<\/p>\n
I\u2019m in a field. But it\u2019s not a field, because the ground is made of purple sand and there\u2019s not a tree in sight. The sky is the color of canned peaches. I can\u2019t move. A woman approaches. It\u2019s Maria. She gets on all fours and contorts her body unnaturally. She looks up at me, her eyes replaced by black holes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I wake up with an erection. My mouth tastes horrible. I toss what\u2019s left of my sheets to the edge of the couch and sit up. A sharp gust of acid reflux assaults my throat. I tuck my penis into my pajamas and trudge over to the kitchen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Maria walks in as I make my coffee. She\u2019s dressed for work, a pantsuit that\u2019s not doing a very good job at hiding her rolls of fat. She rubs her eyes. I tell her good morning. She mumbles it back, saying my name. I never liked the way she said my name; it\u2019s sexless and sterile. Much like the life we now live. Whenever she said the names of other men, I got jealous. I hand her my mug and make another cup. She\u2019s not wearing her ring, but that\u2019s not surprising.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She props the coffee on the island counter and shakes out a cigarette. She places it in her mouth, grabs the coffee and steps out into the lawn. She places the mug on top of the for-sale sign and lights her cigarette.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I sip my coffee as I watch her mill around the lawn through the window. She squints. The sunlight gives her skin a golden glow. She tosses back her short black hair. I remember speeding into the driveway all those months (only months?) ago, seeing Maria scream into the phone and pacing around our lawn far more frantically. The for-sale sign wasn\u2019t there back then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She comes back in and dumps the rest of her coffee in the sink. She reminds me there\u2019s an open house today. Of course there\u2019s an open house today. I\u2019m not a child; in fact, I was the one that scheduled it with the realtor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I nod and she leaves, driving away in what used to be my Mercedes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I take my mug and walk up to my office. It\u2019s right next to Daniel\u2019s room. I stop at his door.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n His room used to be blue. The first decorations he ever put up were drawings ripped out of notebooks, mainly of him, Maria and me, smiling stick figures immortalized in crayons. Eventually, the drawings came down and were replaced by posters. Posters of movies and athletes and women on motorcycles. I remember how I felt when I saw the drawings were gone, the feeling of years slipping through your fingers like sand. There\u2019s a life you live with your child when you tie their shoelaces, you pick out their clothes, you comb their hair, you give them showers, and then it\u2019s over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now, Daniel\u2019s room is barren. White walls free of decoration, the hardwood floors covered in a dream-like haze from the light flooding in through the windows. Specks of dust levitate off the ground. I stare at the closet taking up the entirety of the right wall. I rub my eyes and head to my office. I settle in my chair and start up my computer. I do work for a few hours, or I mime doing work, to feel like an alive person with alive-person responsibilities who does alive-person things. I shower.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I look at a framed picture of the three of us as I put my clothes on. We\u2019re at a garden.\u00a0 Daniel\u2019s four, maybe five, swaddled up in a puffy jacket, Maria and I are behind him, looking at the camera with toothy grins. Daniel smiles, but his eyes are wide and upturned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t let them take a picture of us, they\u2019ll steal it,\u201d he says as I hand my camera to an older couple.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Danny,\u201d I chuckle. \u201cIt\u2019ll be alright.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The realtor arrives. I leave my office and go down to acknowledge her. I say hello and she looks up from her phone, her sunglasses stuffed into her blonde hair. She smiles back and goes back to her business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I sit back at my desk and stare out the window. I always preferred calling him Danny.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Maria swaddled him up like a little doll to go play in the snow. His tiny legs kicked outwards as he waddled around the backyard, his arms propelling him through the snow. He was like a marshmallow with four little stumps sticking out. I was helping him build a snowman when I saw him on his knees, his face in a pile of frost.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDaniel, don\u2019t eat the snow!\u201d I yell. He turns from the ground and looks up at me, his cheeks red, his scarf and fluffy hat wrapping his face into a ball. I want to hug him and kiss him and hold him so close. His lip quivers and he begins to bawl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Dad,\u201d he says through tears.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It feels inappropriate to call him anything other than Daniel now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I leave the house when people start to come in. I take a walk, down the streets where we used to walk, where he learned how to ride a bike. I swear if I look close enough, I can still see blood on the sidewalk from Daniel\u2019s tumbles. In my mind, his knees are always raw and scabbed.<\/span><\/p>\n I come back to the house. People are filtering out. I go upstairs, where the realtor is talking to a young couple. In Daniel\u2019s room. I stop just outside and listen to them.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd this can be for your baby! It\u2019s very spacious and features a wall-to-wall closet with a great amount of natural light,\u201d the realtor says. The couple murmurs in approval.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNow, for disclosure\u2019s sake, a death did occur in this room,\u201d the realtor says. I expected her to say it, but my heart skips a beat anyways. The couple is mum. After a while, they ask what happened.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe homeowners\u2019 son passed away here recently,\u201d the realtor says.<\/span><\/p>\n They come out of the room and we all look at each other. A Mexican standoff.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so sorry for your loss. I can\u2019t imagine what you\u2019re going through,\u201d the woman says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I murmur something which seems to satisfy them, and they leave. The realtor comes back up to apologize and I assure her it\u2019s okay.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m watching the news when Maria comes back.<\/span><\/p>\n I say hello to her, turning my head from the screen.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow did it go?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think it went well. There was a young couple.\u201d She looks back down and sighs. \u201cThey reminded me of us, before Daniel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you tell me that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI mean, it\u2019s just\u2026I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t understand. You really don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat, Maria? I don\u2019t understand how painful this is? Is that what you\u2019re trying to tell me? Is that why I sleep on the couch? Is that why you drive my car? Is that why we haven\u2019t had sex since Daniel died?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n We argue. A variation of the same argument we have all the time. But suddenly, a single tear runs down Maria\u2019s brown cheek like a crack in a dam. She storms up the steps.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing everything I can!\u201d I yell from the bottom of stairs. I put my hands on my hips and breathe heavily.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCome down, Daniel! The tree is ready!\u201d Maria calls from the bottom of the stairs as I plug in the lights to the Christmas tree. Daniel comes sprinting down in his Batman pajamas.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMerry Christmas, Danny,\u201d I say, giving him a hug.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI love you, Dad,\u201d he says smiling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I grab my keys and hop into my goddam Mercedes and take off.<\/span><\/p>\n I drive aimlessly, lights from strip malls and streetlights clouding together in a cacophony of light. The lights blend into Amsterdam\u2019s nightclubs, my hand in Maria\u2019s as we ran through the cobblestone streets so many years ago. We met in a bookstore a few months before, in the English section. She\u2019s wearing a white tank top and jeans. She has bangs. It feels as if a pulsating beam of golden light surrounds her. She catches me staring at her from behind a copy of Catcher in the Rye. She walks over to me.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cInteresting choice. Aren\u2019t you a little old for that, though?\u201d she asks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe guy that killed Lennon was in his thirties,\u201d I respond. I start the sentence looking at her and finish it looking down at my shoes. She laughs. We leave and roam the streets all day and into the night for months, all through our semester overseas. I trip on a pebble and look up at her, my cheeks flush. She looks back with her dark, wide eyes, barely containing her laughter. She bursts. It\u2019s like the chorus of a million songbirds. She grabs my arm and throws her head on my shoulder. We were so in love back then. She told me that she would cry if we broke up and I loved the thought of that. The thought of someone caring so much about me that they break down.<\/span><\/p>\n I see the neon sign for Noonan\u2019s Bar. It\u2019s the kind of place where if you see someone you know, there\u2019s a mutual, unspoken agreement never to mention it. I ram into a spot in between a row of pickups and motorcycles. I go inside.<\/span><\/p>\n The place smells like cigarettes and cheap sex. I sit down at the counter and ask for a Heineken from the muscled bartender and take a swig. I look over and see a hefty middle-aged woman wearing a tank top and daisy dukes eyeing me up. She smiles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She introduces herself. I do the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHi Jeff…\u201d she repeats in an attempt to be seductive. I hate to admit it, but my name sounds so nice out of her mouth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I look around and see bald men with goatees and leather vests playing pool and drinking from steins as clones of Darlene sit around and watch, bottles of Budweiser in their calloused hands. One of the bald guys is tongue-fucking one of the Darlene clones under a yellow light.<\/span><\/p>\n She asks me if that\u2019s my Mercedes out in the parking lot. I say it is. She rubs my arm and says some things I let slip past my ears. I feel my dick harden in my jeans. I remember the smell of Maria, thick in my nostrils as I pay for my beer and take the woman in the daisy dukes to my car.<\/span><\/p>\n She directs me to a park somewhere and I dully oblige. We find a spot and she tells me her price, it isn\u2019t much. I pay her and she takes me into the back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She strokes my chest and whispers in my ears with her greasy breath and unbuttons my pants. We fuck and I cum fast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She unmounts me and laughs. I look over at her. Her pores are the size of dimes. She looks old, so old. I look down at the floormats and she silently gets back in the passenger seat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I drive her back to the bar and think about my job and Maria and my house and my neighbors and my childhood and my parents. My heart feels like it\u2019s an anvil and my eyes struggle to stay open. We get there, somehow, and I watch her hobble back inside. I speed back home, my underwear sticky and itching.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I trudge back into the living room. All the lights are off. I collapse on the couch in my jeans and oxford. The photo cabinet under the TV is empty. I stare at the ceiling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I forget to set my alarm and wake up well past my usual time. I feel like a crow has dug into my throat and laid a few eggs. I hear footsteps upstairs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMaria?\u201d I call out as I go up the steps. I enter what used to be our bedroom. She isn\u2019t there. I walk back into the hall and see her in Daniel\u2019s room, her head in her hands. She\u2019s still in her pajamas. I enter.<\/span><\/p>\n She\u2019s facing the closet. I look up at it. I look closely and I see him, Danny, my boy, our boy, dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie, hanging from the bar. The scene doesn\u2019t process in my head. This is his room, with all the girls in bikinis that used to be movies that used to be superheroes that used to be drawings he did at school of him, Maria, and me looking happy and peaceful. Those are the clothes he was wearing when I said goodbye this morning, the hair I tussle when I get back from work every day, the forehead I stroked when Maria handed him to me in the hospital. His eyes are closed, he\u2019s asleep, I just sang him a lullaby. No, I told him a story. Good night, voices everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n
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