It wasn't until the day before we were going to go that the renter asked the obvious question.
I told him, "We'll fill it, obviously."
He asked another obvious question.
At first I suggested filling the coffin with things from Dad's life, like his red pens or his jeweler's magnifying glass, which is called a loupe, or even his tuxedo. I guess I got that idea from the Blacks who made museums of each other. But the more we discussed it, the less sense it made, because what good would that do, anyway? Dad wouldn't be able to use them, because he was dead, and the renter also pointed out that it would probably be nice to have things of his around.
"I could fill the coffin with jewelry, like they used to do with famous Egyptians, which I know about." "But he wasn't Egyptian." "And he didn't like jewelry." "He didn't like jewelry?"
"Maybe I could bury things I'm ashamed of," I suggested, and in my head I was thinking of the old telephone, and the sheet of stamps of Great American Inventors that I got mad at Grandma about, and the script of Hamlet, and the letters I had received from strangers, and the stupid card I'd made for myself, and my tambourine, and the unfinished scarf. But that didn't make any sense either, because the renter reminded me that just because you bury something, you don't really bury it. "Then what?" I asked.
"I have an idea," he wrote. "I'll show you tomorrow."
Why did I trust him so much?
The next night, when I met him on the corner at 11:50, he had two suitcases. I didn't ask him what was in them, because for some reason I thought I should wait until he told me, even though he was my dad, which made the coffin mine, too.
Three hours later, when I climbed into the hole, brushed away the dirt, and opened the lid, the renter opened the suitcases. They were filled with papers. I asked him what they were. He wrote, "I lost a son." "You did?" He showed me his left palm. "How did he die?" "I lost him before he died." "How?" "I went away." "Why?" He wrote, "I was afraid." "Afraid of what?" "Afraid of losing him." "Were you afraid of him dying?" "I was afraid of him living." "Why?" He wrote, "Life is scarier than death."
"So what's all that paper?"
He wrote, "Things I wasn't able to tell him. Letters."
To be honest, I don't know what I understood then.
I don't think I figured out that he was my grandpa, not even in the deep parts of my brain. I definitely didn't make the connection between the letters in his suitcases and the envelopes in Grandma's dresser, even if I should have.
But I must have understood something, I must have, because why else would I have opened my left hand?
When I got home it was 4:22 A.M. Mom was on the sofa by the door. I thought she would be incredibly angry at me, but she didn't say anything. She just kissed my head.
"Don't you want to know where I was?" She said, "I trust you." "But aren't you curious?" She said, "I assume you'd tell me if you wanted me to know." "Are you going to tuck me in?" "I thought I'd stay here for a little while longer." "Are you mad at me?" She shook her head no. "Is Ron mad at me?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes."
I went to my room.
My hands were dirty, but I didn't wash them. I wanted them to stay dirty, at least until the next morning. I hoped some of the dirt would stay under my fingernails for a long time, and maybe some of the microscopic material would be there forever.
I turned off the lights.
I put my backpack on the floor, took off my clothes, and got into bed.
I stared at the fake stars.
What about windmills on the roof of every skyscraper?
What about a kite-string bracelet?
A fishing-line bracelet?
What if skyscrapers had roots?
What if you had to water skyscrapers, and play classical music to them, and know if they like sun or shade?
What about a teakettle?
I got out of bed and ran to the door in my undies.
Mom was still on the sofa. She wasn't reading, or listening to music, or doing anything.
She said, "You're awake."
I started crying.
She opened her arms and said, "What is it?"
I ran to her and said, "I don't want to be hospitalized."
She pulled me into her so my head was against the soft part of her shoulder, and she squeezed me. "You're not going to be hospitalized."
I told her, "I promise I'm going to be better soon."
She said, "There's nothing wrong with you."
"I'll be happy and normal."
She put her fingers around the back of my neck.
I told her, "I tried incredibly hard. I don't know how I could have tried harder."
She said, "Dad would have been very proud of you."
"Do you think so?"
"I know so."
I cried some more. I wanted to tell her all of the lies that I'd told her. And then I wanted her to tell me that it was OK, because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good. And then I wanted to tell her about the phone. And then I wanted her to tell me that Dad still would have been proud of me.
She said, "Dad called me from the building that day."
I pulled away from her.
"What?"
"He called from the building."
"On your cell phone?"
She nodded yes, and it was the first time since Dad died that I'd seen her not try to stop her tears. Was she relieved? Was she depressed? Grateful? Exhausted?
"What did he say?"
"He told me he was on the street, that he'd gotten out of the building. He said he was walking home."
"But he wasn't."
"No."
Was I angry? Was I glad?
"He made it up so you wouldn't worry."
"That's right."
Frustrated? Panicky? Optimistic?
"But he knew you knew."
"He did."
I put my fingers around her neck, where her hair started.
I don't know how late it got.
I probably fell asleep, but I don't remember. I cried so much that everything blurred into everything else. At some point she was carrying me to my room. Then I was in bed. She was looking over me. I don't believe in God, but I believe that things are extremely complicated, and her looking over me was as complicated as anything ever could be. But it was also incredibly simple. In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son.
I told her, "It's OK if you fall in love again."
She said, "I won't fall in love again."
I told her, "I want you to."
She kissed me and said, "I'll never fall in love again."
I told her, "You don't have to make it up so I won't worry."
She said, "I love you."
I rolled onto my side and listened to her walk back to the sofa.
I heard her crying. I imagined her wet sleeves. Her tired eyes.
One minute fifty-one seconds...
Four minutes thirty-eight seconds...
Seven minutes...
I felt in the space between the bed and the wall, and found Stuff That Happened to Me. It was completely full. I was going to have to start a new volume soon. I read that it was the paper that kept the towers burning. All of those notepads, and Xeroxes, and printed e-mails, and photographs of kids, and books, and dollar bills in wallets, and documents in files ... all of them were fuel. Maybe if we lived in a paperless society, which lots of scientists say we'll probably live in one day soon, Dad would still be alive. Maybe I shouldn't start a new volume.
I grabbed the flashlight from my backpack and aimed it at the book. I saw maps and drawings, pictures from magazines and newspapers and the Internet, pictures I'd taken with Grandpa's camera. The whole world was in there. Finally, I found the pictures of the falling body.
Was it Dad?
Maybe.
Whoever it was, it was somebody.
I ripped the pages out of the book.
I reversed the order, so the last one was first, and the first was last.
When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating up through the sky.
And if I'd had more pictures, he would've flown through a window, back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the hole that the plane was about to come out of.
Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away from him, all the way to Boston.
He would've taken the elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor.
He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop.
Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left.
He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor.
He would've gotten back into bed, the alarm would've rung backward, he would've dreamt backward.
Then he would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day.
He would've walked backward to my room, whistling "I Am the Walrus" backward.
He would've gotten into bed with me.
We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes.
I'd have said "Nothing" backward.
He'd have said "Yeah, buddy?" backward.
I'd have said "Dad?" backward, which would have sounded the same as "Dad" forward.
He would have told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the end to the beginning, from "I love you" to "Once upon a time..."
We would have been safe.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel Page 25
