, as it turned out, was the woman who had handed me the Kleenex during M.J. and Nancy’s speech. Wells hadn’t been sitting with them during the service. He’d been up in the front, with Amanda’s closest friends. His stepmother looked over at me, gave me a pained smile, and waved. I waved slightly in response, shifted in my shoes, and averted my gaze. I took two small steps backward, dropped my cigarette butt to the ground, and stepped on it. Then I pulled a fresh one from my pocket and lit up. Then I looked up at the sky. And then I bent my arm as if to look at my watch.
I wasn’t even wearing a watch.
9 (#ulink_ddd3414a-bd4d-5bcc-9255-2834feeef869)
The house was nice, even nicer than I remembered it. Expensive furniture, expensive architecture, expensive art. It felt like a museum and it smelled like cinnamon. None of that really mattered, though. When push came to shove, all I could think about was the garage. I couldn’t stop thinking about Amanda tiptoeing down the stairs in the middle of the night, in her nightgown, with her note, grabbing the car keys, heading out there.
I thought about Mr. Anaciello waking early for breakfast, walking into the kitchen in his robe, reaching for the coffee, stopping, cocking his head to one side, listening. Hearing the engine running. Making a face. Wondering. Walking over to the door. Opening it. Coughing in the cloud of exhaust. Eyes burning from the fumes. Panicking. Reaching for the button, opening the garage door. Running over to his car, one hand covering his mouth and nose. Finding Amanda. Dead. Blue. Stiff as a mannequin. Heavy. Lukewarm. Gone. Screaming for his wife. Screaming for help. Screaming for someone to call an ambulance. Shaking Amanda. Trying to shake the life back into her. Screaming her name. Weeping. Pale. Carrying her back inside. Attempting CPR. Pounding on her chest. Saying something along the lines of, “Breathe, goddamnit! Breathe!”
It was pointless to think about those things. But I couldn’t stop.
There was a receiving line in the living room. Wells and I were standing in it, advancing slowly on Amanda’s parents, Jack and Nora. Nobody in line was talking. Everyone was preparing themselves, dealing with their fears, their discomforts, trying to figure out what to say. An impossible task. No words would do. There was nothing to say in a situation like that, nothing that would make them feel any better. The best you could do was say how great Amanda was and how terribly sorry you were that she was gone. In many ways, saying these two things in conjunction would only serve to heighten the sadness.
Jack Anaciello was doing the greeting. His eyes were glistening with tears. He was shaking well-wishers’ hands, whispering to them warmly, thanking them for their presence. He seemed to be holding it together somehow. He was wrinkled and tired. His eyes were bloodshot from tears.
Nora Anaciello was down for the count, laid out on the couch. She wasn’t greeting anyone at all. She was dazed, looking off in the distance at nothing in particular, holding a glass of white wine. She was barefoot and appeared to be medicated. Her high-heeled shoes were sitting side by side on the floor.
Strangely enough, when I stepped up to greet him, Jack Anaciello didn’t even recognize me. He had no idea who I was. Or else he couldn’t remember. Or else he didn’t care to. Or else he was so out of it, he couldn’t put two and two together. When I told him my name, it didn’t seem to register. But he pretended that it did.
“Ah, yes,” he said to me. “Of course. How are you, Wayne?”
And then I started talking about myself. Started rambling. Told him about Boulder. Told him about my degree. Told him about my plans for the future. I felt as though I shouldn’t be talking about the future, that it was somehow very rude to be talking about the future, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop. And somehow Jack Anaciello seemed genuinely interested. His eyes were locked on mine. He was nodding attentively. But he wasn’t all there.
When I finished, he took my right hand and clasped it between both of his, like a politician, and thanked me for coming. I told him how sorry I was once again, how wonderful Amanda was. I told him that all of the beautiful things about her were true. He thanked me. His eyes were watering. So were mine. I walked away.
I walked into the kitchen, picked up a plastic cup, and poured myself a glass of wine. Then I headed out back for another cigarette. There were at least twenty people out there already, puffing away. The deck was packed. People were standing in twos and threes, inhaling and exhaling, mumbling to one another.
I saw M.J. and Nancy standing on the lawn. Both were blowing smoke, ashing into a stagnant birdbath. M.J. looked terrible, pink and puffed up and wrung out, like she’d been weeping for weeks. She saw me and waved, left Nancy, and walked over. I raised a hand and said hello and stepped off of the deck onto the lawn. M.J. gave me a long hug and told me how happy she was to see me. I found this surprising. I didn’t really know what to say.
She asked me if I needed a place to stay, mentioning that a bunch of people were splitting rooms at the TraveLodge over on the Redwood Highway. I told her I was okay, that I was staying at Horvak’s place. She said the name rang a bell. I told her that he went to C.U. She nodded. There was a silence. I looked out across the lawn. There was a red-winged blackbird perched on the rim of the birdbath. Nancy wasn’t standing there anymore.
“This all feels unreal to me,” I said.
“I can’t believe she did it,” M.J. said.
“I don’t think anybody can.”
“I knew she had her problems, but everyone has problems. I didn’t see this. How could I not see this?”
“Nobody did.”
I took a drag of my cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke at the sky, and watched it disappear.
10 (#ulink_3c263982-59a7-5b52-a9f0-28f400cf6e8f)
Later that afternoon, all of Amanda’s friends went over to Kathy McCormack’s house. Kathy was a friend of Amanda’s from childhood. Her family lived in a beautiful house on a wooded lot on Morning Sun Avenue in Mill Valley. Wells and I walked in together. The whole place was decked out in white Christmas lights. Everyone was drinking. Bottles and cans everywhere. Kathy greeted us, introduced herself, offered us beers. I took one, thanked her, opened it, and walked outside for another cigarette. I hadn’t stopped smoking since I left the church.
The people on the back porch appeared to be intoxicated. There was a joint going around. Laughter and coughing. It almost seemed like a party.
“Mandy would want it to be a celebration,” I heard someone say. “She wouldn’t want everyone to stand around moping. She wouldn’t want it to be sad.”
It was nearly 5:00 p.m., and already the sun was down. It was December 23. The days are short that time of year. Amanda had killed herself the day before the winter solstice. Somehow that made sense. I finished my beer, smoked two more cigarettes, and made some sporadic small talk on the deck with a guy I didn’t know, some neo-hippie from Petaluma with a mangy beard. He was wearing a fur-lined hat with earflaps.
“It’s a strange day,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Strange energy,” he said.
“Really strange,” I agreed.
“At least we got decent weather,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Amanda brought us good weather,” he said.
A few seconds later, I stuffed my cigarette butt inside an empty beer can and walked back inside.
People were starting to get outwardly drunk in the living room. The talking was getting louder and less coherent. The room was filling up with false confidence. I stood around in silence for a minute or two, feeling terribly awkward, and then I decided to leave. I had determined that it was safe to leave. I’d been biding my time, and now it was safe to leave. I could claim a long day and an early flight in the morning. I could walk out without having to lie. I’d done my duty. I’d done the right things, said the right things, gone to the right places. All things considered, everything had turned out fine.
I caught Wells in the kitchen and told him I was on my way out. I asked him if he needed a ride back to the East Bay. He told me no thanks, he was going to stick around and catch a ride later. We shook hands by the stove and shared another man-hug. He programmed my contact information into his cell phone and told me he’d call me. I wished him well and went off looking for M.J. and Nancy.
I found them upstairs in Kathy’s room. I knocked twice, lightly, and stuck my head in the door. The two of them were sitting on the bed, locked in heavy conversation. There was a bottle of red wine on the nightstand. Their eyes were red from crying, and their teeth were blue from the wine.
“Hey,” I said. “I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“Fencer,” Nancy said, slurring a little and patting the mattress. “Come sit down.”
11 (#ulink_0f265e82-c6e3-5897-bf15-cc4ae02ab5c1)
I walked over and sat down on the end of the bed, and Nancy told me the story: how Amanda had missed her period in June, the summer that we were apart, the summer before I broke up with her. How she had debated about what to do. How she had decided to have the abortion. How she had decided not to tell me. How she’d freaked out, afraid it would scare me away. How she’d had the operation in the city, at a clinic near the Embarcadero. How Nancy had driven her there, was with her the entire time. How there were protesters lining the sidewalks as they went inside, picketers screaming at them, telling them that they were baby killers, murderers, how they would rot in hell for eternity on account of their sins. How it wasn’t something I should feel responsible for. How I couldn’t have known. How Amanda didn’t want me to have to deal with it, how she just wanted it to be over and done with, how she swore Nancy to absolute secrecy.
The news hit me strangely. My reaction was decidedly minimal. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. There was a barely detectable feeling in my belly—a weakness, a twinge. But not much more.
“But with everything that’s happened,” said Nancy, “I feel like it’s important to come clean.”
“It helps things make a little more sense,” said M.J., “but it doesn’t solve anything. Not by any means.”
“Absolutely,” said Nancy. “I’m not trying to say that this is the reason she killed herself. Not at all.”
“Oh, no,” I said. The words fell out of my mouth weakly.
Nancy crawled across the bed and gave me a hug. I didn’t hug her back.
“Do her parents know?” I said.
“No,” said M.J. “I don’t think so.”
“We were just talking about whether we should tell them,” Nancy said. “I don’t know if it would be worth it. They’ve already been through so much.”
“But if it helps them find some kind of closure,” said M.J., “maybe it would be a good thing.”
“I think I’d wait on that,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
“I would obviously tell them that you had no idea,” Nancy said.
“I think we should wait on that.”
“It’s not anything we would do anytime soon,” said M.J.
Nancy sniffled, reached for her glass, took a sip of her wine.
I rose to my feet and told M.J. and Nancy that I’d really appreciate it if they didn’t say anything. I told them I needed time to think, that I’d like to be the one to make the decision about whether or not to say something, that it was my responsibility. I asked them to keep this information in confidence. They told me they would.
I took a step backward toward the door, not knowing what else to say. There was nothing else to say, really. I didn’t want to say anything more, didn’t want to debate. I didn’t want to coerce, and I didn’t want to empathize or discuss.
I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
Moments later, I walked out of the house, climbed into my rental car, and drove south out of Marin and across the Golden Gate Bridge, back toward Horvak’s place, completely numb. Night had settled in, and the lights of the city were shining in the distance. I rolled my window down and lit up another cigarette, turned on talk radio, and looked out across the bay. The city was alive, glowing like fire beneath the clouds.
The fog was rolling in again.
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