Spin

They always say when you lose someone you’ll feel it.  That the connection of blood-bound souls disintegrates into the ether, leaving you with a strange sense of loss, even when you know of nothing wrong. 

This is what They say. 

I’m not sure how much of it I believe, how much of anything I believe.  All I can tell you is how much it can hurt, how much it can feel like your insides are stuck on the spin cycle, how you heart beats so fast you think it may rise through your throat and land on the table.  Every façade we hold together, keeping the world at bay, crumbles and lands beneath your toes.  You hold the phone in your clutches, glancing at the screen, thinking you’ve missed the ring tone, anticipating The Phone Call, dreading it, thinking that this time it’s it.  They’ve found him.  He’s gone. 

You’re afraid to ask for help, afraid that it means it’s real.  Asking for help in the form of someone, anyone to hold you up, knowing they can’t fix it, knowing they can’t make it better or hurt less, but secure in the knowledge that they’ll hold you so close and you can bury your head in the curve of their neck, needing that second of protection, whispering “Where is he?”

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My father awoke to a phone call from the police department, asking if he was the owner of a white sedan, confirming the license plate, advising it was found unoccupied in a ditch on a highway outside of town. 

My father’s response:  “My son drives that car.”

Repeated attempts to reach my brother’s cell phone, repeated voicemails growing steadily angrier. 

My father picked up the car, still drivable but lodged in the red clay mud found across Texas.  He pulled the car out of the ditch and drove it home. 

Three hours later my phone rings, my father asking, calmly at first, if I know where Matthew is. 

“He’s down there with you guys.”  A pause.  “Isn’t he?”

I hear the story about the car.  The airbags didn’t deploy.  There’s no blood in on the seats.  But it was unlocked, his DVD player, stereo and prized guitar sitting in the back seat. 

We rant and rave.  About how stupid he is, how he’s let his drinking get out of control.  He can’t just have one, we say, in total agreement.  Something is wrong. 

An hour later my father gets in his truck and drives around town, looking for signs of Matthew or his friends.  The parking lot of Fat Jack’s- empty.  His friend Robert’s house- deserted. This is all our combined knowledge allows us to check. 

I call information, looking for the parents of the kids I know he’s with.  I say kids, but I mean men.  They are 23 years old.  A group of boys teetering on the brink of adulthood, unwilling to cross over.  I make dozens of phone calls; in a Texas town of 80,000 thousand people there are a lot of last names to check.  Hoping someone will answer, be willing to track down their son, give out his cell number, something, anything. 

Hours pass.  When I run out of names I call my father.  Still nothing. 

My insides begin to ache.  The tears fall down.  I’m no longer just mad, I’m mad and worried.  Sick with the thoughts of What If, knowing he’s been gone too long.  There’s no explanation, reasonable or not. 

Another hour.  Two.  It’s dark outside.  I’ve turned off the lights because the thought of brightness hurts in that space behind my eyes, making me cradle my head in my hands as I shed what I feel is like the billionth tear.  I haven’t cried this much, this long, I think, ever.  I’m tired, exhausted with worry and grief, preparing for The Phone Call.  He’ll never grow up, I think.  He’ll never find his way.  Selfishly, I think I can’t make that Phone Call to my mother, working in West Texas for the week.  She doesn’t deserve this.  I can’t handle this. 

Brittany and Baker show up, banging on the front door.  Brittany throws her body against mine as soon as she’s inside the door.  She’s the first person I’ve touched in days, that moment being the first time I realized how much I need it.  I bury my face in her neck because I can’t think, my arms are too heavy, this weight too much.   

“Where is he?”

“Baby, I don’t know.”

I call my father again; he pulls out the yearbook, goes through every name.  Hoping something rings a bell, gives us another last name to look up.  We call more numbers in the vain hope someone knows something.  Something that will make this better.

We talk through the names we know, the places we know he frequents, hoping that we’ll trigger a memory, a name.  His ex-girlfriend.  Dad can find her parents house, he thinks.  We can get her number in Dallas from them, get numbers for all of his friends from her.  We have a plan.  Something to do. 

Fifteen minutes later my phone rings again.  It hasn’t been long enough for him to get across town.  This is it, I can tell.  It’s over.  I lean against my bed in the back of my apartment, my legs unable to carry my full weight. 

“They found him.”

I can’t breathe, I try to ask questions but my throat closes up.

My father takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. 

 

“He’s in jail.”