After Silence

by Jonathan Carroll

  I slid the gun into my jacket pocket and walked across the street to the house.

  “Mr. Fischer?” The two Gillcrist boys came up and Bill pointed toward Little White. “Do you know her? Is that why you were talking to her? My mother told us we’re never to talk to anyone like her. She’s all old and dirty. But you did. Do you know her?”

  Before unlocking the door, I rang the bell to alert whoever was inside. I hoped Lily wouldn’t be there, because I wanted to see things first and hopefully hear the details. Give me time to think it over before doing anything.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Mary? It’s me, Max.”

  “I thought it was you. What happened to your face? Where have you been?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Is Lily here?”

  The house smelled different. Closing the door behind me, I tried to figure out what it was. Cooking? No. A new perfume? No. Many people. The place smelled of many people being in it all at once.

  “No, she and Greer are over with Ib and Gus. The doctor gave her a sedative and it kept her pretty calm, but I wish you’d been here. She found him. He was hanging off the beam in your bedroom.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “Yes. It said, ‘This one’s for you, Lily. Thanks,’ and was signed: ‘Not Brendan Meier.’”

  “Did the police see the note?”

  “Yes. They took it with them. Max, what’s going on? What happened to you? Where did Lincoln go yesterday?”

  “The police have the note? What did it say again?”

  “’This one’s for you, Lily. Thanks.’ Signed: ‘Not Brendan Meier.’ Do you understand it? Does Lily?”

  “You said she found the body? Did Greer see it?”

  “Not as far as I know. Lily called me last night after you left and asked what was going on. I gave it to her very sketchily, and didn’t mention the gun. I said Lincoln had probably gotten into some trouble and you were trying to get him out. She asked me over to spend the night and I came, just in case. Today she was very disturbed because she hadn’t heard from either of you. I stuck around as long as I could, then took off for what I thought would only be a few hours. Greer went to school, Lily did her errands, and when she got back in the afternoon, Lincoln was… there. She found him when she walked into the bedroom.

  “Max, do you know why he did it?”

  She was my oldest friend, the person I trusted really more than anyone. “No. I don’t understand his note either. Brendan Meier? Who is that?”

  “Maybe a friend of his? That’s another thing. The police went looking for his friends to question them. Elvis and Little White especially. They found Elvis, but he doesn’t know anything. Apparently he started crying when he heard Lincoln was dead.

  “Another thing, Max. You’ve got to go down and identify the body. Lily wasn’t up to it and I don’t think she should. Before you do anything else, you’ve got to go down to the morgue and identify him.”

  “All right. I’ll do it now.”

  “I’d go for you, but they want—”

  “I said all right, Mary. I’ll go now.”

  She touched my shoulder, I pulled away. “Will you tell me what happened out there? Was it the gun? Did all this have to do with his gun?

  “No. It had nothing to do with that. I want to look at the bedroom before I go. I want to see where it happened.”

  “There’s nothing there. Nothing left. It’s just your bedroom again. Really, there’s nothing left. Go look, it’s just a nicely made bed, a dresser—”

  “And a conveniently exposed beam? I want to see it. And I have to go into his room too. I just have to be in both rooms a while. Do you understand?”

  She nodded and looked at me with pity. “Okay. Do you want me to take you…”

  “To the morgue? Is that the word you want, Mary? No. I’ll go alone. Just tell me how to get there.”

  We were standing close to each other. She reached over and embraced me. I held on as long as she did but didn’t give back much of a squeeze. We separated. There were tears in her eyes.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

  “I’m sure. Listen, thanks for what you’ve done. Thanks for being here last night, and today.”

  “I’m so glad I was. I wish to God this hadn’t happened to you two.”

  “I once read an article that said only one suicide in six leaves a note. The note rarely tells the survivors what they want to know. At least we have some idea, huh? Lily and I can go around for the rest of our lives knowing . . .”

  “Max—”

  “Just tell me how to get there.”

  You think a place is going to rip you apart, even walking through the door will take all your resolve and whatever courage you have. Unlike other words, like “love” or “hate.” “morgue” has only one meaning. It is what it is—the place where bodies are brought for a last look. Funeral homes are not the same. If a body is at the morgue, something besides death went wrong, its last breath was suspicious. There it is not dressed in a suit and arranged tastefully, but cut open and examined by someone looking for clues. Unlike that other house of the dead, this is not a last resting place, but rather the last questioning place. The questioners find their answers, not in words, but on the skin and under it.

  I thought I would not be able to stand the morgue, but walking through the last door before coming to Lincoln’s body, I choked, trying to suppress a big old-fashioned ha-ha! laugh. The doctor leading me to the room looked over sympathetically.

  “It’s okay. You just look once, say if you recognize him or not, and it’s over.”

  He was way off. I had not laughed from anguish or lunacy, but rather because, putting my hands in my jacket pockets, I discovered I was carrying Lincoln’s pistol. A gun at the morgue! Who was there to shoot when everyone was already dead?

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, fine.” At another time I would have been very paranoid, but not now. I was in a morgue with a pistol in my pocket, about to be shown my dead son, who’d hanged himself earlier in the day purely because of me and my beloved wife. Thought of like that, a pistol didn’t mean much. His gun. My fault. His death. My fault.

  “It’s here. This one. If you’ll just stand back a few feet, please.” There were rows of large drawers against the wall and it took an instant before I realized there were bodies in them. In the middle of the room were metal tables with drains at the bottom, but except for one, they were empty. We had stopped at the one.

  There was a thin white sheet covering him. Underneath that sheet was our son, our crime, my dead Guardian Angel. The man pulled it down.

  I didn’t want to see the face first. That would have been too much. As the sheet slipped down, I purposely looked at the middle of the body. He had such a small belly button. When he was young, tickle a finger into that belly button and he’d laugh, laugh, laugh. The arms were thin, the hands delicate. They were not yet a man’s hands, but would be soon. I thought of them moving, touching things. Pushing french fries into his mouth, cupping the back of his sister’s neck when he’d taught her to swim. My eyes ran up his arms to the narrow shoulders but stopped when they came to the red groove around his neck. The dividing line; a cruel red gash around his neck left by the rope. What was worse, the grayish-white skin on his face, the closed but protruding eyes, or the red cut around his neck?

  “Mr. Fischer?”

  “Yes? Oh yes, it’s my son. That’s Lincoln.”

  “I’m afraid that although the cause is obvious, we’ll have to do an autopsy on him because of what we call ‘wrongful death.’ It’s required—”

  “I understand.” I felt the gun in my pocket. It had grown warm since my hand had been on it. What would this man do if I suddenly pulled it out?

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what your rules are here, Doctor. Would it be possible to be alone with him a few minutes? Is that allowed?”

  “Certainly. I’ll pull this curtain across too so
you’ll have privacy.”

  I hadn’t seen the curtain pushed back against the wall, but I was extraordinarily grateful to him for his kindness. He slid it over and quietly said he would be in the next room when I was finished. I thanked him and listened to his footsteps walking away. The door opened and swung shut with a small squeak. Lincoln and I were alone for the last time.

  I felt my heart fill with a life full of words I wanted to say to him, all of them apologies, all accepting the blame for this waste and loss. I wanted to bow down to him… It became a confused mob of thoughts and emotions, but I didn’t want words anymore. I wanted to say goodbye some other way. The worst thing on him was the red gouge around his neck, so I lifted a hand and touched it. Touched the bloody swollen groove with two fingers, ran them slowly down the red line. Thought: I’m sorry. So sorry. I’m so sorry.

  Until his head began to move.

  Slowly at first, side to side. Was it? Was it really moving? Yes. Oh yes, it very much was moving! Faster, farther and farther side to side.

  I looked and now there was nothing on his neck. It was clear, unblemished. No red cut, no death mark. It had disappeared. Just pale skin now. The pale skin of a young man.

  When I came into the room he was dead. When I looked directly at him he was dead, his throat cut through by a rope. You know it the moment you see it; one look and there is no question about it. Dead.

  Now no mark and he was smiling. Then it sounded like he, this corpse, my son, was clearing his throat. Hmm. Hmm. Ahem. Next there was no mistaking it. A laugh. His head rocked back and forth. Our dead boy laughing. His mouth opened and his tongue, his strangled tongue fat with dead man’s blood, burst out dry and obscenely large. His eyes opened. They were bulging.

  Side to side. Laughing.

  Terrified, I put the gun to his head, to his temple. It moved with his head from side to side. Side to side. His eyes, bloodshot but seeing me, focusing, were laughing too. The red mark was there again on his neck. The death mark. My fault.

  He stopped moving. He tried to speak but couldn’t with that tongue. He closed his eyes, opened them again. They were normal size. Only the blue-gray skin was the same.

  He looked at me. His lips were pale and dry, chapped. “What are you going to do, Dad, shoot a dead man?”

  I tried to speak but could not. Could not pull the trigger either. My eyes started to blink fast. Tears. I tried to speak but could not.

  “Pull the trigger, but it won’t work. Or maybe it will if you do it. I’m not allowed to. I gotta stay and take care of you.”

  “Lincoln—”

  “I hate this! I want to die! It’s no trick. I’m not playing any fucking games. I want to die! Pull the trigger, please! Maybe it’ll work.” He smiled again, unable to go on. The smile went away. “I’m so scared! I don’t want this. I just want to stop. I just want to go awaaaaay!”

  I loved him so. My son. “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know.” Closing his eyes, he rolled his head back and forth, back and forth. The blood-red belt across his neck. “They won’t let me go! What else am I supposed to do? I’m so scared!”

  I slid my arm across his body. He grabbed it with his own and pulled it down to him, hugged it to him. My son. My poor beautiful son. I dropped the gun on the floor and climbed onto the table. I took my son in my arms, pulled him to me. My son. My fault.

  “Hug me. Hug me tight.”

  How long was I there? How long did I hold him, talk to him, try to reassure him I’d do what I could to make it right, to help, before I heard her voice? Lily.

  “Max! What are you doing? Get off him! Stop it! Get off him. Oh God!”

  Without realizing it, I had my head on his chest and was talking to him, telling him things. I don’t remember what things. First I heard her voice, then I understood it was hers, and only then could I lift my head and look at Lily. She was so near. How could I not have heard her come in? She stood so near with the curtain in her hand. Her other hand was on her mouth and she stared at me, disgust, pity, and hatred all together in one look.

  “Get off him! Please, Max, get off!”

  I was about to answer when I saw the girl over her shoulder. She must have been standing out in the hall and came into the room when she heard Lily yell. Seeing me on top of Lincoln, she raced over and grabbed me by the hair. I read her T-shirt. It said “Nine Inch Nails.” The same shirt she’d worn yesterday when Lincoln was alive. The same dirty pants and combat boots. The same white spiky hair and sixteen-year-old face. Little White.

  She grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, screaming at me to get off! Get off! In that shrill, furious, sixteen-year-old girl’s voice.

  I let her pull me. I let her take me off and away from Lincoln. I let her, because seeing her there then as she really was, as she had been all the time, I knew. Inside me she had forced a terrible eye to suddenly open and see the truth.

  It was only then that I knew, or understood, or whatever the right word is. I knew this girl was sixteen and had always been sixteen. I knew that there were no angels. Knew that short hours ago I had been given one last chance to save my son but had lost it through my madness and excuses.

  There was no place left for me.

  How lucky Lincoln was to be dead.

  And he was dead.

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