by Owen Thomas
I might have forgiven myself sooner had he died of a freak accident or some random act of mayhem as he stood in line at a liquor store or leaving a party up in the canyon. The result for Zack would have been the same, and no less tragic, but I might have escaped the wrath of guilt that smothered me in my bed every night for a long time after he washed up on the beach. I might have been spared the crisis of self that stalked me every day, every waking moment, conspiring with the other cataclysms of my life to make me loathe the very idea of consciousness.
It took the coroner a week to announce the cause of death as drowning incidental to an overdose. They found Roofies and Special K in his system and a ridiculously high blood-alcohol level. The report did not mention suicide, but the infotainment industry was eager to pick up that baton and run with it. The news of Zack’s death gave a new and vibrant life to the infidelity, sex video, and drug scandals that were just beginning to wane for lack of new information. Suddenly those stories all had fresh relevance and a hard news, beyond-gossip legitimacy. The headlines and the talking heads all served up double scoops of salacious attention with liberal garnishes of sanctimony and faux regret. They devoured Zack’s corpse nightly for two long weeks.
I did not have to wait for the coroner’s report. I did not have to wait more than fifteen seconds into that first news story before I knew – somehow I just knew – that Zack’s death was not an accident. And while it was soon conventional wisdom that Zack West had killed himself, I was the only person alive to know the truth. The truth was that Zack had been murdered by Zel Wippo, a scrawny Jewish kid from Long Island, chased from one coast to the other – by an identity he could not comprehend and never wanted – directly into the protective custody of an identity that every day sucked the oxygen from his lungs and left him gasping for the few authentic moments that sustained him.
Not that I comprehended it at the time, but I was one of those few authentic moments in Zel’s life. I sustained him. At least towards the end. There was always the three of us in any given conversation, of course, and Zack always dominated. But Zel was there too, just inside the line of Zack’s shadow, waiting for the drugs to kick in or for the drink to finally quiet Zack’s presence. Then he carefully ventured out. As little as I saw him, and for as short a time as we were together, I saw more of Zel Wippo than anyone else on the planet. And when I left Zel, in all of my convenient and over-wrought indignation over the Maria Beckwith affair, followed by my hurtful accusations over the sex video that I had assumed was all his idea, I left him alone with Zack West. The Golden Boy. All identity, all the time.
It was only a matter of time. Zel was no match for Zack. He could not have saved himself. It was far too late for that. So he did the next best thing. He took Zack with him. He put Zack to sleep – tranquilizing him like some wild animal on a safari – and then, no doubt feeling stronger in the quiet clarity of that moment, Zel went swimming. A last authentic act. I was the only person who knew that Zel had been drowning for years.
So I think of it as self-defense.
I remember swimming through hot oil, up from the bottom of a dead sleep. Although sleep and all of its restful implications is not the right word. It was three or four days after the funeral. I was covered in sweat and blinking slowly at the narcotic smear of colors and shapes beyond the foot of my bed. The drugs had been to help me sleep after days of uninterrupted conscious agony. The alcohol had been to take the edge off my self-loathing while I was awake, each day requiring a little more than the last to effectively blur the outlines of what I had done. But up I swam anyway, bursting back up into the world, blinking and sweating, pulling against the weight of the Valium and the Xanax tied like cinder blocks to my ankles. The dream voice in my head belonged to Detective Fuentes. The image was of Zack’s impacted face pleading with her.
Tilly knows. Tilly knows everything. Talk to Tilly. She knows.
I had believed these to be words of accusation. I had thought that in his stuporous panic Zack was suggesting that I had had some vengeful hand in loading his Escalade with trail mix. That, in any event, was the meaning ascribed by Detective Fuentes and Burton Dalrymple. That is the interpretation that had counseled so much caution and had kept me from returning Zack’s calls. Up until the last moments of believing Zack was still alive and for several days of knowing he was dead, I believed those words to have been the product of Tiki Emmanuel’s influence, insinuating me into a plot all his own.
But that night, from the center of my wet, somniferous fog, I realized I was wrong. Whatever Tiki’s machinations, he was not responsible for the words in Detective Fuentes’ notebook. Zack had been severely concussed and was still flying high on whatever had convinced him to drive sixty-miles an hour into Whiskey A Go-Go. If Zack was awake at all, he was weak.
It had been Zel talking in that moment. Zel pleading his case. Zel giving my name to Detective Fuentes as a reference. Tilly knows. She knows who I really am. I’m not the person you see. I don’t mean to behave this way. Tilly will tell you. I’m better than this. Tilly knows my agony. Bring me Tilly. Please. Bring me Tilly.
I was a horrible reference, as it turned out. While I had not overtly accused Zack for the police, neither had I vouched for his inner character. I had covered as best I could, saying as little as possible, which only made him look guilty. Worse, I telegraphed to him that I was not on his side. That he was alone on his island. I had turned him away, again, after refusing to believe him that he had done nothing to betray me. I had refused to answer the phone. In his darkest hours, I had refused to call him back. I had used Maria Beckwith as an excuse to claim a moral high ground and to slam the door in his face. From that moment on, whatever words I may have used, I had only shown him my back.
Most unforgivably, the truth was that I had known the real person cowering within Zack West. We had connected. I knew what I meant to him. And yet, after a good start with enough genuine moments between us to rivet Zel’s timid romantic attention, when it came to reciprocating any genuinely romantic gesture, or even just acknowledging the longing that lay quietly beneath our splashy and shallow dalliance, I hardened myself to that acquaintance. I know it would be easier to detach from the invincible Golden Boy caricature than an actual person. Genuine love was what Zel needed the most and I wanted it not at all.
Or, to be more precise, I did not want it from him. I did not want it from anyone who was offering it. Genuine love, I believed somewhere deep and dark and ancient, was the thing you wanted from people who were predisposed to doubt you are worthy of it. It was synonymous with forgiveness and came only from those who had to be persuaded against their better inclinations. It was the brass ring of redemption, ever-elusive to those who do not believe themselves worthy in the first place. It was the thing you didn’t have because it was the thing you couldn’t have and as soon as you could have it, it was suddenly not the thing you were looking for. But death, I learned, was the ultimate withholding. The ultimate rejection. Death made me feel a depth of love for Zel that I had never felt when he was alive to receive it. When he was alive to be saved by it.
I have an enduring memory of Zack, of Zel, that after all of these years is most likely an amalgam of several memories. We were out in the water straddling surfboards at the end of another bruising lesson. We had paddled out well past the breakers, where we sat floating and bobbing, our backs to the sea, gazing at the shoreline and pushing the swells rising beneath us into waves that rushed pointedly shoreward. The sun was setting and in the distance the beach house was a reflective blaze up on its escarpment. Down on the beach, ants were dragging wood into a pile to start the nightly bonfire. It was a pleasant, peaceful, reflective moment.
“It all seems so stupid and silly from out here,” he said after a long silence.
“What does?”
“That.” He nodded at the people on the beach. Then he nodded southward in the general direction of greater Los Angeles. “That.”
I considered the point, but rem
ained silent.
“Maybe everything looks like that from the ocean,” he said. “Maybe this is a godly perspective.”
“Here we go.”
“I’m serious. Maybe this is how we get out of our own skins. I’ll bet astronauts have the God-perspective when they’re out in space. They’re up there floating, just like we are, and they’re looking back at us and thinking what the fuck is all of that nonsense down there about, anyway? Why’d I do all the stupid shit I did when I was back in astronaut school? Why’d I waste all of that time? Why are we all so afraid?”
“These are astronauts we’re talking about, right?”
One of the ants heaved a branch onto the tiny pile. Others gathered.
“Why would I ever want to go back to Earth? Why would I ever want to be that small? Consumed by insignificance. That’s not who I should be. I don’t want to be that.”
“An astronaut?”
“Human.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, then that is a godly perspective.”
“Don’t you ever just kind of float outside of yourself and look back and think What the fuck am I? What am I doing? Why did I decide to be this person?”
“We don’t have oceans in Ohio. Closest you get is Lake Erie, which is too fucking cold for perspective. Explains a lot I guess.”
“Seriously, Tilly. Don’t you ever just want to…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Keep paddling?”
“Listen,” I floated up along side him and locked my ankle around his, pulling our boards together like a raft. I leaned in and put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him. “I paddled from Columbus to Hollywood. I’m a big fan of paddling. So I want some credibility when I say this.”
“Say what?”
“This. The astronaut comes home, Zack, because there is someone, another human, on Earth, looking up at the stars and waiting for him. There is someone waiting who knows the answers to those questions. Or, if they don’t know the answers, they hold the answers. That person, at least one for each of us, will show us who we are. Will show us our relevance and our meaning. It’s not something you can do entirely for yourself. We need to see ourselves reflected, good or bad, before we make any sense to ourselves. We need to feel the impact we have on another person, good or bad, before we know our own relevance. That’s not possible alone. Out in space.”
Zack smiled, giving me all one million watts of charm, splashing me with the sea.
“Well la-de-da, Sienna Pryce.”
“Hey, I didn’t take existential philosophy for nothin’. Kierkegaard is my bitch.”
He fell silent again and watched the sun slip away. We paddled back in as the dusk thickened all around us, aiming for the dancing orange glow on the beach. Zack lay the side of his face on his board and looked at me as his perfect arms dipped in and out.
“So,” he said, pretending to tease. “Are you that person? The one waiting for me with the answers?”
I laughed and backhanded him with spray.
“You the one who’s gonna show me who I am?”
“Yes. I’m the one,” I said, boldly, not realizing the cruelty of that promise. Not understanding that even at that early time in our courtship I was already preparing to abandon him, Zel, for loving me. Already searching the labyrinthine dysfunction of my own subconscious for reasons to explain why it would never work; for why he was not worthy. Already understanding somewhere in my marrow that his was a love that would not require any expiation on my part. I was worthy to him, and that was not acceptable to me. I was worthy to him and, therefore, he was not worthy of me. Even as we paddled ashore that night I was already angling to cut him loose, leaving him to float alone in space looking back and wondering what it all meant. Not understanding that it was he, Zel, who held the answers for me, and not the other way around. Not understanding that it was Zel who would show me, in the most horrid and painful way I could imagine, my own relevance in the world. What I did. What I could have done. What I chose not to do. I existed. I mattered. And to prove it, he was gone.
I hid from the world, burrowing beneath my own life. My greatest resolve was to summon the strength to attend Zack’s funeral. If I did nothing else, I would do that. I pretended that I would slip in and out of the service unobserved. I parked my newly repaired Miata in the garage and rented a car that might shield me from attention in the parking lot. They offered me the Nissan equivalent. I chose a white Civic.
But when the time came, I could not bring myself to face the world with all of its eyes and cameras and opinions. I could not face the loyal Zack-Pack in their dark suits and Ray Bans and their smug knowledge that they had been right about me all along. Whatever they thought about Tiki Emmanuel, they had been right about me. Yoko.
I stayed home mostly. Not sleeping. Not eating. Burrowing. Burrowing. Blinds drawn. Lights off. Watching television; flipping from newscast to newscast like the remote was a knife to my wrist. Watching the accusation implicit in Zack’s mangled mug shot juxtaposed to my slickly promotional headshot as the announcers moved their collagen-plumped lips and tilted their botoxed brows and asked me who the fuck I thought I was, anyway.
The phones rang constantly with concern. I let them ring until I turned them off altogether. Simon Hunter, having left half a dozen unanswered messages finally came by in person and rang the bell. I could see myself in the shock of his expression.
“Tills. My God. You look dreadful.”
I told him I had the flu. I told him I needed sleep. He wasn’t buying any of it. He wanted in. I all but closed the door in his face.
“Let me help you,” he said from outside.
“Go home, Simon. I’ll call you when I’m better.”
I went back to the hole of my couch. Burrow. Burrow. Burrow.
I sought pharmacological assistance when I started getting the shakes and fits of anxiety pushing towards hysteria from lack of sleep. It took more than one provider. Dr. Valium asked a lot of questions about my family history. Dr. Xanax asked specifically about whether I had ever entertained any thoughts of hurting myself. Since they practiced their profession within the Hollywood media market, both of them were well versed on the gory details of my involvement with Zack West. Each of them, patting my hand with concern, asked for a five-day follow up and warned that if I did not follow up with them, they would follow up with me. Follow the dosage, they said. They asked if I understood the hazards alcohol could pose. I told them what they needed to hear.
When sleep came, it came as a soundless avalanche, like a tidal wave of space closing in around me. Whenever I woke, the sensation of the real world re-exploding around me was so unpleasant and so painful, physically and emotionally, that I did not think twice about reaching for one of those plastic bottles on the nightstand so that another wave of space-time might rise up, block out the withering sun of my conscious self, and plunge me back into the depths.
Within some narrow band of liminal understanding, before the black curl fully sucked me under again, I dreamed of Jules Miller, clutching her own bottle of deadly relief as her husband and the father of her unborn daughter, her secret self, sped away to another world with Elena Ivanova. The dream added weight to my descent, for I was no longer her. No longer Ivanova. I was a twisted version of poor Jules Miller, abandoned by the Colonel and her new lover, Blair Gaines. As I sank, as the dream darkened into blind feeling, I became Alan Miller, the abandoner himself, listening to the sound of Zel Wippo screaming and pounding against the inside of the dome. The sounds of Zel’s despair deepened and diffused into vibration, eventually yawning into an ocean of silence.
And then I was inside the dome, an eternity of pain and longing pressing in from all sides. Until there was nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Clink.
Nothing.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
A winch slowly hoisted me up from the ocean floor.
Clink. Clink. C
link.
A rusty tooth-shaped triangle of metal fell precisely into triangular notches cut into a steel wheel moving clockwise one bite at a time.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
It stopped for a time. Two, maybe three hours. Days in dream time. Leaving me bent backwards in a harness, the deep ocean current pulling against my limbs.
Dreaming returned. I was back on the Pryce Point set hanging with Zack from a makeshift Gulfstream jet at the point of a crane. His dead weight pulls at my body. Pulls at the defective harness. The wave is coming, he says. When I say pop up, get those feet under you. Find your balance. Tell the board where to go. Control it. Breathe, Tilly.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
I began ascending again. My spine bowed from the middle as the water pulled at my head and my feet. Peg Entwistle was on top of the letter H looking down, gritting her teeth as she turned the crank.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
My eyelids glowed translucent yellow. Clink. Clink. Clink.
Now Tilly! Pop up!
My bedroom came back in a spiral of colors and shapes and light, like water reversing itself from out of a drain. I sat up in bed, blinking and panting. My head rang with pain. It took minutes before I was fully back.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Only Simon Hunter, with his ridiculously British sense of decorum, used the knocker on my front door. The brass tooth against the strike plate was like his personal ring tone. I had at least enough presence of mind to know that he must have been nearly desperate with worry, having left a million unanswered messages, imagining that I was bleeding out in my bathtub. I imagined that he had called the police and that they would be smashing my front door into splinters.
I stood. Wobbled. Pulled on a robe. Wobbled. Sat on the bed.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
I stood. Wobbled. Walked.
I opened the door and daylight gushed in, nearly blowing me backwards like water through a ruptured dam. My head detonated in pain.
“I almost gave up,” he said. “Thought maybe you were dead.”
