Silk

She’d opened her mouth, but nothing, no words, nothing but the ice from her stomach rising up to meet the cold air spilling over her tongue. And Theo made a strangled little sound, then, like someone had squeezed a puppy too hard, and she walked away from them, fast, chartreuse leather moccasins and the cuffs of her chintzy aqaumarine bell-bottoms showing out from under her long coat.

Daria said something: “Oh,” or “Oh god,” “Oh fuck,” something she couldn’t exactly remember, only that she’d made some sound, a word or two pushed out, and Mort had looked down at his feet.

“We just found out about half an hour ago,” he said. “His aunt called me at the garage, and we came straight here.”

She sat down on the concrete, weighted and sunk down slow to cold that hadn’t mattered anymore. No colder than she felt inside, and she said, “How?” and he coughed.

“The police found him in an alley, I don’t know, somewhere in Atlanta,” pause, and “He slashed his wrists with his goddamned pocketknife,” and then Mort sat down next to her, put his hard drummer arms around her, embroidered cursive name tag on his gas-station-blue shirt and warmth and the safe smells of worksweat and motor oil mixing with the coffeefunk that never washed out of her clothes.

And she’d leaned against him, waiting for it to be real enough that she could start to cry.

The next night, they’d gone together to the funeral parlor: Daria, Mort and Theo, outsiders at the ritual, extrinsic onlookers lingering among the chrysanthemums and roses. Surrounded by relatives that Daria had never known existed; she’d only ever formed the vaguest sense that Keith even had a family, much less all those tearful faces, and the feel and magnolia smell of Old South money, fallen aristocracy and names that were supposed to mean something. Eyes that looked back at her through sorrow or obligatory sorrow or bored indifference, but all of those eyes saying the same thing in slightly different voices: you don’t belong here.

At least the casket had been closed, so she was spared some mortician fuck’s rouge and powder imitation of life. Only had to face the expensive-looking casket, almost buried beneath a mound of ferns and flowers and a Bible on top like a leather-bound cherry, the Bible and a pewter-framed photograph, cheesy yearbook pose at least ten years out of date. Keith before the dope, long, long time before her and anything that she knew about him.

His mother, old-young woman in heavy makeup, hugged her just a moment and left a mascara smear on her cheek, shook Mort’s hand and said how good it was that he’d had friends that cared enough, enough to come. And the three ministers, Baptist fat and hovering like overfed crows, disapproving glances for Daria’s crimson hair, Theo’s clothes, Mort’s simplicity. After that she almost hadn’t gone to the funeral.

“They don’t want us there,” she’d said, and Mort said, “But who gives a rat’s ass what they want, Dar. What do you think he would have wanted?”

“He’s dead, Mort. He doesn’t want anything anymore.”

But that was beside the point, and so she had gone. Borrowed black dress from Theo, something polyester and a patent black purse empty except for her cigarettes and Zippo, had refused to trade her boots or take off her watch. And Theo in a dress and black opera gloves, Mort in a gray suit with sleeves too short.

They’d come in to the memorial service late and taken seats in the back, Daria watching her hands until it was over, all that shit would have either made Keith laugh or pissed him off, the hymns and then back out into the parking lot and the procession to the cemetery, boneyard parade and the shitmobile stuck in the middle like an ulcer.

“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, fu

“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 ti

“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.