Lydia Cooper - My Second Death

Dave’s rejected fingers flutter in the air, questing for skin, for contact. They dance like butterflies across Aidan’s forehead, touching his cropped dark hair, his forehead, his lips, leaving pink stains where he touches.

“So — pretty.”

Aidan’s skin is the color of old milk. His lips tighten across his teeth.

Dave gasps on a laugh. His fingers fall away. “Oh, don’t be like that,” he says. “I’m dy ing.”

“No, you’re not. I called the paramedics.”

The bathroom shimmers, washed in silky rose light.

Aidan frowns and rubs his fingers on his kneecaps. “Mickey,” he says. “You okay?”

When I don’t answer, Dave says, “Do you know — did she ever — tell you why she killed him? Killed B-Bracy Hoff?”

Silence.

Dave starts talking again. When he speaks, even though he is barely whispering, I can feel the translated vibrations, each breath inhaled and exhaled trembling through my body.

Dave says, “ Oh . Oh, yes, you don’t know who Bracy Hoff is. Of course you don’t. She — never calls anyone by name. You must have noticed. She read in some — book, has this notion that — she can set us free — if she refuses to — call us by name.”

From somewhere far away, I hear myself say, “Don’t do this.”

Dave laughs. His head shifts.

“See? You think — you know her. You don’t know shit about my — darling sister. You think she tells the truth. But it’s all lies. She lies about Bracy. Why is that, babe? Tell — tell Aidan why.”

Aidan doesn’t say anything.

“ Tell him.”

And my hands tighten their grip on Dave.

“I killed him.”

“Tell the truth .”

“I killed him and I dug his eyeball out with my fingernails.”

Dave says, “See, Aidan darling, everyone thinks that little Mickey — pushed Bracy Hoff down the, the stairs because he was — trying to — do something naughty to poor Mick.”

I taste salt in my mouth.

“But the truth , the truth is that Mr. Hoff was a good man who — who caught little Davy Brandis with a penknife and a — and a box of matches, and he was doing something — to little Mickey. And when Mr. Hoff tried to reach the t-telephone, little Davy told — his sister to push — him and — and what happened then? Babe tell — tell Aidan what happened then.”

A soft sound like a groan escapes. I bite my tongue until I can feel the creaking pain of it.

“She pushed him and — God Almighty, Aidan. You should — should have seen it. Like watching the — the birth of Venus, the a-awakening of Eve. More beautiful and terrible than — sin itself.”

“Stop.” Aidan’s face is calm. The tears sparkle on his lashes, on the creases by his mouth. He doesn’t move to wipe them.

“No,” I say. “It wasn’t like that.”

“It was,” Dave says. “It was like that. Our games. What games did we play? The cutting games. The burning games. Tell — tell him about playing Gestapo. God, our endless in vent iveness.”

“Mickey.” Aidan’s voice is strained, pitying, gentle. Like he’s talking to a little kid.

“Don’t sound like that,” I say.

“Mickey. It’s okay.”

I take a breath. Struggle to focus on his face, to make the words come out right. “I’m sorry I lied.”

Aidan doesn’t blink. “You mean about my mother?” His good eye is steady, watching me. “I know why you said that. For Stella. To protect her. It’s okay.”

“No,” I say. “Your sister didn’t do anything wrong. I did find out — it wasn’t her. Okay? Your mother wanted to — your mother wanted to die. She wanted to kill herself. Okay? I’m sorry. I thought if I told you — I mean, I thought it would help. I never say the right thing.”

Aidan’s fingers tap against his knees. “It’s okay. You know… what I did, that wasn’t your fault.” He licks his lips. “I know you had to touch me, and all. Thank you.”

“Well. I owed you.”

Aidan smiles slightly and shakes his head.

Dave inhales. He reaches around and his fingers grab tight to my hair. He pulls hard. The pain is sharp.

“Someone want to tell me the fucking story?” he says.

The crusty slash on his wrist stinks like hot milk and copper. I put my fingers to his wrist, the nails resting against the edges of the slashed skin.

“Stop.” Aidan stands up suddenly. “ Stop .”

I pull my fingers away. Make a fist and press my knuckles against the tile wall.

“She won’t,” Dave says. “Look. See? She won’t .” He drops his hand. Threads of hair tangled around fingers that lie, half-curled, across his stomach. “I tried though,” he says. “To make her — astonishing. To make her famous. The dear Lord knows I tried .” A breath of laughter. “Few have done what I did, off ered what I did — to the deity.”

The creases by the sides of Aidan’s mouth deepen.

I grab onto Dave’s shirt, twist my fingers in the wet fabric. “Shut up,” I say. “Shut up .”

Dave laughs once then gasps shallowly for air. His ribs against mine, his spine against my breastbone. “You don’t — want me to tell him what I did for you? How I became like you — how I tempted you with the tenderest — morsels that you crave?”

Aidan’s eyelids suddenly lift.

“Yes.” Dave inhales. “The sacrifices — you are thinking of them? Wondering, perhaps. Well. I did it because — because blood pleases the god.”

Aidan’s eyes sharpen. His good eye swivels, focuses on me. “Mickey what is he — what’s he saying ?”

“The dead,” Dave says. “Yes. Your suspicions are correct. I brought them to her — like the cat brings dead mice. A humble — supplicant.”

“ Them ?”

I close my eyes.

“Oh, I have more — offenses at my beck,” Dave says. His voice cracks with grief. “I wish I hadn’t done it. Don’t I — don’t I, my darling? But — you left me anyway, growing smaller — on the horizon — locked in the — embrace of such a one as this — this goddamn artistic infant.”

“No,” Aidan says. “What are you saying? You murdered—”

“The woman, made a pietà of her. Yes. And the other — across the street. In the pretty room, inside the empty house. In Xan adu. I killed him in a dying — paradise and burnt it — to the fucking ground.”

“Is this true?” His voice despairing.

I don’t say anything.

“Mickey why didn’t you say anything? To the cops? You should have, you can’t just — I know he’s your brother but—”

“She will never — hurt me,” Dave says. “No matter what I do. Do you see that, little Aidan? She belongs — to me.”

I open my eyes and look at Aidan. “At first I — I thought it was you.”

Aidan looks at me unblinking and tears stand on his lashes and lie in the hollows of eye sockets and his upper lip. “What?”

Dave chokes, a bubble rising and popping on his lips, laughing silently through a mist of mucus and water. “Because my plot was — peerless. Because of proximity — and timing. When we met, when you told me your sad, sad tale of murders and, and fire — you became my — muse. You are the demon of my — loneliest loneliness.”

Aidan looks at Dave for a long time.

“That woman who was killed. You mutilated her.”

Dave says. “Sh, don’t distress yourself. You’re thinking now that you may have been wrong to have — saved my life. But I am not — like her, not like my dear sister. Not sick like her. I tempt, I tease, but I am only — vaguely dispossessed. I am not — crazy. I kill but am not a killer . I’m not compulsive, not a psycho path. I only ever harmed the hairs of — of heads no longer counting in the general consensus. Has there been — a hullaballoo? The civic voice raised in outrage? No. They don’t matter . I would never kill a — kill a real person.” He stops talking. And then his breath hitches. He holds it, and then lets it out, slowly. “But you . You, Aidan, darling. What kind of man are you? Mickey, she’s going to — going to crack someday. Once she starts there will be no stopping her. Will you try? Do you realize that you should? You should stop her now. If you want to do the right thing.”