The last conversation we have is on the rooftop of a Hong Kong hotel the year I was supposed to go home with Constantine, but then he left me, like I left you. You have a cigarette and I look at the swimmers on the pool, kids wearing arm floaters, little butts in ruffled swimsuits shrieking in the humid smog. I think of that conversation we had after we found out Sven at work was having a baby. We thought he was insane, he was only our age.
You talk about what you life had been like the last few months. You say it’s been difficult, but you were coping; work was keeping you busy and you were likely to travel more. Your sister holds Sunday lunches so you go spend some time with your nephews, swing them around like helicopter blades. It’s hot isn’t it? you say, stubbing your Marlboro out and wiping your hands on your khaki shorts. Let’s get back inside.
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No, listen. The last conversation we have is in an alleyway off Camden Street, after the Lost Islands gig, when you ask me to come home with you and I take your outstretched hand but then say, I don’t know. You give me a funny smile and walk away, and tomorrow I’ll find out that the number you gave me was wrong. I will have wanted to call to apologise and, what, maybe ask you to come over? Meet up for a taco and the Wednesday gig at the Workman’s Club? You kissed me up against the wall outside Whelan’s, your IPA burning my mouth.
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No, listen. The actual last conversation happened in my car when I dropped you off at work the day after a Leinster match. You were talking bullshit; I wasn’t really listening. We were a mass of confusion, you and I. Treading water in our friendship because we couldn’t decide to just jump off the deep end and let go. Your hair was still unkempt from when you crawled out of my bed. My body was full, almost puffy, from touching yours all night.
Before you got out of my car, you turned your body to me but kept looking ahead. I’m sorry; don’t hate me, you say. Don’t worry about it dude, I respond, no harm done. Hey, mind your head today, yeah? Under the driver’s seat is an empty bottle of Jameson we were gunning yesterday to prep ourselves against the winter weather. We couldn’t decide. We couldn’t talk about anything else other than the edges of things. But we had kept peeling and peeling, against our better judgement.
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No, see. The last conversation between us was on the phone. You send me an email apologising for everything you’d done. The world was all upside down there for you for a while, you say, but now it’s upright again. But everything was still wrong; you needed me to help make it right. I frown as I read it, in the taxi with a date, on the way to his house to hang out, like that was a thing that people did. You had always been angry with the world, but this time you just sound sad and lost.
When we get to my date’s house, I say, Excuse me, I need to make a call. You answer on the seventh ring, all irritated hello. Somehow I still say gingerly on the phone, Hey, softly, like coaxing a cat out of a tight corner. You say, Hey, a bit too loudly then, and I hear you shuffling off to a separate room, doors closing behind you. Hey, you say, I’m sorry about the email. I don’t know why I sent that, it –
I’m on a date fucker, stop calling me, I quietly scream into the phone, pressing the buttons so hard I drop my phone and the date asks me how I’m doing. I forget I called you in the first place. I meant, email, shit, I say to myself, pressing my forehead against the cool tiles.
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Wait, listen. The truth is our last conversation happened in Newark Airport on your way out. You didn’t really say much on the way over, but every once in a while you’d reach over and put your hand on my knee. I was babbling, nervous, bursting out of my skin. At Departures, as you were unloading your bags, I walked over to you and took my sunglasses off. You just stood there like you were waiting for the world to arrive at your doorstep. We put our arms around each other and I kissed you, one last time. I told you I loved you, and you smiled, exclaimed Hah! Time was running out, but even if we had all the time in the world, it was never going to be enough. So.
I like to think it was better like that: all the things we never said because we didn’t need to. Or was that just in my head, to make sense of it? So I could fill in the blanks? Hah!, you said, smiling. And I wanted you to say it back, but also didn’t want to hear it, didn’t know if I would believe it, didn’t know if I believed myself. So instead I put my sunglasses back on, smiled at you, turned around, and drove away.
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In the end, where it all stops: our last conversation is my last dream. Your eyes are as blue as I remember, cornflower in ice. You look at me so seriously. What did you do? you ask. Where did you go?
I went to all the places we said we would go to. I made my life as best as I could and now here we are. The best days were the ones where I could see the ocean and imagine you standing on the other side. The worst were when it was dirty and wet out and I felt trapped in a cage of rain.
You lie next to me and touch my lips. I missed you, you say. I waited.
The world had to go on, I say. The world kept spinning. But I carried your voice in my heart always. See?
And I take the key I hid for so long and bring it to my chest, where I slip it in and open the lock. Inside is a yellow chick with a white dot right on top of its head. Take chicken, I say, and you reach in. You put it near your ear and it says, Yellow, like you used to. You’d use it jokingly; Yellow! when you answered the phone.
You laugh. What a nice present, you say, and you are smiling the widest I’ve ever seen. Throw your head back and guffaw. You kiss my cheek and I think, I am the happiest I have ever been; all of this talk to lead to this last encounter. The long stretch of the events of my life begins, with you in it.
This is my last testament.
doloresappreciationsociety 