St. Petersburg — Moscow
The lights are dim even at noon in St. Petersburg since I arrived in Russia. Tonight, everyone here is in awe of the Northern lights. A rare visit for the Aurora in these parts and my interpreter says it has never been more glorious. I think it is you trying to ease my pain, trying to lighten the heaviness I feel in my soul since my phone chimed last Tuesday. A casual glance and my life’s changed forever. I’d consider it a scam if it hadn’t been statistically unlikely for a phone number from your country of birth to suddenly text me that you had died. I mean, of all the things I thought was possible on a Tuesday, your death would never have crossed my mind if I heard your little town in Texas had fallen into the Gulf of Mexico. I’d like to pretend like I have it together and act like every other gentleman in the movies at a funeral, but I am reduced to my hysteria, all reason and rationality has been muted. Evangeline has been my rock these last few days. Without her, I wouldn’t have gotten through the 16-hour flight without having an episode of madness. This of course adds guilt to an overwhelming feeling of grief and my cup of sadness runs over. As a stinging feeling at the back of my mind, the guilt pulsates the long renditions of dirge with chants of karma, karma, karma…
I didn’t expect to see you in New York after 2 years incommunicado nor did I expect the grandstanding show you put up outside my office building. It was insane, you were insane, but you know I’d buy it, that I would stop and that we would have a conversation and that it would be decisive. It was also a Tuesday, I think. I recall very vividly the Taco Tuesday sign on the food truck across the street from where we stood in front of my office building. It was the day I told Evangeline my first lie. After an hour of spirited exchanged that no one seemed to notice because in New York, a person can take their pants off and walk down the street without as much as a single glance. I knew how the day would end as soon as we walked into the Starbucks together and I ordered the caramel macchiato the way you liked it, and you nodded your approval. Even in my current state with no rationality to go on, I know that I will miss the way you nod your head, most of all. It is curious the detail that our mind retains and refers to in times like these.
When we got on the New Jersey transit train out of the city, I knew it was to make it easier for me to stay with you rather than hustle a ride back to New York when dusk ultimately arrives. Inventing the lie to tell Evangeline was easy, but telling it was hard. Truth be told, I was so happy in the moment I was numb to the full effect of reality. Nothing else mattered, not the years between, and sadly not my very deep feelings for Evangeline, at least not then. I remember looking back so intensely after we got out of the Uber in front of the Radisson, as one might when leaving someone they loved behind; I swear I saw Evangeline’s face through the car window as it sped away. In that moment, I had the power to end the madness. As I stepped into the elevator and our eyes met, I knew this would not be a quiet ride up. Now that the end is here just three weeks later, over the skies of St. Petersburg, through the mesmerizing Aurora I feel your aura. I see the smirk that was on your face when I was dragged out of the hotel after your display in the elevator. I wasn’t embarrassed at that moment; and I am not now. I can’t. It is now sacred, sanctified by your death. It was the most passionate I had ever seen you and honestly it was more passion than I could handle. In the midst of Evangeline’s comforting arms, irony mocks me, guilt stings me. Powerless against my torturers, I lift my eyes to the horizon, transfixed in this moment with you.
Your mother said you fell from a crane, she said that the hydraulic lift had moved erratically, and you slipped the safety harness in an inexplicable way, falling 300 ft. It would have taken roughly 4.3 seconds before the impact that erased your future and any possibility of our future together. I have played this morbid scene over and over in my mind. I continue to wonder if you had any final thoughts. I experimented with forming thoughts on a 4 second timer, every instance of the experiment leaves me dissatisfied. I can’t bear the thought of not being in your thoughts as you left this world. In some scenarios, I blame myself for your fall even though I was a thousand miles away in New York. I thought maybe you were thinking about me, making you less aware of your surroundings or it was the cardio and the diet program you started to be in shape for your surprise visit to New York that made the harness less firm. No road leads to peace. No closure is possible.
I am taking the train to Moscow tomorrow to tour the city with Evangeline. She insists we can’t visit Russia without taking a tour of Moscow. I remember the stories you told me about your time in the city. Your apartment, your friends, how you skipped in the street, played chess with young International Masters, and drank vodka even though you shouldn’t. Tonight, I shall pour a libation to the Aurora Borealis, and any other form you take in the future will receive a performance of our very own sacred sacrament.
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[Next up in the series: Purgatory]
