Crash and Burn

by Michael Hassan

  It was also the summer that Newman and Pete independently entered manhood. Newman with an incoming junior, not going to say which. Pete’s, you couldn’t actually count his, because it was paid for, as in his brother took him to a Brazilian hooker in Brooklyn.

  But in the end, none of these things mattered, because for the rest of my life, I will remember the summer of 2007 as the summer that Roxanne Burnett killed herself.

  It was my mom who told me.

  School had actually started, three days into my senior year, and there was already a chill in the air, like fall was closing in. And just when you reached for a sweatshirt, it was brutally hot and humid again.

  She was in the kitchen, crying uncontrollably, and when I walked in and caught her with her back to me, she made me wait in suspense, with me having to ask over and over, what’s wrong, what’s wrong.

  So weird. When I entered the kitchen, all I could think about was having to face Connelly again, because I had him for English again and that was going to supremely suck, even more than in freshman year.

  And then there was my mom, reduced to quivering, and Roxanne was gone.

  And then she grabbed me and hugged me, and Roxanne was gone.

  And I could feel my own mother shaking like a child as she told me again and Roxanne was gone.

  And then she told me, and in my mind, I was standing again in the middle of the winter in the middle of the strip mall, with a gun pointed at me, and this time, no one was there to stop the bullet from going right through me.

  Roxanne was gone.

  Forever.

  And it didn’t make sense, my mom crying so much. She didn’t know Roxanne, not really. And she also didn’t know how much I really knew Roxanne. I mean, she knew about the tutoring. But she didn’t know what really happened.

  Or the way Roxanne looked at me when I showed up at Aunt Peesmell’s drenched from the rain.

  Or the way she snorted when her sweats weren’t where she left them.

  Or the way she giggled when I tickled her arm while we watched That ’70s Show, showing off her goose bumps.

  Or the way she worried about how I would do on a test after she taught me everything there was to know about chapter seventeen of American history.

  Or the way she smiled when I showed off my A–.

  Or the way she would crane her neck when she brushed her hair when she came out of a shower.

  Or the way she would laugh after we made love together.

  Or the way we would share each other’s thoughts.

  Or the way she totally and completely changed my life.

  Or the way she totally and completely let me go.

  Roxanne dying wasn’t about to change any of that. But I couldn’t explain any of this to my mother. Because she wouldn’t get it.

  So after my mother told me that Roxanne killed herself, I very calmly told her that I was sorry to hear that, then went back into my room.

  And put my fist through the wall.

  Made a steering-wheel-size hole in the sheetrock, right by my plasma TV screen. Then swirled around and did it again on the other side of the television.

  It was the only way to focus the intense heat of my total and complete anger, anger that turned my stomach and actually made me shudder, and then shiver, because everything was ice cold like it was suddenly winter again.

  I wasn’t angry with Roxanne. Not in the least. It wasn’t her fault. It was everyone else’s fault. Everyone who looked at her like she was just another goth chick or a sleazy slut whore. Or whatever. Everyone who failed to recognize her for who she was. It was my fault for not being there for her when she needed me. It was David Burnett’s fault for not letting me stay in her life. I was sure that it would have been different if Massachusetts had never happened.

  Lindsey heard the noise and came running into my room to see what the problem was. She stopped short when she saw me with my hand covered in blood. She wouldn’t dare enter my room, because she could tell from my face that it was about Roxanne. And given that she was one of those people who wrote Roxanne off as a human being, she knew that if she said anything, I would literally tear her head off.

  Instead, she stood in the hallway and yelled at the top of her lungs:

  “MAAAAA!”

  My mother came running up, saw me, grabbed a towel, and wiped my hand down. We were both surprised to see that the damage was mostly superficial. Still, she made me put it under freezing-cold water. It numbed the pain in my hand, but the anger-pain was spreading upward into my shoulder blades, boxing me in.

  I felt like I was inside an elevator and the elevator was stuck between floors and there was no air left and the lights were dimming.

  I had to go. Didn’t matter where. I had to leave.

  So I drove. Going all the way to Massachusetts, in search of the Barnes & Noble shopping center where Burn had his breakdown. Techno blasted through the speakers all the way, drowning out the sounds of the outside world. I hit a hundred miles an hour for a brief moment before slowing down, all the time thinking about her. How she changed so much every time I saw her, how she loved shocking me and probably everyone else who ever met her, how she shook her head all the time in great disbelief whenever I told her something, and how she turned “frickin’” into the coolest word to me.

  I couldn’t find the exact mall, couldn’t even be sure that I was in the right area of Massachusetts. Didn’t care, really. Except, tell you the truth, I was thinking that if I found it, the exact location, then somehow, she would be standing there, an echo of the past, like Obi-Wan and Yoda at the end of Return of the Jedi, smiling at me from the other side, letting me know that she was all right.

  Except she wasn’t all right at all. She was dead as stone.

  After hours of driving, I stopped at a Subway, bought a footlong, couldn’t eat it, not after the first bite, which soured in my stomach. I threw the rest into the garbage on the way out and then kicked the garbage can, denting it, causing people to run out of the store as I made my way back to the car.

  I parked in the back of a random Home Depot and listened to Tiesto while my car shook from the bass. And waited for a very long time.

  It was no good. I was still in the elevator in between floors. No one was coming for me.

  I raised the volume on the music and then I cried.

  I cried like a baby because no one could see me, no one could hear me, and so I cried the way I wanted to cry when she turned away from me in Massachusetts and a part of me knew that I would never be with her again. But a part of me always believed that there would come a time when she called, when she needed me again, and I would be there for her, wherever she was, whatever time she called.

  Now that day would never come.

  So I cried for a long time, maybe mixed with screaming. I don’t exactly remember.

  Then I was done.

  I drove home slower and more steadily, and when I got back to Westchester, it finally occurred to me that I understood why Burn had to drive all the time after his mother died.

  Burn.

  I wondered how he was taking the news. I had completely forgotten him in the equation. Putting my psychic feelers out, I pictured him on a distant highway, driving even more furiously than me, in search of his sister . . . of his entire family. None of whom he would ever see again. I actually felt . . . sorry for him.

  Then I put my psychic feelers out for Roxanne and felt . . . nothing.

  And I went into my house when I got home, full of gratitude that my mom and my sisters were home, together for just a little while longer before Lindsey went back to college.

  Gratitude that was instantly wiped away when I walked through the door.

  “Crash finally landed,” Lindsey screamed up to my mom when she saw me. “You’re in trouble,” she told me with a smug smile that made me wish I could trade her life for Roxanne’s. And I would have, at that very moment, regardless of the fact that we shared DNA.

  “Also, you got a le
tter.” She gestured to the envelope on the hallway table.

  I examined the envelope, typed out in old-fashioned typing and addressed to me. No return address, plain white envelope. I pressed it. Not flat, but slightly bubbled. I tried to guess who would have sent me a letter, but no one I knew read much or actually stopped to write anything. In fact, it had been years since those summer camp letters, and I couldn’t even remember the last time that I actually had received actual mail.

  I very carefully tore the edge, then notched my finger between the flap and the envelope and tried to pry it open, but couldn’t, so I used more force and ripped it apart.

  And beans came flying out, cascading onto the floor.

  “What the fuck?” is what I said out loud, though no one was there to hear me.

  It didn’t register. Not until I pulled out the actual letter. It was scrunched up. I had to flatten it out and press it with my palm against the hall table, already littered with other mail, catalogs, and postcards.

  And when I read the contents of the letter, I started to cry again, not out loud this time, but tears escaped my eyes and I didn’t try to stop them from coming.

  What the Letter said was:

  Dear Crash,

  Here are your beans back.

  They didn’t work.

  Please remember me.

  Love always,

  Roxanne

  I looked down at the beans scattered across the hallway tiles and I knew what I had to do.

  The funeral was private, according to my mom, who had talked to Aunt Peesmell. On David’s instructions, they were not opening it up to anyone other than immediate family members.

  We couldn’t get the location. But being as someone set up a memorial site for her on Facebook, I was able to check her wall, and tons of people were writing things about her, to her, things like “too soon” and “rest in peace.” And people were expressing frustration at not being able to get information about the funeral or the cemetery where they planned to bury Roxanne.

  I scrolled through the list of her friends, over 500 names. I examined the profiles and the pictures of some random people. Couldn’t get too far, but from what I could tell, most of them were not from town; only a few had gone to Meadows. Many were older looking, early twenties was my guess, lots of goths covered in tats.

  There was a reference to a MySpace page, where another online memorial had been set up, this one with music, some song called “Playground Love,” which, tell you the truth, sounded totally depressing, but also like the stuff that Roxanne used to play during our tutoring sessions. There were postings, stories about her, and a posting by someone who claimed to have found out where Roxanne was being buried. People said they were going to show up spontaneously and have their own funeral by her graveside, even though they weren’t invited.

  I cut school, didn’t tell anyone where I was going, and, using the directions that were posted online, traveled into the heart of New Jersey. I got to the cemetery in under an hour, which was a major accomplishment in and of itself, because it seemed like every car in the entire state was out to get me.

  Even though I was early, there were already about twenty other people, seemingly stranded at the gates of the cemetery by a gladiator guy who looked like he could have been in the Russell Crowe movie. I parked on the street and told the gladiator that I was a friend of the family. He told me that he had strict instructions not to let anyone in. A goth chick, not much older than me, strolled alongside me, and asked how many family members were allowed in. Eight or nine, the gladiator told her, and they were already there. No one else gets in.

  Still, people kept showing up.

  The group was getting bigger, more cars pulled up. There were redheaded twins with multiple nose piercings. An Abe Lincoln–looking guy in, swear to Christ, a top hat and long beard. There was a midget with more tattoos than I had ever seen before on a normal-size person. And, coming out of a dusty brown convertible, was a tall woman in a black dress and tights that appeared to be ripped in places. Then there were a few straight-looking college students and even a middle-aged guy, round and bald.

  As I looked around, I wondered whether the tiger lady who popped Burn’s cherry was there. Which one could she be?

  Now everyone was talking to the gladiator. First they threatened to storm the gates. Then they agreed to take their ceremony down the block to a small park. I followed the group, which was growing, becoming this impromptu festival of misfits, where most people seemed to know each other and everyone was talking but no one was talking to me.

  As soon as we got to the park, someone pulled out this mini amplifier and microphone and the redheaded twins began to sing, a cappella “Amazing Grace” in harmony, and then the torn tights girl spoke, and as soon as she started to talk about Roxanne, I knew, I totally knew that she was the tiger lady.

  And they shared memories of Roxanne.

  The Abe Lincoln guy took the mic next and told the group: “The only thing we are certain of after all these years is the insufficiency of an explanation.”

  The crowd went wild on this one, and I figured that it must have been the lyrics to some kind of popular goth song or something.

  And then someone suggested that everyone get a chance to say something, so they passed around the microphone. So the first person, this tattooed biker chick, talked about how brave Roxanne was, and that suicide was the ultimate sacrifice. Then a super goth chick called the act a “simple refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to her.”

  And one of the redheaded girls sat beside me, asked me my name, and when I told her, she laughed and yelled out, “Crash is here,” and a few people applauded. So I asked her how she knew me, and she said that Roxanne used to talk about me. And then she got up and sang again, another song with her sister, which was the same song that was playing on the Roxanne Memorial MySpace page.

  And then the microphone made its way to me, and at first, I pushed it away, but a few of the people began chanting, “Crash, Crash, Crash, Crash,” so I felt compelled to say something, only I had nothing to say so instead, I simply went:

  “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

  OK, making a bee sound may not seem like the most brilliant idea. After all, it was personal, and mostly I didn’t think anyone else would get the joke. But a bunch of people laughed and buzzed back, and then there was whispering as some people questioned the buzz, and there was more laughter and then almost everyone was buzzing.

  People took turns buzzing into the microphone, changing the tone, the pitch, and the sound. And people were laughing, and then the redheaded twins sang again, and this time, people were singing along and clapping and shouting as if it was gospel music or something.

  And the redheaded girl was back. She told me her name was Sonya, and told me that the song she did was from the movie The Virgin Suicides, did I ever see it, and did I know that people were quoting from it in their speeches, and I told her that I wasn’t much into suicide or movies about it, did she see Superbad, which was more my type of movie, and she started asking me if I’d seen the video, so I asked what video, and she said how did I know about the bee if I didn’t see the video, and I asked what video again, and she thought that I was kidding, because every one of her friends knew about the video. At first Roxanne had been ashamed of it, but then when all of her friends told her it was like performance art, Roxanne owned up to it and saw the art in it, even though it wasn’t art, well, it shouldn’t have been, but Roxanne made it art because she was so good and so deep and so authentic. So if I didn’t see the video, how did I know about the bee? And I told her that Roxanne tutored me once, and I told her about the bee tattoo, and how seeing it was my reward for learning, which made her laugh hysterically and then call her sister over.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she told her sister, who she introduced to me as Mia, just Mia. With me still mystified.

  And then Sonya explained. “Roxanne made a movie,” she said, “an
adult video. She had this scene where she took on these five guys. She was amazing.”

  OK, I know you know I’m no prude, far from it, but the concept that Roxanne taking on five guys on camera, I have to admit, turned my stomach. This was not what I wanted to hear at her memorial service.

  Then Mia added, “Roxanne came up with the story line for the video, and in it, she’s teaching these five guys French, and she tells them if they get all the vocab questions correct on the test, then, well, you know, she’ll show them the bee.”

  “And so they do,” adds Sonya, “and she goes around the room and shows each of them her bee.”

  “And things get out of control from there,” adds Mia. “And of course, everyone in the video who sees the bee starts buzzing as she takes them on. We thought you knew.”

  “So after that video, she was becoming known as the Bee Girl. And was even working on a website, something with bees. She was disappointed that beegirl.com was already registered.”

  “See that guy over there?” Sonya pointed to the middle-aged guy in the distance who I noticed earlier and considered to be out of place there.

  “He was investing in her, going to make her an internet star. Like the Suicide Girls. Roxanne was actually going to be like a celebrity. I thought you knew.”

  That was when I spotted Burn coming at the crowd.

  He had emerged from a limo, and apparently he could not resist getting involved. I pointed him out to Sonya, and she said she knew, that Roxanne was protective of him, because he was so fragile that Roxanne was concerned that one day, her brother would find out what she did, because when he found out, he was going to hurt someone.

  Except probably no one there knew as clearly as I did that Burn was fully capable of hurting someone. But I didn’t have a chance to explain this to her, because Burn was suddenly there and grabbing the microphone and screaming, “You’re all murderers. You’re all responsible for her death. . . .”