Mortality

Chapter 1: Talking Down

There is a significant difference between omens and signs of impending doom. Omens, by definition, are a metaphorical foretelling of a dire future and are often associated with the supernatural. Signs of impending doom, however, may be warnings of the unraveling of Life As We Know It that are very much substantial. Why, precisely, we seek out the decipherable messages from beyond before the flashing red light right before our eyes will remain a mystery of man until we evolve into giant rodent poultry.

We ultimately will pay for our sins. It is the natural order of life to shake a finger when you least expect it. They say that ignorance is bliss. Bliss in knowing nothing, empty as a ball of glass and just as unaware of your own fragility. I beg to differ on the account of this pathetic state being the rapture. Ignorance breeds disaster because soon enough your lack of attention will blindside your unsuspecting person. You emerge more than a bit dented and occasionally your innocent passengers are harmed. And if that stray car collides with your own on the right side it will be your loved ones that lose their lives instead of you. Accidents happen.

It was a factor uncontested by long hours of silent contemplation. We concluded each time that this was standard behavior. It had been this way from the start and really the rest of us were hardly different. No need to worry. He was wisest, true, but indubitably most fragile and by seeking comfort we clung to the illusions of brawn that the pretty little prima-donnas fortified so thickly. Happily he’d stumble into my arms in a fit of giggles, all big golden eyes and smiles as lazy as his slack limbs. His voice slumped into a slightly deeper tenor when he was intoxicated as if he were about to retch onto my shoulder at any moment. The love of my pathetic teenage life looked like a little girl now smiling up at me like pixie dust. I was in love with a baby-round face slapped by the too-small features and overly large eyes of an infant. I kissed his forehead and prayed for the strength to take care of him.

Oftentimes I myself became as inebriated as he and together we contemplated cracks in the sidewalk and rolled like lovers amongst the grassy center dividers of suburban streets. Despite the fact that I always won, lying on top of him in triumph, I thought he encompassed the universe and felt that kissing his laughing mouth would impart some infinite insight. We were yowled at like naughty children and fled laughing hysterically to the shadows of buildings. I stole kisses in the silhouette of an apartment building (but was it really stealing, since Taylor offered just as many as I took?). I inhaled the filthy scent of his hoodie and hooked my fingers into the belt-loops of his girl jeans, clinging for dear life as our world whirled round and round. We grew dizzy and it was only the brick wall at his back they kept us upright. We were stupid. We were in love. We were in really deep shit.

My darkest secret, a guilty cancer that brought a color of shame to my face, was that I loved him drunk. Only then did shy, lonely little Taylor emerge as the cheeky, off-the-wall femme that when grabbed by my wicked fingers would grope back. When he swung his hips it was with full knowledge of exactly the attention he drew and I was left dry-mouthed and mesmerized by the perfect swells and his ridiculously long legs. He was loud and excitable when he had been at the bottle; he did not hide behind his hair and give only those oh-so-fragile smiles. I mixed vodka with Red Bull and when I seized the absurdly beautiful boy and kissed him like a starving nomad we traded alcohol fumes on our tongues. 'Taylor drinking is just Taylor drinking. He can take care of himself.' we all sniffed, brushing concerns away as one does dandruff from a dinner jacket. Sleep, I suggested when he fell at my feet and lay there with his pupils dilated to the size of dimes. ‘I never sleep. That’s why I take the pills!’, he giggled shortly before passing out with his head on my thigh. I held him every night as his overdoses on Atavan and Welbutrin knocked that brilliant mind temporarily out of service.

Tom Beckinsale was, in my opinion, the worst thing that ever happened to my boyfriend. His caprice matched Taylor’s own and I could not march fast enough for the two. Oh, I was bitterly jealous that Tom was precisely the sort of lunatic that Taylor was a fool for. For the record, the latter has had a history of very maladjusted relationships. But it was not merely my own personal pride that was bruised by the intrusion on my blissful paradise. Tom was a one-man party and an effortless thief of hearts, the Wild Card that every Good Girl secretly lusts after. His reckless free-love code wrecked havoc on every innocent in his path. Taylor was the kitten that got a bit too curious, as often his downfall has been. The imitation of a grungy Rock Star that Tom maintained was simply irresistible to a soft-spoken reject of the Hoboken ghetto. Tom brought the play. Tom brought the needles. And in turn he took away the person that meant most to me.

The accumulation of shrugs and hastily shifted subjects mounted and compacted until the weight buckled the bridge. Down we fell. I knew. His sisters, Mary and Sierra, knew. Perhaps even our mutual friend Hans knew. The third wheel of our twisted adolescence, Kit, refused to know. And only when Mary was screaming and I was desperately seeking a pulse did we say 'Oh... Taylor has a problem.'.

“You were supposed to watch him. Haven't you got an eye in your head? You should have taken care of him!” Ellen shouted to her tearful second child over the static-ridden feed of a cell phone.

“I'm sorry, Mama! I'm sorry!” Was the only reply that could be offered, for Mrs. Matherson voiced uncontested truth that all of us must submit to.

We knew, but we did nothing. Not until one bottle of Atavan and another of Welbutrin had been dissolved in vodka and swallowed in one swift chug. It was luck, or perhaps a cruel joke of the cosmos, that Hans had happened to pass by when Taylor's heart constricted and came to a shuddering halt. And so there we sat in deeply rocked silence with our hands pressed fearfully between our knees. Intercoms hummed to life and punctured the pustule of silence that routinely began to swell in the waiting room. Activity was a skirmish in the halls yet somehow, in that mystical manner common to hospitals and libraries, quiet echoed like a verdict down the corridors. The babble of Mary’s thick voice and Ellen’s electronically-represented hysteria intruded on the banal hollowness of a dim waiting area. We could no further argue or bear to accuse and instead wound our loose ends in and attempted to dissolve. Only Kit had dared to place blame on Taylor, our own personal failed martyr. Ignorance. Selfishness. Full collapse.

Time. Time dragged onward and left only its fingernails embedded in the floorboards as evidence. The pendulum returned from the position it had been temporarily suspended in and life resumed. Medical centers play Shaman to many a lost soul. He lived. Of course he did. This was Taylor, who I think may be a relative of the cockroach in that he seems to be indestructible. You cut off his head and he thrives. You rupture his heart and he continues skittering. A bipolar babysitter once attempted to smother his three-year-old self with a pillow and admitted defeat as her last free act because he just wouldn't suffocate. The boy has the attention span of a gnat afflicted by ADD but will forge on toward a goal with impressive fervor. As the children think of beloved Grandparents, I foolishly believed that he would counterbalance all fears and apply the same endurance to his spiral of severe depression. Sober Taylor was my angel, my sanctuary, the space I could hide inside so warm and deafening (like the womb, perhaps) that I never wanted to leave the chaotic pocket of reality. Drunken Taylor had been the persnickety optimist that kept me happy to be alive. But for a single moment in the day that he emerged from a 48-hour coma, when I entered to greet him and affirm that he was in fact alive, the lost expression on his stricken features was enough to change my mind.

Suffice it to say that I love Taylor. He is first and foremost my very best friend. He has been so since the day that Mary introduced us on the playground and I thought it prudent to grope his ass by way of a 'nice to meet you' (to which he choked on his own saliva). If you insist on inquiring further I will state that yes, I am utterly in love with him. More so than I will ever be capable of replicating for the Good Little German Girl that I am expected to make Good Little German Babies with. Why I have placed my ill-advised heart in Taylor's pretty and too-small hands I can not explain. Perhaps it is because he is the most compassionate individual I know. Or because he has such an unadulterated 'reach for the stars' mentality. Maybe the cause is so basic as to be that he loves me unconditionally. There are innumerable justifications I might think of but really, who has the patience to dwell on those? What is, is. But I prefer to pretend that it is otherwise for the sake of preserving what little sanity I still possess.

The medications had completed their damage or perhaps the repression had been broken. They locked him up. 'Paranoid schizophrenia, neurotic anxiety, severe dependency, manic depression...' the doctors read from a crisp sheet of paper with the most ungodly indifference. The blunt edges of my fingernails bit into my palms like the jaws of a bear-trap, leaving black nail polish in the wounds to fester as the faceless resentment that squatted like an obese toad on my chest.

“Can we see him?” Hans pleaded, his generally chipper voice splintering.

“No. He will have visiting restrictions for some time.” The doctor replied.

“But what about his family?!” Mary demanded, rising on her scrawny legs to the full imposing height she required for intimidation.

In all honesty, my emaciated friend looked as if a slight breeze might catch her and carry her away.

“I’m sorry. When progress allows it, the visitation rights will be restored.”