Patrick found the letter in his bedside table, folded in thirds, beneath an old stack of People magazines in which he’d appeared. He’d stashed it there who knows when, years earlier, with a bottle of pills—enough to end things if they ever got that bad. He remembered taping the nightstand drawer closed for the movers when he left LA for Palm Springs; he didn’t want to empty the drawer of its contents, be faced with any of it—the prescription bottle, its long expired expiration date, the letter. Patrick swore he’d never read it again, but also he never threw it away knowing that impossible promises made to oneself in youth are always going to be broken.
He climbed into his bed and pressed the letter to his heart. When he could bear it, he glanced at the first few lines.
I was a ghost for four days and then I wasn’t. That’s how I think of it now.
He was struck by how little his handwriting had changed in the intervening years. How could he be a fundamentally different person, but something as basic as penmanship, the way he formed words, remain the same? His scar, the other lines on his face. The salt in his beard. His arms were thicker after years of working out, lifting things in a vain effort to transform himself into someone strong enough never to hurt. Even his worldview had changed, the things he had to say. So how could his writing not reflect that? How could it possibly remain unchanged?
It was a long time before he could read on.
Joe.
I was a ghost for four days and then I wasn’t. That’s how I think of it now. How I prefer to think of it, for it means that for those four days we were together, neither of us present, neither of us gone. In the bardo, as you might say, never having shut up about East Asia. Maybe you’re there now. Wouldn’t that be something. Maybe at the end of those four days someone asked, “Where to next?” and you said, “Well, I read a lot of books about Bhutan, I rather think I’d like it there,” and, poof, you’re in some hut, or yurt, or whatever the fuck, hanging colorful prayer flags on the wall.
Of course you’re not in Bhutan, just as I’m not at the Plaza Athénée or anywhere I would want to be. Were you even bathed in white light in your purgatory? I was drenched in hospital fluorescents in mine. I still can’t open my eyes wide to this new reality, the world seems too ugly now, phosphorous, awash in a rotting, greenish hue. I keep them closed a lot. My eyes. Not wanting to sleep, exactly. But not wanting to be awake. （Sleep comes with the screeching of tires and that deafening crunch of collision. Remember how I would flinch in that last moment before falling asleep and kick you? The sensation of falling? Jimmy legs, you said. Now it’s not falling, but crashing. And you’re not there to make me laugh.）
I hope you never heard that hideous sound.
I was discharged from the hospital after just one day. The bulk of my injuries were not wounds that would appear on an X-ray, were not treatable by a doctor （unless you count the quack who assigned me this letter to write）。 They stitched up my forehead, I guess where it hit the dash. Wouldn’t you know it, the passenger airbag was off. It’s almost as if the seat didn’t register me, thinking, “My, aren’t you a dainty thing.” I’ve decided to join a gym. To bulk up. Though I might not. The books say exercise is good, but also not to make any sudden changes. Once again, I’m torn between two worlds.
I came straight to see you, but your family had already descended. And you know more than anyone that they never acknowledged my existence. I know, I can hear you now. It’s not personal—they wouldn’t like anyone you were with unless they had a uterus and a nonethnic name like Beth from Payroll and knew how to do things like make a pot roast. （But let’s be honest: mostly the uterus thing.） I was not allowed into your room—family only! I was not included in your vigil. Me. The one who loved you the hardest. The one who knew you best.
I think this is what kills me the most. （Horrific word choice, given that you’re the one who is dead, but you’ll never read this and I’m not supposed to cross anything out or edit myself in any way.） Your last breaths were taken surrounded by those who didn’t know you. Only memories of you, like I have now. They didn’t know all the best parts. The things that make you laugh. The things you believe. Your passions, your art, your politics, your pop cultural references. The way you taste. The way you bite my lip playfully when we kiss. The way your dick curves just to the left when you’re at your most excited.
Remember that one time I signed your Christmas card “Yours in Christ” and we laughed and laughed as nonbelievers and at the ridiculous formality of it all? （We might have been high. I think more than anything you were stunned I sent you a card.） And the next thing you signed for me, you did the same but crossed out “Christ” and wrote “science”？ It became a love language for us, a secret way to say I love you when our surroundings seemed unsafe. Yours in science. Or how every time I answered the phone you said, “That’s a corncob!” because that’s what Dustin Hoffman says to Jessica Lange in the movie “Tootsie.” Or how I could say for dinner I wanted that thing we had at that place that one time and you always knew which thing, remembered what time and the exact place. And you wanted it, too. Or maybe you were just kind enough to once again let me have my way.