He says my name like we’re friends.
Funny, as I refused to meet him when you brought him here in February for your birthday. No way in hell was I going to go to one of our places with him. And we didn’t exactly check in with each other after you died, not that anyone thought we would. I thought of him, sure, but not so much about how he was doing as I’ve been wondering what the hell your final moments were like.
He was there with you.
Is it weird to envy him for that, for witnessing something I would never want to see with my own eyes? I have all this history with you, Theo, but he has pieces of your puzzle that would destroy me if I ever had to put them together, and yet I still want them.
“Hey, Jackson,” I say. We don’t offer each other condolences. Maybe he’s waiting for me to do so; he’s going to be waiting for a while. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
“Popped a blood vessel,” Jackson says. “Doctor doesn’t know if it’s from all the crying or screaming. It’ll go away.”
I didn’t know someone could pop a blood vessel from crying. That’s something you would know.
Jackson moves past me to get to your cutout. He doesn’t touch your face or trace your nameplate. He rests his forehead against yours—not an even fit, obviously—and closes his eyes.
“I miss you, Theodore,” he says.
Using your given name is so unexpectedly intimate, and you weren’t about being called that. You thought it made you sound too stiff and presidential. I’m not going to call him out on that. I can’t. What if you changed your mind? What if I out myself for truly not knowing who you were before you died?
“How long are you in town for?” I ask. Seems nicer than asking him when the hell he’s going to leave.
Jackson turns, shrugs. “I got here last night. I’m thinking about staying another week or two.”
I know from you his mother has spent the past few years in a wheelchair, so it’s safe to bet she’s not here with him.
“You staying with friends?”
You’d mentioned Jackson had “theater friends” at NYU when he visited in February, though I’m not sure you two ever got around to meeting up with them—not with all the time you spent with your family, including the traditional movie-theater outing on your birthday. You must’ve shared a recliner seat with Jackson; that used to be our throne, Theo.
“I’m staying with the McIntyres,” Jackson says.
I’m such an idiot. He smells like cigarette smoke because he was outside with your dad, and he only got the shoulder pat because he’s been with them since last night. He must be staying in your room. Of course he is. He’s chief curator in the main exhibit of the McIntyre Museum, taking in all the archives of your life. I can see it all: our framed puzzles on your light-blue walls, a bookcase full of sketches you later animated at wicked speed, awards you didn’t mind “showing off,” your computer station decked out with robot magnets and old Tetris cartridges, the golden unicycle wheel you won at that carnival in the Bronx last summer, the plastic bat you used to beat the piñata at Denise’s seventh birthday, then saved for the zombie-pirate apocalypse . . .
The outsider is inside the nexus of your life, and I hate it.
“We should probably take our seats,” Jackson says. He checks his watch; it’s an old one of yours. The way he flashes it is hardly discreet. “The mass is probably starting any minute now.”
We walk into the service room together. I switch sides when he walks to my left. He doesn’t pay it any mind, going straight for the empty seat in the front beside your mother. Ellen is in full black and silent, resting her head on Russell’s shoulder. I’m ready to rage over where Jackson found the nerve to sit next to your parents, when my eyes find your body.
Even seeing it isn’t enough to believe it.
You’re in a mahogany casket, dressed in a black suit I don’t remember you owning. There are tons of flowers placed around you. It reminds me of the summer afternoon you confessed your love of calla lilies, scared to admit it because “flowers aren’t manly.” When I rambled about my secret obsession with immortality irises after discovering them in some comic, it became a happily manly conversation. Afterward, we’d occasionally visit your grandmother’s flower shop before it closed last winter, losing out to all her competitors during the Valentine’s Day rush. I process the flowers in the room again, not spotting any calla lilies.
I should’ve brought some white ones, your favorite. I’m sorry.
I walk toward you even though I know it’s not time for that. The minister is about to lead everyone in prayer or sing a hymn, but it’s you, Theo, in a box. My vision shakes, my knees tremble. My mom calls for me, and my dad appears at my left side, pulling my arm. I shake him off and switch sides before letting him guide me to our seats on the far left of the room, away from your family and Jackson. The seat is uncomfortable. Too many eyes are on me, so I sink to the carpeted floor, crossing my legs like it’s fifth grade all over again.
Father Jeffrey opens with a verse, Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
I guess there is something comforting about being in a room with people who love you. But you should’ve been given more time in this universe. That way, when you were ready to die, you could pack stadiums with people who loved you, not a single room.
There are hymns sung, but not by me. We agreed that I can do a lot of things—like keep up with a car for four blocks before losing my breath or ride a bike with no hands for long stretches of time—but I cannot sing. Jackson is singing, though. I can’t make out his voice in the chorus of others, but he’s looking at you with a tilted head, like a curious child asking you why you’re sleeping in a box.