Excerpt:

Chapter One: DECOMPOSITION

I trip over something and fall to my knees, too drunk to care. My jeans become wet. It should be uncomfortable, but there is little I’m thinking about other than a blue tarp and zip ties. On all fours, I look up. The forest rises around me. Evergreens are stoic in their solitude. The deciduous trees, however, have shed withered memories of summer which coat the ground around them. The gray sky promises a cold rain is on the way. Fall has slipped toward the death of winter. It’s the perfect place to get lost. It is the perfect place to die.

 I get to my feet again, swaying and unsteady, arms out to my sides. My jacket is heavy. Weighted with a bottle in one pocket and the gun in the other. Moving forward, I struggle through the undergrowth toward the fort Seth and I made. I wonder if it is still standing. Our friendship isn’t. Perhaps it disintegrated with the first punch of the Freak Challenge. Or maybe that just snapped the first zip tie, and every subsequent fight after broke it apart a little more. Having sex with Abby - that probably detonated it into shards. Maybe I’m headed toward nothing but debris since that is all my life has become anyway.

The grasses and shrubs are difficult to navigate when sober, so being inebriated makes it like sloshing through a swamp chest deep. I trip again, push against the wet earth with my hands, and wipe the mud onto the legs of my jeans as I keep going. Everything is numb. I can’t feel the cold. Even my drunk brain knows the damp cold coats like a foggy jacket seeping through the skin and muscle all the way to the bones. A droplet hits my cheek; the sky will open up soon. The fort isn’t much further.

It’s symbolic in a way, the gray sky, the rain. The forest. This choice. The fort was the first place in Cantos where I built new, untainted memories - with Seth. I think in symbols. Keeping the thoughts locked in patterns forces the feelings to stay at arm’s length. I need that, because without that analytical distance, the vulnerability would destroy me. I can hear Doc Miller asking me to think about this choice further. I don’t. That’s too hard. Ignoring the voice is easier, and with all the alcohol I’ve consumed, distant.

When I make it to the fort, the makeshift shelter made with eleven-year-old hands, still stands. A corner of the blue-tarp roof hangs, dripping water onto piles of fallen leaves collected against the walls. Outside of the boyhood stronghold, the earth is soft and slick with decomposition. I draw the bottle from one pocket and take another sip of the amber liquor instead of trying to capture the thought. I’d want to write a poem about it, but my hazy thoughts keep it in the remote periphery of my mind. No connections there, only pain and disillusion. I know that whatever safe haven this fort once symbolized is about to be destroyed. I can’t seem to help it.

Without permission, my thoughts travel toward the monster of my biological father. Alcohol sends me down mental roads I usually avoid for good reason. Today, though, walking toward death, I don’t fight it. The alcohol has made the route slippery and I can’t stop the slide. I wonder if he contemplated things like symbolism on that night when I was ten. I didn’t know him enough to presume.

I shudder.

Does dying hurt?

Another droplet hits my head. Still outside the fort, I look up at the gray sky visible through the tops of the trees, the contrast between the shades of black, white, gray somber and sad, like me. A few more raindrops land on my face, so I duck into the fort, swaying through the small opening, bent at the waist on unsteady feet, larger now than the boy who helped make it. My perspective is also different, smaller in some ways.

The fort is a den filtered in blue light. Slipping back in time, it was once a magic fortress full of wonder, safety and hope. I’d spent three summers with my best friend here conjuring dreams to save us.

This hurts too much.

Hunched, I continue into the hideaway and stumble over a root arched above the ground just inside the entrance. Forgetting where I am, I straighten and hit my head on a branch under the tarp. With slurred profanity, I crouch and push up the tarp slung low with a pool of water. It disperses above me like a flash flood, spilling over the outside of the den in rivulets. I sink to my knees and take another sip of the alcohol I’d pilfered from Dale and Martha, my adoptive parents.

That night, seven years ago, the night I ran from my real mother and father, I think my ten-year-old self knew I was running from a moment like this. It was as though I knew my life would come to a choice like this, like my old man. It’s in my DNA after all, a darkness which I can never escape. I’d tried to keep running though. With things like this sanctuary, Dale and Martha, the Seth of my childhood, and Abby – God, Abby.

I sigh.

They’d brightened me with hope, and maybe that’s worse. Hope gained and lost is like swallowing broken glass.

I swallow again, feeling the glass rise, and then scramble from my spot in the den to vomit. The fetid monster I’ve swallowed spews out into the grassy loam. When I’m done, the heaving past, I crawl on my knees back into the fort to the farthest point from the entrance to get away from the rot of my gut. The smell is bothersome - alcohol and hopelessness. I lie down on old crusty blankets weathered by time and seasons and stare up at the blue plastic covering. Seth body is covered in a blue blanket, I think. The tarp ripples like the ocean above me as a breeze skims across its surface. I can almost imagine I’m underwater, drowning in the deep blue, but the chilly breeze of the day weaves its way around me.

I draw my jacket tighter. One pocket is heavier than the other, and I shove my hand into the jacket pouch to remove the gun when I remember its weight. Still there. Cold. Final. It’s the portent of a promise made by the monster of my biological father in the small apartment where I lived with my biological mother. I close my eyes wishing away the memories and lift the bottle to my lips wincing when the liquid heat hits the wounds. There’s so much pain looking backward, and today, learning from Martha it was time to tell Seth goodbye, tilted the view. Now the pain and guilt that used to only be behind me, will consume me looking forward too. There isn’t any escape from it. I’m drowning in it underneath this blue tarp.

I think about Seth. Our laughter. Our games. Our competitions. I think about our secrets. We became the bones holding the other up, but we cracked apart. Tall walls built with jealousy, anger, bitterness and hatred which blocked the light. The walls became a fortress. I carry the responsibility for the impending death of my former best-friend. He was in a car accident on the same night as our fight, brewing for years. It was the same night I’d lost my pain in the arms of Abby, found solace in her body and crossed over a threshold of no return. I love her. He loved her too. He loved her first.

I consume more whiskey, tipping the bottle up and drinking another large gulp. It dribbles from my mouth and down my cheeks because I’ve remained lying down, which makes drinking anything a struggle. I choke on it and am forced to roll to my side and lean up on an elbow to keep it. I just want to lay down. I want to drown in the elixir and numb everything. I want to find the sweet spot at the end of the alcohol rainbow where the gold isn’t anything more than peace.

I lay back down. My vision blurs. I blink, tired. I close my eyes. Behind my eyelids, memories string together like blurry snapshots clipped to a piece of yarn hanging against a dark wall in my mind. Nothing feels cohesive, and I slip into the morass of my thoughts like wading through a stinking swamp. The alcohol rushes through me continuing to work its magic on the horrific ache which accompanies me. But I can feel it tugging me into the abyss I’ve always carried inside me too. I grasp for the golden memories.

One snapshot: Abby.

I imagine her face. The gentle, smooth brown of mixed-race skin punctuated with a smattering of freckles along her nose and her cheeks. The brown sugar sweetness of her eyes that curl at the corners with her smile. Thinking of her makes my heartbeat jolt, and I smile despite my pain. But I can’t forget what I’ve done, who I am, and the sharp burn of tears presses against my eyes like razors. I keep the shards in behind my eyes and swallow the hurt recalling her smile. Her laugh. Her touch. Her kiss.

I sling my arm over my eyes as if it might help block her from my memory. It doesn’t. Regret is heavy and final. I pushed her away when I needed her most, but my betrayal is evidence I don’t deserve her devotion. I lied to her to disconnect. I rationalize it’s a protection; My DNA carries a curse she doesn’t deserve. It’s dangerous. I shudder again regressing back into the bleak empty room of who I am. Abby deserves more. She deserves better.

Just like Dale and Martha. They deserve better. My adoptive parents have been bright spots when I might have otherwise crumbled into the blank spaces and nothingness I’ve created to survive. I see now, I can’t escape it. Just like Seth and his asshole dad. I’m still in that tiny apartment where the seams of me were ripped apart and my stuffing emptied out. I may have been stitched back together, but the stuffing is still gone. Dale and Martha have been given an empty shell for a son. They don’t deserve the aftermath of what I’m about to do, but they also don’t deserve the monster I feel growing inside of me either. I may have tried really hard to re-stuff myself with good things, but I think maybe the monster waiting in me devours the light, reminding me of where I come from, who I really am: Nothing.

I open my eyes because the world is spinning, but my eyelids are heavy.

I hold the gun up, study it, and test it in my hand. It is both comforting and frightening. It’s matte black, devoid of light, a black hole whose gravity is too difficult to escape. I lay the weapon flat against my chest in a grim hug. My eyelids laden with exhaustion, I close my eyes. I’ve been fighting so long, and it has taken a toll. Now, everything tilts, and I’m off balance sliding to the edge of a precipice where I grab hold of the edge.

The tarp snaps against a gust. I don’t even open my eyes; I can’t, but I listen as the rain begins to pelt the plastic while the wind whips it. I’m dizzy, floating, untethered.

My mind conjures Martha and Dale dancing in the kitchen. His arm is around her waist, the other drawn up and out to the side. One of her hands in his and the other on his shoulder. They smile and laugh dancing to music only they can hear. I’m at the dining table watching them and for a split second, I allow myself to think about a future I’ve never considered before. I imagine this is what my life could be: light and beauty, joy and gratitude. I picture Abby. I harnessed some of her magic but the current present drifts into the pervasive pressure of pain that presses against my lungs.

The pitter patter of the rain strengthens becoming consistent against the tarp. It lulls my already dull senses. The freefall through the blackness inside me continues, and I remember I came here to do something. My brain trudges through the tall grasses outside and looks at the fort. I remind myself what I was supposed to do was cumbersome and heavy. Oh. The gun. On my chest. I think I should do it now. I should raise the gun to my head. I should pull the trigger, but I can’t move.

Tears slip from my eyes unaccompanied by sound and fury, just the broken pieces of myself leaking out through my eyes.

I’d said goodbye, but . . .

This hurts too much.

Under that blue tarp, I roll to my side curling up into a ball, my tears finding power. I’m not a crier, so maybe it’s the alcohol. And, maybe, that’s why I’ve come here to the fort Seth and I built in the beauty of a childhood friendship which healed us both once upon a time (How’s that, Doc?). Seth is going to die. I’m to blame. I’ve hurt him. I always will be a part of the biology that made me. Rotten, broken, and decomposing.

I wonder if dying will hurt?

But though I feel the weight of why I’m here, the blackness rushes up around me; I slip over the edge, and I plummet into the darkness.