Hell

I open my eyes to the warmth of the fire.

Twigs and newspaper collected in the dark and tossed within a barrel, with a match struck for rebirth. The glow radiates, and I feel my hands and feet. I cast my eyes down to see clothes I haven’t worn in over a decade. I still had the silver skull ring upon my finger. But the Black Sabbath shirt-ripped and tattered, more rags than dignity-and jeans had long since found a refuse pile to expire quietly in.

“Heya brother! Long time no see!”

I know that voice.

I close my eyes as my breath grows to a boulder in my throat. I’d hyperventilate if I wasn’t careful. I try to breathe through my nose, I try to pace myself.

“Hey, hey fucker! I’m talking to you!”

There comes a punch at my shoulder, but I keep my eyes cinched all the same. The voice gives a snort, and I hear the sound of crunched ice. My eyelids begin to scream in agony, and I open them at last. I look towards where I’d heard the noise, one I’d heard so many times nearly a decade ago.

There he stands. Shirtless, clad in off-off brand denim shorts he’d probably lifted. His flannel boxers peek over the waist, painted on by the sweat that pours over his back. As he stands, the ink on his skin grows in full within the firelight. Our area code. The shape of NC. A key along his hand. A nautical star. Not a single bit of coordination in any of it. As he turns to me, I see his face in full. The blunt in his lips cherries as he gives me a full smile.

“Well there you are. Was wondering when you’d get that stick out yer ass. I got miller?”

He busts the cap on his belt buckle. It pops off flawlessly, and he extends a sweat covered bottle to me. I know better than to take it.

But I do regardless.

I never get to drink with my friend anymore.

He eases himself beside me and winces as his ass meets the log we’re on. He leans back all of a second, and shoves a hand in his pocket. Out comes an amber colored, white topped bottle. He pops it off, then downs a pill with beer. I give it a glance before it disappears back into his jeans. The name on the label, it’s not his. I’d yelled at him countless times about it but can’t find the spark to do it now.

It wouldn’t be of any use anyway.

He takes another sip of his beer, and smacks his lips as he finishes the bottle. He tosses it behind him, and gives a giggle.

“Ya’ know, two fellas like us out here all alone, you know, hah, you know what folks would say?”

I don’t answer.

I just sit and watch the fire.

“They’d say we’re just two cowpoke out looking for a poke, ya’ know? No offense brother,” he says, and lets out a belly laugh as he slaps a hand on my shoulder. The hand rests there a minute, a beat of silence passing before he gives a sigh and hangs his head.

“Damn it man, what’s up? Some girl? Some dude? Is…is it your mom? Is she okay? What about your dad, is he-”

“Jay, dad’s been dead for three years,” I say.

He holds stock still for a second.

I finally decided to drink that beer. It tastes stale and warm, but it’s miller alright. I set my bottle down and snap my fingers. He takes the blunt from his mouth and passes it to me. When it hits, it tastes like his favorite strain. OG Purple Haze wrapped in a swisher.

But I don’t feel anything beyond that. Not the familiar grip of my brain, the shake of my spine that I did on long nights we had just like this.

“Oh, shit. Shit shit shit. I’m sorry man, I forgot. I mean I didn’t mean to, but-”

“Yeah,” I say as smoke curls from my nose. “Yeah I know man. It’s okay,”

The hand at my shoulder squeezes, then drops. I pass the blunt back to him, and he takes another drag.

We sat there for a moment, just the two of us and the flames.

“Hey man, if. If there’s anything you need, you know you can just tell me right? Like I always say man, what’s mine is yours and-”

“Jay,” I say, that wad in my throat tight, “Jay you can’t. You know why too. Don’t you?”

“Man look, I know I ain’t no fine society upstanding jackoff, but I-” he starts, a tinge of that old ire I loved so much pulling up front and center.

I close my eyes again, and say what comes to the forefront of my mind every time I have this dream.

“Jay. You’re dead. You’ve been dead a long time. I’d know. I was the one that made the call that night,”

I open my eyes.

I’m alone again.

Just me and the flames.

@@@

They say you never forget the first one.

I fucking hate that saying because it’s true.

I was twenty, maybe twenty one. I don’t remember a lot about that time. I spent most of that time high and drunk, shuffling from couch to couch. I had met him at a party one night, some big house joint some girl I was trying to impress was throwing. As to how I thought I’d impress a girl as a homeless addict was beyond me, but I pulled up with a few forties and tried regardless.

Jay saw right through that.

He was five foot five and clad in denim shorts, sandals and some boxers. Covered in just the most absolute dog shit tattoos I’d ever seen in my entire life. I’d find out in time that he’d been some kind of guinea pig for a tattoo parlor as an odd job one summer. But that night as I rolled up with forties and what I thought was my finest attire, Jay had already stolen the show. He spotted me mid-story with a few people around and had raised a beer.

“Hey, this dude came prepared! Come over man, lemme crack one!”

I don’t even remember the name of the girl that threw that party, or much about who was there. But Jay. I remember Jay. I remember how we talked until two in the morning about everything and anything. How he was “in transit” as he put it, a “stray” like me. When I was too wobbly to stand, Jay offered to let me crash at his place.

Which turned out to be a tent a block away, stowed behind an old copper mill. I thought what the hell and went for it. It was cold that night, but Jay offered me his only sleeping bag all the same. When I woke bleary eyed and hung over the next morning, I was alone.

Because the son of a bitch had already hustled us into some biscuits from the gas station. Enough for both of us to leave with a full belly. In between bites I watched him crunch a pill down. He swallowed it with a spare forty from the night before. I didn’t say anything then, though in time it’d grow to an instant way to start an argument between us. When I finally glanced at my watch and realized I had work, I thanked him. I asked him how I’d find him again. He threw up his hands, and said “oh man, haven’t you heard the song?”

“Which one?”

“Traiiiilers for salllle or rent!” he said with a flourish, “roooooms to let for fifty, cents!”

I knew the words immediately, and in a line or two was singing right there along with him. Jay busted out laughing and said “hey now, that’s that old shit, but it still rings true. I’m outdoors you know man, and-”

“Yeah, I’m kinda…squeaking by too,” I replied.

I hate telling people I was couch surfing. Folks just…They treated you differently when you told them that. Still fucking do.

“Yeah? Shit brother, you got a roof and food though right?” he replied.

“Oh, yeah. I’m staying with a friend, but-”

“Friends turn ill quick when they think you ain’t making it. Yeah, I know. Listen man, I’m here till the end of the season. Maybe not here here, but here all the same. You knock on some doors, say you’re looking for Jay. Folks will tell you where. Okay? You always got a spot with me,”

“I-” I paused. Not because I didn’t really know this guy, but because I wasn’t used to people just, like.

Offering like that.

“-thank you, that means a lot.”

“Always man. Anyways, you got work? Need a ride? I got this old lady, she’s real sweet man. She’d give you a lift,” he said, hands up with a smile.

I turned him down, but it wouldn’t be the last time Jay did that. Offered more than he had. Or had a means to make things happen. It wouldn’t be the last time we got drunk in front of a fire and passed out in his tent. It wasn’t the last song we sang together, the last laugh, the last joint, beer or hug. There was one kiss, but we were both drunk and never talked about it after. We were young and broke but we had each other, we always had that roof and food. It was enough, and there was never ever an end to any of it.

Until the night he overdosed.

I can’t type what happened that night here. I could but if I do, I’m just gonna start crying and won’t stop for an hour or so. It happened over a decade ago and every time I try to remember that night it’s like the stitches burst anew and the pain comes back fresh.

Twenty one.

He was twenty one. At age thirty two, I realize just how young that really is.

It was a lot of pain for a man so young, a lot of tribulation. But Jay left the world with me and the other strays we picked up smiling. He left a massive hole in the world of love, good feeling and endless, endless care for those around him.

We played Spirit In The Sky at his funeral, as per his request on threat he’d “haunt all of our sorry asses”.

I still remember and love him dearly. Even now.

I suppose it’s no surprise that he still visits me. When the nights are long and my mind is dark. My old friend comes knocking, and I sit there on that old log wrestling with telling him the truth or holding on to that moment with him just a bit longer. To hold his shoulders in my arms for a second more before the truth comes bubbling out, and he’s gone again.

Another spirit in the sky, a star twinkling bright with thousands of others.

Jay, on the off chance you’re reading this, I kept my promise. I made it, man. Just like you said I would. On my terms, just like you said. Free and independent as the wind that whipped through that tent of yours. I know you watched me do it. And I know you’re smiling.

They say you never forget your first, but in time more follows. You never forget them either. I could write eulogies for every single one of them, but I’d be here for hundreds of pages. I’m trying to give myself a limit to keep this nice and tidy. So. Here goes. I hope by the end it makes sense. I hope, in the end, maybe you can walk away from this knowing that all those memories-the good, the bad, those in between-it’s okay to hold on to them. It’s okay to remember them.

For death is quick, and grief ever long.

@@@

I want you to think of what your personal definition of Hell is.

Funny thing is, it’s different for everybody. Most folks will describe a lake of fire, old school biblical shit. Some folks will laugh and say “oh, I’m already there” and spin on their ankle, hands splayed at the world around them. Some folks will say that they don’t believe in Hell, and then go on into an hour-long lecture nobody asked for.

Whether they’re right or wrong, it doesn’t really make a damn. Nobody ever tells the truth anyways. Plus, that lake of fire aesthetic? It’s bullshit pulled from Dante.

No, Hell in the bible is described as an incredibly desolate and lonely prison. A place you’re cut off from humanity, from the light of god. You’re in a room with nothing but your own thoughts for all eternity. You’ve already died, so you don’t even get that as a reprieve.

Alone. That’s the abrahamic version of hell. In all the holy books and occult traditions I’ve read that described such a place, that’s the one that sticks with me the most. Because it’s familiar, intimately so.

In three years, I’ve watched as half of my family died. Nearly every six months.

I watched as my mother sat in a chair and cried every time my father’s name or memory was discussed. I watched as my grandfather lost his mind to dementia, thinking he was in Korea again. I watched as my grandmother’s eyes opened for just long enough for me to ask her if she was ready to go. I watched as my aunt was hooked up to machines just to breathe, battling an unseen enemy eating her from within.

Tonight, I got to hear the same tone in my mother’s voice as an ambulance was called for my other grandmother. I sit writing this awaiting news, good or ill.

Alone. Isolation as a form of punishment. The ever tightening noose of time about my neck as my family and friends joined the endless horizon of lights. Death hangs inevitable in the back of my thoughts and despite my inner and outer strength I’m powerless to stop it. Grief brings paranoia, and there comes a point you grow desperate enough to ask what the fuck it is you did that deserves so much weight.

What you did wrong.

The truth is though, nothing. You did absolutely nothing wrong. It just happens. Death comes regardless of if you’re ready, if you’re willing to meet it, if you feel the time is now or later. The only blessing is that it happens quickly. We’re here and gone in the time it takes for you to blink.

But grief and its multi tendriled means of gripping you stays. Like a parasite, it saps everything you have down to the last drop. Respite comes like a drop of water in a desert. Grief is bound to you through memory, sweet and bitter and summoned via a single name. You grow wary of even uttering it less you be onslaught in your own mind with such vivid detail that you might as well be there again.

Before that fire, with your best friend in the entire world.

Sure, you go through the stages. You get angry, you wail, you bargain. During my first grandmother’s funeral, I prostrated before a god I didn’t believe in quietly. As the priest sang Ave Maria, I glanced out a window. I begged and pleaded for an end. I said that I’d had enough within the confines of my skull, that I’d do anything if they took this weight from me.

Then came the next death and the realization that maybe I hadn’t suffered enough. Maybe, just maybe, if I could soldier this one out I’d be okay. That I and my family would be safe for a bit. So I did, and another followed. I stopped asking for a deal. I stopped asking for anything at all actually, and grew numb to feeling period as I accepted how insane that day in the cathedral had been. How nuts I’d been to even think that would work.

If there was a god in heaven at all, I thought, they were indifferent to the suffering of their creation or actively malicious. In either case, they were undeserving of my attention, my ardor or my bended knee. If this was to be my punishment then I would embrace it openly, with a devilish grin. Hurt me, I cried out to a deaf god, I’ll just turn the poison to medicine and welcome it all.

I was a fool.

I was a damned fool and it was a stupid way to combat the complex, ever present and naive longing I felt for those I could no longer speak with.

Especially since they came visiting so often.

@@@

I open my eyes to a Carolina sunset. Blood orange and beautiful as it hangs over the tree line, the sun radiant as it bellows heat onto my body. I look down, and I’m clad in the same boring clothes I wear every single day now. I turn my hands over, and see the calluses upon them from years of weight lifting. The boots on my feet, I’d bought them just this year. I stand there and turn my palms over as a familiar voice calls out to me.

“Hey, there you are. Do I look okay man? I mean, I’m gonna be meeting your family, and I just. I don’t want ‘em to think I’m like a, like a bum you know?”

I cast my eyes up, and there’s Jay. He’s wearing a polo from the eighties and some khakis, both once again probably lifted from the thrift store. I’d wondered if they noticed he did that before, or if they’d just let him do it. I fight back the urge to say anything at all. I fail, and instead smile as I say “Dude, they know you’re a bum,”

“I mean yeah, but there’s a difference between a bum and a stray!” He says as his brows knit together, his arms crossing and he looks at me.

“Oh yeah? What would that be?” I say with a smirk.

Then it’s his turn to laugh as he jabs a finger towards me.

“Upward mobility, brother! Me and you, we’re going places. We got that, whataya call it, like Ross says? Hustler mindset, man! Imagine if you will,” he says as he pulls his cupped hand to his mouth, “Imagine a lavish lifestyle you’re due. You too could be here on-”

“Lifestyles of the rich and famous!” I finish, busting into a laugh.

Fuck.

I shouldn’t be talking to him.

This is grief. Grief manifesting before me, but I don’t care.

Jay laughs, and slaps his knee. “Hell yeah brother! But hey-I look okay?”

“Yeah dude, you look okay,” I say. Jay snorts, and jerks a thumb over his shoulder.

“Smells good over yonder. You coming?” he says with a tilt of his head. Past him, there’s a path through some thick evergreens. It’s one I recognize, one I still take on occasion.

Usually every july. About the middle of the month.

“Yeah, guess I am. Whose all there?” I say. Jay just smiles, and turns on his heel.

“Oh, you’ll know ‘em. No worries. Good folks man. Family and all. I mean, your folks mostly, but technically family to m-” he says, but I stop him with a laugh as I pass by his foot falls.

“They’re your family too Jay. Always were. C’mon. I smell barbeque,” I say.

I don’t have to tell him twice, and in a few yards the smell becomes overwhelming. It’s matched only by the pungent smell of cigarettes and talking, both growing in volume the closer we get to the clearing. The first person I spot is my great grandmother. Tiny elf of a woman that she was, she sits there as my grandmother smokes a cigarette. My great grandmother is the first to see me though. Realization washes over her face as she raises her cane in welcome, and my grandmother-Katarina, a beautiful name for a beautiful lady-turns. She smiles and waves me over. My aunt sits there, waving the smoke from my grandmother away.

I stop and give them all a hug. Great Grandma stuffs a dollar in my pocket and reminds me to go to the cinema with my friend later. Katarina rolls her eyes and stuffs a twenty in alongside it, “so we can actually go”. Jay keeps on walking, and I follow right behind him.

The smell of brown sugar, hot sauce and more grows palpable enough to make my mouth water as I spy my uncle talking to my grandfather. The two are sharing a beer (with glances over their shoulder in case my still living grandmother were to miraculously show up and scold them both). As I grow closer, my bean pole, bookie uncle looks up. His face screws as he stares at me for a long moment.

“Is that-” says my uncle.

“Jackie! You still keeping the trails clear?” says my grandfather.

I assure him that I am. My uncle, still shocked to see me, remarks that I’d grown up. I remind him that he hasn’t seen me since I was eight, and keep following behind Jay. He comes to the edge of a terraced drop off, and jerks a thumb down the hill.

“Uh, hey man. Like, I could lead, but if you’d do the honors I’d-”

“Jay, who’s down there?” I say.

He stops his nervous twitching for a moment, and I watch a warm smile cross his face.

“Oh c’mon man. You know,” he says.

I smirk, and feel my heart sink. I hide it with a joke though, like always.

“You’re so intimidated by him, aren’t you?” I say.

For once, Jay falls silent. His lips turn to a thin line, and he gives a slow shake of his head. “Nah man, I just-I don’t think I can go down there. ‘Sides,” he says, his mouth turning back into a grin, “I’m gonna go see if I can scam your uncle. He says he’s got a line on the Raiders!”

“Heh. Yeah, okay man. See you round the bend okay?” I replied.

Jay gives a nod, and shoves a hand in his pocket. The joint is in his mouth as I turn to face the clearing, trees parted enough for just one person.

I step forward and the smell of cooked pork, with its sweet tones fills my nose immediately. The fire is massive, but dwarfed by the man that sits at the side of it turning the pig. A pack of marlboros sits perched in his front pocket, and he absently thumbs it for a light. He holds the cigarette to the fire for a moment, then places it between his lips in such a fluid, practiced motion. Liked I’d seen countless times before.

He doesn’t stir as I come closer, and say “Smells good pops,”

“Mmmhmm, been cooking for a while. Got a lot of folks to feed,” he says. The bass of his voice washes over my brain. The memories stir, and I feel my jaw clench. I swallow hard, and lift my head towards him.

“Yeah. Seems a lot more has been coming lately,” I say.

Pops nods, and says “Family reunions get like that son. Question is though-why are you here?”

He turns to face me, the firelight bright as the horizon beyond the glen. For a second I stand there, and I just stare at him. Stare at the crags on his face, the ragged beard my own face had begun to imitate these last few years. I give a shrug, and just smile.

“Guess I missed y’all is all. Felt like talking. Needed to I guess,”

My father smiles, and gives a nod. He keeps turning the pig, and eventually it’s time to take it off the spit. We dress the meat together just as we’d done countless times. We start carrying fixed plates away from the pit, and I see my family gathered round a table. We pass out plates, but we’re missing one.

Oh. Oh, okay. Not yet. Right.

Pops wipes his brow, and we both sit down. He’s about to split a roll when my grandmother calls from down the table.

“Son, are we forgetting something?” she says. Pops holds back a curse, and puts his knife down. He holds a frown, until he turns to me.

“Jack, do you wanna ask grace?”

I clasp my hands over the empty space before me. I take a deep breath, and I begin to pray.

I didn’t expect an answer. Not this time.

I’d been given it right here already, at this dinner table.

@@@

I open my eyes again. It’s four Am. My cats are licking my hands. I get up and check their water, their food. They’re fine.

It dawned on me that they were doing that just to make sure I was okay.

I smile, and pet their heads.

When their time comes, I’m gonna be fucking inconsolable. But I push the thought aside, and settle back into bed.

Except I can’t quite rid myself of the taste of barbeque.

@@@

As I sit here writing this, I’m on beer four of six. Chances are likely I’ll kill this six pack before the clock strikes three AM. My phone has been silent the entire night aside from a brief exchange with my mom.

No news is good news I guess.

Death is quick, but grief is long. It brings fear, apprehension and a diseased anxiety that makes every emergency call-despite logic, despite common sense and all the medical advances in the world-taunt you with the worst case scenarios right away. My heart swells with hope and falls ever down into the pit of what if with every keystroke.

But, there’s also the realization that were that to happen.

It wouldn’t be the end.

It wouldn’t be the last time my grandmother told me she loved me. That she commented on how strong I was, how she could always depend on me.

Grief, and the act of grieving, isn’t a single ongoing emotion. It is a lifelong struggle and joy, to embrace the depths of sadness with a loss alongside the claps on the shoulder we recall fondly. Be it that our mind projects these visions to us due to neurons firing or a genuine and real world beyond this, I care not to learn the answer.

For I am grieving. Ever, always grieving.

But as I’ve come to learn, I am never alone. Never truly within that dank prison in the bowels of the earth. Be they here still with me or awaiting me at that verdant glen, the people who have affected my life are never truly gone. Through thought, memory and dreams they remain alive and vibrant. If that is the working of a godhead or simply psychosis, if it helps me heal.

Well.

I’m okay with that.

I’m at peace with that.

It’s not hell, at least.

Death is quick, grief is long. But it’s not forever like hell is. It has its respites, its moments of ecstasy. What’s more though-as we process it, as we work vigilantly through it.

We realize in the end we’re going to be okay.

Here, there.

Wherever our travels take us, regardless of the number of campfires that pass.