FICTION #1

• An excerpt from a fiction book I’m writing.

Mark Rollins watched tiny beads of rain lazily run down the back passenger side window of his Uber. He tracked one in particular as it started near the top right corner and slowly made its way to the middle. He had looked through similar glass the night his world fell apart. All his well-made plans exploded out the back of his husband's head, taking pieces of skull and brain matter with them. None of it made any sense.

“You know the best way to drive yourself crazy right now Mark? By trying to make sense of it all. Especially right now.” Those were the only answers that Dr. Shen, Mark’s therapist, had for him. He tried to explain to him that suicide, just like many other tragedies in life, doesn't necessarily have a logical reason behind it. In fact, they rarely did.  

Mark couldn't understand the idea that something could happen without a cause. As an engineer, the majority of his daily life revolved around the most concrete concept known to man. His world was Darren and math. With one gone, he started to question the latter for the first time in his life. 

Nothing added up. Only a couple of weeks earlier Mark and Darren were discussing buying a place down in Florida where the latter’s family lived. They actually did more than just talk about it. The two of them actually went to a bank to talk about their options after seeing a couple of houses in St. Petersburg online. 

There was one house, situated just off the beach, with a lovely little breakfast nook that overlooked the water. Darren fell in love with it. He always had the more refined creative eye. When Mark first invited him to his apartment in Queens Village, Darren actually made fun of him for fully furnishing his one-bedroom apartment with just one trip to Target. His future husband asked why he would want to live in a place that doesn't reflect who he is. Though it was arguable if it already did exactly that.  

It was Darren who pushed for the two of them to contact the homeowners and go to the bank to put together the necessary funds for a down payment. Seemingly every night since they sat in bed, Mark's chest playing pillow for his head full of curly black hair, they would speculate about the dog they planned to get once they moved. He’d pitch radical design ideas as he wrapped himself around him, both reveling in each other and the prospect of the life they were on the eve of creating. 

Mark discovered Darren sitting on the toilet, wearing only his boxers, with a pistol still hanging from his crooked finger. His head hung low giving the slightest glimpse of the gory mess made out of the back of it. That pristine white tile on the bathroom walls, which they both worked so hard to keep clean, was now splattered with blood and gray matter. He didn’t even leave a note. 

The vibration of his phone in his black dress pants pocket rustled Mark out of his recollection of seeing the love of his life missing the back half of his head. At first, he refrained from reaching into his pocket. There was a slight glimmer of hope that it was just a telemarketer. Or even a wrong number. 

After retrieving his phone, Mark looked down at the screen. The name "Debra Messino" was displayed in LED lights. It was Darren’s sister. Normally he’d jump at the opportunity to talk to her. He reluctantly pressed "Accept". 

"Hey Mark," Debra greeted solemnly. Mark always liked her voice. She almost sounded like a weathered waitress in a truck stop diner with a nasty cigarette habit and a lifetime of hard living. At the same time, it was sweet and full of care. He found it endearing. That was the first time he hated hearing it. 

“Hey.” Mark could barely muster anything above a whisper. 

“So, we uh, Mom and Dad were just wondering if you were almost here.”

“Yeah, sorry the Uber, it took a little longer than I thought. We're, let me see..." Mark peered past the raindrops streaking across the back passenger side window to orient himself. “We’re on Broad. Just passed Wharton.” 

“Oh, okay. Okay, good. Well, don’t rush. They were just wondering.” Mark could hear Debra verbally tip-toe around him. It was almost as if he was a leper and she was trying to administer treatment whilst not exposing herself to his most miserable of maladies. 

“Sure. I’ll be there soon. Tell them I’m sorry I’m running a little late, will ya?” 

“There’s nothing to be sorry about babe. I’ll see you soon. Okay?” 

“Yeah…” Mark took the phone away from his ear and ended the call. 

Mark looked back at the window while his driver patiently waited to turn onto Tasker Street. The rhythmic clicking of his signal was a nice respite from the relative silence of the ride. No one was out that late Sunday morning. Perhaps it was because of the drizzle, overcast skies, and unseasonable chill. Part of him felt like the whole city mourned with him. Mostly because he couldn’t imagine any kind of normal life unfolding at that moment. 

The row homes that passed by were all Mark had known for the previous ten years. He’d moved to Philadelphia two years after grad school. It was a pretty drastic change from Grand Island, Nebraska. But it was home. Or it used to be. Without Darren, it transformed into just a place full of agonizing memories. 

Darren's mother, Ellen, made a significant effort to persuade Mark to join the rest of the family in taking the ride to the church. He felt guilty about politely refusing to do so. She seemed disappointed when he told her, but he hoped that she understood. Before being neck-deep in collective mourning, he just needed some quiet.

Between friends and family, his own and shared, Mark barely had any time to himself. The last time he was alone was when he waited for a ride home, sitting outside the police station. Obviously, he was too shocked to string two thoughts together at the time. If he only knew how lucky he was. That numbness was replaced with something so much worse. 

Mark was hallowed out. There was nothing left. Well, almost nothing. There was a faint whisper of the man he used to be buried somewhere deep inside that pile of shattered dreams and dashed aspirations that made up his soul. 

As the Uber pulled up to St. Lucien’s Catholic Church Mark contemplated asking to keep going. How much would it take for Ahmed, his driver, to take him all the way back to Nebraska? He knew there was a number. His bank account was more than healthy enough to cover it. All he had to do was speak up. 

Debra stood at the top of a perron leading up to the massive wooden front doors of St. Lucien’s. She was under a stone overhang, giving her cover from the elements as she puffed away at her vape pen. Mark had a hard time looking at her. 

Darren and Debra were more than siblings, they were twins. While not identical, she had the same olive skin, the same slightly curly black hair, and what Mark’s husband would always refer to as a “noble nose”. As he ascended the steps towards her, he saw her same green eyes with slightly smeared eyeliner underneath. 

“Shit. Everyone really is just waiting for me. Aren’t they?” said Mark as he entered the sanctuary of the overhang. 

Debra offered her vape. Mark accepted. While he took a drag she tried to lighten the mood. It was another way they were alike. “With bated breath my love. You’re the bell of the ball. Dare would be jealous.” 

“I can hear him now. ‘Bitch this is my party. You were just invited’.” Years of living with Darren provided Mark the opportunity to perfect his impression of him. 

Debra smirked. “God, he really was the worst wasn’t he?” 

Two tears squeezed their way out of Mark’s eyelids and down his cheeks. They felt good. For some reason, he’d had a really hard time crying since he found Darren. 

“I miss him so much.”

With one comforting hand, Debra gently grabbed Mark’s arm. “Me too. Me too.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s get this show on the road. Sooner it’s done, the sooner it’s done.” 

“I don’t know if I can,” said Mark as he looked out on the row homes made of wet brick across the street from St. Lucien’s. There was something intimate about that part of the city that he always loved. All that separated people were relatively thin walls. Everyone shared the limited urban space. 

“You can. And you will. You have to. He deserves it. A proper good-” Debra started to crack. She raised her hand and crooked index finger to just below her nose as if grief was something you could catch in midair. And if you did, that would somehow alleviate its weight. 

“I know. It’s just…it’s not even seeing him, like that, that’s the part I’m dreading.” Mark had already seen Darren in the worst state imaginable. Seeing him all done up by the ghoulish funeral directors would actually be an improvement. “I don’t want to face everyone else.” 

“I get it. I do. The last thing I wanna hear is another ‘sorry for your loss’, or ‘if there’s anything I can do’. That shit gets old, fast. And it’s not that I don’t think they mean it. But it all starts to sound-” 

“Empty.” 

“Yeah, empty.” 

“Do they hate me?” asked Mark. 

“Who?” 

“Your folks.” 

“Don’t be stupid. They love you.” 

“I mean if I was there maybe I could’ve-” 

Debra turned and faced Mark and in doing so forced him to do the same. “You could’ve done what? My brother, he had his own issues. Ones I didn’t even know about. Apparently. You and I both know though that if he wanted something, or wanted to do something, there’s nothing anyone could’ve done about it.” 

Mark looked down at his feet. His black dress shoes were still specked with rain. “I guess.” 

“Guessing is for the uninformed babe. We are all happy that he had you. And by ‘we’ I mean the whole family. So cut that shit out. Leave your guilt at the door. Literally. And let’s see him off. It’s the last thing he’ll ever ask of us.” 

Mark looked back up at Debra. Her eyes watered, but her face remained firm, strong, almost determined. “Yeah. You’re right.” 

“I know.” Debra hooked her arm around Mark’s. She opened the doors to St. Lucien and led the way inside. 

Mark immediately began sweating the second he stepped inside the church. The creaking sound of the doors opening garnered everyone’s attention. With turned heads, they all stared at him and Debra as they entered. 

There were fifteen or so pews bisected by a path across faux marble that led to Darren’s white coffin. Flowers covered the sanctuary where St. Lucien’s priest gave his sermons. On a thin metal easel was a photo of Mark’s husband. That represented one last chance to see that beaming smile that cut through the introverted armor that kept so many men from touching the engineer’s heart. 

Both of Mark’s feet planted themselves on the floor. His mind, his will wanted them to move forward, to walk between the stares of what were mostly strangers. They didn’t listen. 

“C’mon. I’ll walk you down,” offered Debra before gently tugging at Mark to get him moving. 

Most of the funeral attendees in the aisles closest to the doors were cousins, friends of the family, and co-workers. Other than a couple of familiar faces, Mark didn’t know them. And that was so much easier. It was when he got about halfway to Darren’s coffin that he met eyes with their friends that he felt that debilitating stab, right in the middle of his chest that threatened to break his already rickety composure. 

On the slow walk towards Darren’s coffin, the church was mostly silent. Interchanging sniffles broke up the silence. Beneath that was the unending ambient sobs of his mother that only got louder the further along Mark and Debra went. The louder they got, the weaker Mark’s legs felt underneath him. There was no argument in his mind that the sounds of a grieving mother were the hardest thing in existence to hear. 

What would Mark have done without Debra? Her generosity with her strength was the only reason he even made it that far. All he needed was a little more to get him over that line.

St. Lucien was very different from the churches back in Grand Island. What stood out first was the size. The chapel Mark’s family attended was small, no bigger than a house. Everything inside of it was painted white, including a giant white wooden dove up on the sanctuary that loomed over Father Alstead as he sermonized the sheltered denizens of the small mid-western city. There weren’t any windows. What little decorations present were modest, especially compared to the Catholic decadence he found himself in. 

Religious figures depicted in stained glass seemingly watched Mark as he made his way towards his husband’s body. The lighting was needlessly dim and haunting. Speaking of haunting, there was an uncomfortable depiction of a half-naked Jesus, in mid-writhe nailed to a cross that dominated the front of the church. Everything about St. Lucien’s appeared to be designed to wring out some of that famous Catholic guilt from parishioners. It definitely did the job on him. 

Mark, with the aid of Debra, reached the front pews. Populated by the Messinos on one side, and some of his closest friends on the other, getting there was a strange mix of comforting and painful. The pain came from seeing the aggrieved anguish on Jimmy Messino, Darren’s father’s face. To Mark, it looked like the older mustachioed man was straining to hold back his own tears. It was as admirable as it was sad. And Ellen, his wife, didn’t have that kind of restraint. Her devastated state was on full display for all to see, to hear, and to pity. 

In the pews to Mark’s left were his friends. Some cried, like Lisa, a friend from school, Mel, one of Darren’s co-workers, and Len, their designated terminally single friend. Aubrey, their former roommate back when they were twenty-somethings splitting a row home in Fishtown, looked sad for him, not so much the funeral itself. All showed up to support him and mourn what they all lost at the end of that pistol. 

As much as a help that Debra was, she had to take her place next to her parents. That left Mark alone to confront saying goodbye. Yes, he knew that almost everyone in St. Lucien’s that dreary Sunday would’ve done anything to help him, to support him. None of them could make it any easier though, no matter how well-intentioned. 

Mark stood there for a moment at the precipice of three carpeted steps that led up to the platform housing Darren’s coffin. The top half of it was open allowing him to see the tip of that noble nose and the velvety inside padding of the hinged lid. Instead of thinking about the task at hand, he found himself wondering why the dead would need that level of luxury. 

“You got this Mark. Just a couple of steps. That’s it. One foot after the other.” Mark kept his dialogue with himself contained within his own thoughts. A little self-hype went a long way as it helped him step up onto the church sanctuary. 

When Mark first laid eyes on Darren his immediate reaction was that it wasn’t the man he loved. Putting aside the off-putting thick makeup and the frozen peaceful expression on his face, he was unrecognizable. This wasn’t the dream guy who dragged him to Rittenhouse Park in the rain in order to enjoy the picnic Mark tried to cancel. It wasn’t the persistent lovable pest who insisted that they host dinner parties every Thursday night. All he saw was a lifeless husk, a cold piece of meat whose rot was artificially delayed by a cornucopia of industrial chemicals. 

Mark was glad that he got to choose the suit that Darren’s corpse was clad in. There was a little pushback from his parents. But he had to insist on the all-white tailored suit they wore on their wedding day. On more than one occasion Dare mentioned wanting to find another occasion to wear it. His funeral was his last chance.

  Darren’s hands were intertwined on his chest. He still had on his wedding band. Looking at it, Mark remembered when they went down to the jeweler's row together to pick it out. They were still drunk after a post-brunch proposal on a perfect spring day. That perfect day somehow got better as they perused the jewelry stores still under the influence of bottomless mimosas. 

Before he got up there, right next to the coffin, Mark practiced what he was going to say. Standing there, looking down at whatever was dressed in Darren’s favorite suit, he just felt a little nauseous. Scratch that, he felt like he was definitely going to vomit. 

God granted Mark a small mercy as he was just able to turn away from Darren’s open coffin before he emptied the contents of his stomach out of the same hole they entered from. Eggs, pieces of breakfast sausage, and orange juice launched themselves out onto those same carpeted steps he just walked up a minute or so earlier. 

Debra and Aubrey both rushed up to the church sanctuary to check on an extremely embarrassed Mark. Somehow he managed to make one of the saddest days of his life worse by making it one of the most humiliating. Defeated, he sat down next to his own vomit, buried his face in his hands, and wished he could run away.