Caitlin Kiernan - Silk

“You think he would have wanted any of this bullshit?” she’d asked Mort, and no, he said, small, far away no, no he wouldn’t have.

And there had been no rain, no clouds even, just that sucking vacant blue of an Alabama late autumn sky, and when it was over and they’d filed past the grave with the others, the hands dropping flowers, faces staring down that hole, Mort had taken something out of his coat pocket. Something rolled tight that caught and flashed back the weak afternoon sun, and she’d realized it was just guitar strings, the strings off the busted-up Gibson. He dropped them in, funny metal noise before they slid off the lid into red dirt, and a man behind them frowned.

“That was one thing that was wrong with the boy,” the man said, and Daria stopped and glared up at him. Didn’t tell him to fuck off or shove it up his tight white ass, just stared, and Mort’s big hand on her shoulder, stared until the man blushed like a girl and looked away. And then she’d followed Mort and Theo back down the hill to the van.

Wednesday night, after the funeral, they’d finally gone back to her apartment, after driving around all afternoon, drinking beer and listening to bootlegged tapes Keith had made on Daria and Claude’s stereo: bestiary of guitars through the shitmobile’s tinny speakers: Hendrix and Page, Clapton and all those old blues guys she could never keep straight, Chuck Berry and the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”

“I tell you what he would have wanted,” Mort had said, finishing another Bud and crumpling the can, tossing it in the direction of the kitchen sink. “What he said he wanted,” and he told them about one night the summer before, July and he and Keith walking the rails alone, smoking pot and talking music shit. And they’d found a cat dead on the tracks, swollen and stinking on the oily ties and granite ballast, and for a while they’d just walked. And then Keith had said that when he kicked he wanted music around him, music and booze and people laughing, like they did down in New Orleans, you know. “Think of the most fucked up you’ve ever been, man, and then get ten times that drunk, and that’s what I want.”

“We’re working on it,” Theo had said and belched, still wearing her funeral clothes, the gloves bunched down around her wrists.

“No, we’re not. We’re just sitting around drinking. He meant he wanted a party.”

And they’d both looked at her, like it was her decision, her call, whether or not Keith got his fête, his wake, and she was already at least twice as drunk as she’d ever been and her head still hurt from all the crying, and she just wanted to go to bed.

But “Sure,” she’d said, instead, “Whatever you think,” and she’d opened another beer, had lain down on the floor and stared at a big water stain on the ceiling while Mort started making phone calls.

And an hour later, just before they’d left for Keith’s apartment (she still had her key to the door downstairs), the phone had rung and Theo and Mort were already on their way out the door, Claude and his latest boyfriend, too, so she answered it, third ring and she’d held the receiver close to her face, so drunk she had to brace herself against a wall, and said “Hello,” had waited, listening to the nothing from the other end. Then, “Ah, yeah…I’m looking for Keith.” A guy’s voice, and she’d almost laughed, had wanted to laugh, but she wasn’t quite that drunk yet.

“Keith Barry?” he’d said, nervous boy voice, and she rubbed her face. “You probably don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Spyder Baxter’s.”

“Oh, yeah, uh, just a minute…” and Mort was watching her from the doorway, his tired face that said he was right there if she needed help, needed anything at all, and she tried to smile, easy nothing’s-wrong smile for him, failed and said “Keith doesn’t live here,” to the telephone; before the shaky voice inside could reply, she added, “Keith Barry never lived here,” and then she hung up.

Hours later and Keith’s apartment was still empty, as empty as if all his stuff had already been carted away, as if most of the people Mort called hadn’t shown: skatepunks and slackers, a few people from other bands, and almost everyone with a bottle or two, a six-pack or a case of shitty beer. Daria sat on the old mattress, wedged into the corner and the sleeping bag across her lap, five times as drunk now as she’d ever been, and she’d already puked once and started drinking again, looking for a place inside that was absolutely fucking numb.

The sleeping bag smelled like Keith, the whole apartment that same smell, that feel, and the pain faded and then welled back up, time after time, ocean tide, and she’d be crying again, and Mort or Theo or someone else sitting with her, comforting words and touches that could never really comfort, couldn’t possibly touch the shattered place inside.

A friend of Mort’s from work had brought a portable stereo and stacks of CDs, four speakers spaced around the room, and the music blaring so loud that the cops were bound to come sooner or later and run them all off, arrest them for the veil of pot smoke hanging in the cold air. Daria pulled the sleeping bag up to her shoulders and inhaled him, musky ghost, let him fill her up, try to take away some of the hollowness. And then she was over the crest of another wave, dropping into the next trough, tears hot and close, and she took another swallow from the bottle of Mad Dog, distant taste like grape Kool-Aid or cough syrup. A little dribbled down her chin and she wiped it away, as the forest of legs in front of her parted a moment and there was Niki Ky, coming through the door, someone handing her a beer immediately, and Spyder right behind her. The legs had closed again and they were gone.

Theo stooped down in front of her, Are you okay, Dar? Do you need anything? and Daria had shaken her head and smiled her goofy drunk smile, and fresh tears had streamed down her face.

“It’s gonna be all right,” Theo had said and hugged her, sat down on the mattress; Theo without her opera gloves now, a bottle of Sterling in one hand. Daria lay her head on Theo’s shoulder: that was what she wanted to believe, that somehow it would all be right again, that very soon she would pass out, slip away, barfing up her guts in the toilet down the hall while Theo held her head and whispered soothing words, and when she came to she’d be in her own bed and all this just a vivid nightmare that would fade before she could even remember the details.

“Niki and Spyder are here,” Theo said. “You want to talk to them?”

“Yeah,” she’d said, wiping her snotty nose on her shirtsleeve, “Sure,” and Theo was gone, swallowed by the press of bodies and back in a minute or two, towing Niki through the crowd, Spyder still trailing behind. Niki kneeled in front of Daria, weepy Buddha-Dar, and said she was sorry, was there anything she could do? Spyder looked at the floor or her feet.

“Not unless you can make me wake up, girl’o,” Daria said, and Niki had said, “I would, Dar. I would if I could.”

“Hey there, Spyder,” and Spyder had glanced down at her, shrugged her shoulders and grunted something for an answer.

“This is good,” Niki said. “This party, I mean. Keep it all out in the open, you know? Clean it all out.”

Daria only nodded and stared up at Spyder.

“Guess we’ve both had a pretty shitty month, huh, Spyder?” and Spyder’s eyes narrowed, drifted around to meet her own. And Daria had seen the sharp glint there, sapphire flash of anger, had known she was too drunk to be talking, that she’d done something wrong.

“I’m sorry,” she’d said quickly. “I’m really goddamned shit-faced, Spyder, so just pretend I never said that, okay? I’m sorry.”