The Tragedy of Dane Riley

by Kat Spears

  “Yes. That,” I say, and that’s all I have to say. Ophelia gets it.

  “We should go visit him,” Ophelia says.

  “Who?”

  “Your dad. You ever go see him? At his grave?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, maybe you should.”

  * * *

  We sit in the grass, which from a distance looks lush and thick and perfect, like a carpet, but up close is crawling with life and dotted with clover and twigs and other elements of non-perfection.

  We sit through a long period of silence. People always talk about awkward silences, when we are thinking the things that we aren’t supposed to say out loud. It isn’t that kind of silence. It’s the kind when you have something to say, but you can’t decide what it is. Or you haven’t figured out how best to say it yet.

  “Some cemeteries are really nice places,” Ophelia says, the first to break the silence. “You know? This place is kind of beautiful, if you don’t think about it too much.”

  We spend a few minutes looking around, taking in the scenery. Ophelia’s right. The cemetery where my dad is buried is quiet, and peaceful, and there are lots of trees and birds chirping and flowers everywhere.

  “I was thinking, some dead people live in a nicer place than a lot of living people.” She’s been leaning back on her hands, but now she sits up and dusts her hands together, then tucks her legs under her skirt and starts picking idly at the tips of the grass.

  “Most living people aren’t really happy about being alive,” I counter. “And you’ll never know if being dead is worse, until you get there.”

  “I don’t think about it that way,” Ophelia says. “I think about death as just another stage of life. Maybe our consciousness leaves our bodies and travels someplace new and exciting.”

  “Like Mars?”

  “Like heaven,” Ophelia says, brushing off my Mars comment.

  “If I tell you something crazy,” I say, “you promise not to laugh?”

  “I promise not to laugh … out loud.”

  “You know that coyote that lives in our neighborhood? The one that was howling that night, when we were sitting on the porch?”

  “I’ve never heard it.”

  “Well, I didn’t just hear it. I saw it a few times. And then a couple of weeks ago, I found it, dead, by the side of the road.”

  “That’s sad. But what’s so crazy about that?”

  “Not that. It was about the coyote when it was alive. I guess I kind of got this idea … You know, the coyote showed up right after my dad died.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And so I was thinking, you know, what if the coyote was, like, my dad. Reincarnated.”

  “So, you think that your dad died,” Ophelia says, speaking so slowly it’s like she’s trying to stall for sanity to intervene, “and came back as a coyote?”

  As we sit there talking, it’s as if I can see myself standing on the edge of a cliff. I can stay on the cliff, safe, and keep the truth about the coyote and the coyote funeral pyre and everything that is crazy and wrong about me on the inside. Or I can step off the cliff, tell Ophelia the truth, and watch her quickly slip away from my grasp as I fall. Once you show someone who you are, there is no coming back from it. I don’t have the courage to step off the cliff, so I retreat to the firm footing of just talking bullshit.

  “I don’t know. It just got me thinking. There are so many squirrels in our neighborhood. And my dad hated squirrels. If he was going to come back as an animal, it would definitely be something that ate squirrels. If he came back as a squirrel, that would be like his own personal version of hell. And if you really think about it, with so many people on the planet, if reincarnation is real, then most people would have to be something lame, like a squirrel. Sometimes I’m talking to people at a party, or I’m watching them at school, and all I can think is … fucking squirrels. You know?”

  “I get it,” Ophelia says, taking the little bit of crazy I share with her in stride. “It’s comforting to think your dad would be a coyote. Like his life had some meaning.”

  “I guess.”

  “I think people misinterpret the idea of reincarnation. I suppose it’s nice to think that way when you’ve lost someone close to you. But if you’re reincarnated, it doesn’t mean you come back as a house cat, or a barnacle, with the same personality and memories. It means that the earth reabsorbs your matter and turns it into something else. Once you become compost, you just revert back to the elements that make a tree from an acorn. And now you’re an oak tree,” she says, waving at the tree that shades Dad’s final resting spot.

  “That’s a maple tree,” I say. “This conversation is really starting to creep me out. I don’t like thinking about my dad in that way.”

  “Sorry,” she says. “So, if your theory about reincarnation is correct, and you died and were reincarnated, what animal do you think you’d be?” Ophelia asks me.

  “I’m not going to lie. I think I’d probably be a squirrel, or an oyster, or something lame. But I don’t want to believe that about my dad. Because he was awesome. He was funny, and smart, and he didn’t give a shit what anybody thought about him.”

  “So, kind of like you?”

  “No. God, not at all. I’m nothing like my dad.”

  “If you say so. I guess you’re right about most people being squirrels, but you can’t think that way. If you think that way you may as well just lie down and die. I don’t want to be a squirrel, Dane. I can’t. I can’t have survived my shitty childhood with my mom and all of her shitty boyfriends just to grow up and be a squirrel the rest of my life.”

  “You won’t,” I say with confidence. “You’re too cool for that.”

  Ophelia takes a moment to think about what I’ve said. I appreciate that she doesn’t laugh, or try to make a joke about it. She just thinks about it.

  “You know how sometimes people will survive a plane crash or a suicide attempt, and suddenly they’re a changed person?” I ask. “Like, there’s this guy who tried to commit suicide jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge but survived, and now he thinks that it was some kind of miracle, like God actually gave enough of a crap about his life to spare it.”

  “How do you know about that? Do you just spend all of your time reading about suicide online? You’ve really got to find a hobby, Dane.”

  I ignore her comment and keep talking, because I still have more to say. “People who go through experiences like that, they suddenly believe that they have some purpose in life. Like, their life must have meaning, or why else would God let them live?”

  “I don’t think God has anything to do with it,” Ophelia says.

  “Agreed. I’m not saying that. What I mean is, people go through these near-death experiences and it changes them, makes them feel like life—their life—has a purpose.”

  “Sure, I get it,” she says. “Like Owen Meany.”

  “Who?” I ask with a frown.

  “It’s a book. About this kid, Owen Meany, who spends his whole life preparing for this one moment when he saves the lives of other people. His life didn’t have any meaning other than to save the lives of other people whose lives may or may not have any meaning.”

  “That’s really confusing.”

  Ophelia waves her hand to tell me to keep talking.

  “Anyway,” I say, “my point is that I can’t help but feeling the opposite.”

  “You mean you feel as if your life has no meaning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what you’re worried about?” she asks with some surprise. “Of course your life has no meaning. Unless you do something meaningful, life is meaningless.”

  “That’s depressing.”

  “You’re the one who’s looking for a reason to live,” she says with a shrug. “But I don’t think you’re a squirrel, Dane.”

  “I appreciate you saying that, even if it isn’t really true.”

  “I’m serious. I mean, a squirrel doesn’t sit aro
und contemplating the meaning of life, or reincarnation. A squirrel just is. It collects nuts, and climbs trees, and maybe has baby squirrels, but it doesn’t ever stop to wonder if it has some higher purpose.”

  “Like Eric. He’s a squirrel. He’s only motivated by the most basic physical wants and desires—the shit he’s been programmed to think is important. He’s a designer-label squirrel. An Instagram influencer squirrel.”

  “That’s hilarious,” Ophelia says, staring off into the middle distance. “The squirrels of Instagram. I’m not going to be able to look at most people without thinking about squirrels now.”

  “Sometimes I think it would be easier to be a squirrel,” I say. “To not have to wonder. To not have to figure anything out. To not have to feel as if I need some purpose in my life. I mean, right now I’m not planning on college. I’m not planning on anything.”

  “You could join the military. My dad left home when he was seventeen to join the army.”

  “That’s a horrible idea. I don’t get to do anything I want to now. If I join the military I’d just do what someone else wants me to do all the time.”

  “Then what do you want to do?” she asks.

  “I used to want to kill myself. I still think about it sometimes. Not because I’m so sad that I want to die, but because it’s exhausting trying to figure out what I should be living for.”

  “This conversation is kind of insulting, you know?” Ophelia says. She’s giving me the side-eye, her gaze weighted with some deeper meaning that I am too dense to understand. “Like, I’m sitting right here, and you’re telling me there’s nothing in this world worth living for. I mean, I’m in this world. It’s kind of a dickish outlook.”

  “I never said I wasn’t a dick. I just said I was less of a dick than Eric. There’s a difference.”

  “That’s fair. You know what I like about you, Dane? You don’t go through life like everybody else. Most people never stop to wonder about the bigger picture, the meaning of life. They think clothes or a car or social media can define them.”

  “It’s actually a pretty hard way to be.”

  “Sure, yeah. But most people act like they’ve already got everything figured out. You don’t do that. You’re genuinely lost. I like that about you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, because there doesn’t seem to be anything else I can say.

  “You know, my mom was the one who picked out my name.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, unsure where this part of the conversation is going.

  “Yeah, she named me after the character in Hamlet.”

  I shake my head, my eyebrows raised with question.

  “You know, Shakespeare? In the play Ophelia goes crazy—kills herself.”

  “Really? That’s messed up. I guess that explains why it isn’t a common name. It’s like naming your kid Adolf or something. Bad associations.”

  “Right. Sometimes I think, maybe my mom identified with Ophelia so much, identified with her just going completely bonkers and drowning herself in a river. Seems like kind of a shitty thing to do, though. Give your kid a name like that.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe there were other things about Ophelia that your mom thought were important. Because she was smart or beautiful or emotionally intelligent. I don’t know. I haven’t read Hamlet. You should ask her.”

  “I don’t like to ask questions like that, unless I think I already know the answer. It’s safer that way.”

  “I get that. Don’t ask the question if you might not like the answer. That’s how we got into the whole mess of having world religions, you know?”

  Ophelia laughs at that. “And now we’ve come full circle.”

  * * *

  We decide that it will be best for Ophelia if she’s home when her dad gets there. I pull the Mercedes into the driveway about the same time that we would normally get home from school.

  Ophelia takes her time getting her books and jacket out of the car and we stand in the driveway talking for a few minutes.

  “I hope you don’t get in more trouble,” I say, just to have something to say.

  “I don’t care so much anymore. A few more weeks and we’re done. I leave the first week of July to visit my grandparents in Ohio before I start college. This is it, you know?”

  My heart hurts at her mention of leaving, but I try hard not to show it. “We did a terrible job of living today like it was our last.”

  “I don’t know,” she says, and her smile is soft and warm. “I can think of worse ways to spend my last day on earth than to spend it with you.”

  It’s a good thing I can’t think of a cool response to that because while I’m still trying to think of something clever to say, she leans toward me and kisses me. Just on the cheek, but it’s definitely one of those moments, the kind that will never leave.

  “I’m glad I went to that party with Eric,” Ophelia says. “It was worth getting into trouble for you to finally think about me in some way other than the annoying girl next door.”

  I’m not sure what I would have said if I’d had a chance. Before I can even finish taking a breath to respond, she is gone and, once again, I’m standing there wondering why I can’t ever say what I should.

  * * *

  You would think that after Ophelia and I spent our last day on earth together I would be in a hurry to see her again, to spend more time with her. I can’t help feeling like the whole thing was just a fluke. Like she wanted to get to know me better and now that she does, she regrets it.

  Since I’ve started going to school at McLean I always eat lunch alone. It’s hard to find a place on campus where I can avoid people entirely. There are worse things than being alone.

  Most teachers lock their classrooms when they leave for lunch, but sometimes I find one open where I can hang out until just before the bell rings. Today, when I test the doorknob to Ms. Guinn’s room, I find the door unlocked, and her spending the lunch period alone at her desk.

  Instead of making up an excuse for being there, I ask her if she would mind if I spent my lunch period in the classroom. She doesn’t ask me why, which I take to mean either she doesn’t care, or she understands my desire to be alone. Either way, she just nods her head toward the empty rows of seats in a silent invitation.

  Even though I am the only one in the room besides Ms. Guinn, I take the same desk where I usually sit for class, toward the back of the room.

  Ms. Guinn is reading from a tattered paperback book while I stare out the window. Her classroom overlooks the back of the school, above the locker rooms on the lower level, near the maintenance entrance and dumpsters. That’s where the Heads and Skaters congregate during their lunch periods. They are the kids who don’t fit in among the more polished students. Their long hair and vintage clothes look dirty and out of place in the pristine halls of McLean High School.

  Though they are as rich and privileged as anyone else who attends the school, they do their best not to look the part. And I understand that. On the inside they bear scars and wounds that make them feel ugly and out of place. And so, they make themselves ugly and out of place and relegate themselves to the ugliest part of the campus. If I had a crowd at school, the Heads and Skaters would be it. But I just float somewhere around the edges.

  Ms. Guinn is sitting behind her desk to eat lunch, which I find somewhat sad. She’s tied to the same desk all day. You would think she’d want to do something else with her thirty minutes to eat. It seems crazy to me that adults only grant themselves a thirty-minute lunch, the same lunch period given to us from kindergarten to graduation. The people who set the school schedule are adults with free will. So why don’t they exercise that power and give themselves a longer lunch period? The only reason I can see is that they want to use that power to make life hell for kids, which is sad if you think about it.

  I sit silently, preoccupied with thinking about Ophelia and Eric, the two trains of thought making head-on collisions in my brain. When Ms. Guinn breaks the silence it makes me jerk with s
urprise.

  “We missed you in class yesterday.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I say.

  “Well, I missed you. You’re every teacher’s worst nightmare and greatest hope. You always think, ‘Here’s a smart kid who could really excel in school. Maybe I’ll be the one to reach him, to make him realize his potential.’”

  “That’s sad. I’m probably not worth you getting disappointed about anything.”

  “Why are you here to eat lunch instead of spending time with people your own age? It’s your senior year. You should be enjoying yourself.”

  “Why do you eat in the classroom?” I ask her. “Teachers can go anywhere they want.”

  “Honestly, I’m trying to avoid people. I spend all day repeating the same thing to six groups of people. I’d rather not have a dull and pointless conversation with one of my fellow teachers during lunch.”

  “You don’t have any friends you work with?”

  “Friends?” she asks, and seems to be asking herself. “No, I wouldn’t say I have friends here. Acquaintances, really. I don’t have a lot of friends.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?”

  “Do you?”

  “I suppose not. At the end of the day you get to go home to your own place. You do what you want, when you want.”

  “You’ll have that soon, too,” says Ms. Guinn. And then, after a thoughtful smile, “Probably sooner than you’d like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’ll graduate soon. You said yourself that you aren’t going to college. So, I guess you’ll get a job and your own apartment. I’m sure your mother isn’t planning to let you sit at home and be a freeloader for the rest of your adult life.”

  “I was reading this article online. It was by some scientist. He was saying how humans are really nothing more than an ecosystem for bacteria. We can’t live without them in and on our bodies. There are trillions of them in our body, and most of them don’t do us any harm. Most of them we need to digest our food or keep our skin healthy. That was his whole theory, that our only purpose is to provide habitat for bacteria, and when we die they just move on to another habitat.”