The last photo of the angel of Crystal Beach is taken with Rahn’s Polaroid camera. After eating too many sandwiches made by Rose and Barbara, the group of us blearily creep into the early-evening heat.
Leanne, still our resident maestro of Canadian rock, plays “Raise a Little Hell” by Trooper on her boom box. Our laughter is stifled but audible. Hal carries a gas can. Me, matches. It has been decided that I will burn the last of the roller coaster wood left out on Rose’s lawn.
“Are you here?”
She’s dim light, a watermark against the sunset bright sky. I’m here.
“I knew you’d come.” I use words, not my thoughts to talk to her. She’s not getting in my head.
And I’ll keep coming back, too. You won’t be rid of me.
“I believe you. I believe there’s more to come.” She surges forward but fails to touch me. I don’t reach out to see if I’m able touch her. “I’ll never forget you. Not how you lived or that you died too young. We’re going to look for your grave. We’re going to return your locket. We’re going to carve a stone with your name on it. I promise you.”
The dinged, yellow roller coaster wood between us is a gasoline-sopping eyesore. I imagine the scorched earth that will be left after the fire. The matchbook lingers in my left hand.
Etta Anna Zinn. Born September 9, 1919, in Horseheads, New York. Put that on my stone.
“First, please tell me how you died.”
Oh, that’s dull, she says. I simply stood up, is all. The man in the roller coaster car beside me was too fresh. I asked him to stop once nicely. Then downright told him ‘No.’ Then I simply stood up. Except, unlike you, I didn’t have anyone to catch me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Twenty feet in front of me, Tamara and Hal inch closer. Dolores flashes me an encouraging two-thumbs up. Barbara turns her wrists in frantic circles, a “get on with it” signal I’ve seen many times before. “I’m going to burn the last of the coaster you died on. There’s no need to keep it anymore.” I tease the match head against the igniter strip.
There was nothing special about him, the last man I rode with. Average in every darn way. Even his come-ons were middle-of-the-road. I suppose I was just done. Too tired to scream my last. Me—the scream queen—silent as falling stone. That’s how I died. Without a word or a sound.
“I’ll scream with you now, if you want.” The match hisses as it ignites. Flames lick the wood like they’ve been waiting, wanting this particular fire for a long time. Fuoco means fire. It also means focus, like fuoco selettivo, selective focus. I focus only on good.
Thank you good cry. Thank you Classical Linguistics. Thank you Violent Femmes’ debut album. Thank you Barbara Kruger lenticular print. Thank you old-growth Black Maples. Thank you lightning bolt printed panties. Thank you Vivienne Westwood heels. Thank you Lemmy the lake monster. Thank you Hall’s cinnamon suckers. Thank you chick-a-dee-dee and whip-poor-will. Thank you Gena Rowlands for Mabel in A Woman Under the Influence. Thank you Diamanda Galàs’s You Must Be Certain of the Devil. Thank you Sharon Olds’ Gold Cell. Thank you The Courage to Heal workbook. Thank you The Serenity Prayer. Thank you fan mail, especially the letters written by lesbians, which I will read when I’m ready. Thank you every single novel that doesn’t end with “the end.” Thank you pay phone, especially when the calls come from Cat Lake. Thank you Hal for measuring twice, cutting once. Thank you Rose for making bottomless coffee your love language. Thank you Lucky for your innocent, unafraid, bare-naked butt. Thank you Dolores and Bobby and Leanne for being a trifecta of beautiful formidable women who inspire me to keep living at least until my thirties. Thank you Barbara for raising me all by yourself. Thank you Tamara for loving me, or at least loving the honest messes we’ve made together so far. Thank you Sodom Road Exit. Thank you land and lake and fucking hot humid air. Thank you fire and ash and skyward smoke.
Etta and I scream famously. We scream exhaustively. And then it is only me screaming my shrill and clumsy thank-you to every damn thing I can think of. My unsteady key reminds me just how mortal I am. Mortal and stupid and very, very lucky.
Tamara rushes toward me, open-armed beauty. Close behind her, Barbara runs as she shakes a Polaroid picture in her hand. Maybe this picture is proof that Etta’s gone. But I don’t need to see it. I already have all the proof I need.