A bird sings a lilting melody, serene and eternal. With my eyes closed, half asleep, I’m briefly fooled as to where I am. Maybe everything is okay. Maybe it was all a dream.
I awake, officially, and realize I’m facedown on a naked mattress in my ransacked bedroom, the sun bursting in. Waking up is harsh on most days. Today it’s especially cruel.
I take a moment to recalibrate. The bird outside my window is still singing. Sydney is still gone. I’m still here. Our house is in a shambles and that’s my fault. My head is in a shambles and that’s also my fault; the firemen quelled the fire but had no dominion over my thirst for cocktails.
It’s more bad news in the living room. The room is a shock and so is what’s happening outside my front window. There are three vans parked at the end of my driveway. On the sidewalk a half dozen people train long lenses directly at me. They wouldn’t have such a clear view into my home if the curtains were drawn. Unfortunately, the curtains can’t be drawn. I torched them.
I grab some towels to drape over the glass and take a seat on the couch, the only place left to sit in the living room, not counting the floor. The change in décor is drastic, to say the least. But somehow it feels appropriate; Syd always wanted us to declutter.
At some point my phone rings. I can’t say how long I’ve been sitting here pondering the mess; long enough to be startled by the sudden interruption of sound.
It’s a friend calling and I’m not sure I should answer. I pull the towel aside and take another peek at the media stakeout along my property line. Feeling outnumbered, I answer the phone: “Paige.”
“You’re alive,” she says.
“Unfortunately.”
The line goes silent. Maybe my joke was too macabre. My sense of funny has gone to shit.
“Listen,” Paige says, “you know I love seeing you on TV, but I prefer that it not be on the nightly news.”
She tells me my neighbor captured my impromptu bonfire from his window. Apparently he was more committed to getting the shot than saving me from peril. I’d like to say this behavior is strictly an L.A. thing, but the filmmaking bug is now a pandemic.
The footage may exist, but the night still feels unreal. Ditto the night before and the one before that. The days since I lost Syd have been less of an adjustment. I’ve always had stretches without work or auditions, times where I’m still in pajamas until late afternoon. But at night and on weekends, Syd and I were together. Now those are the parts of the week I dread most.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
It’s the single most popular question posed to me in the past few weeks. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? What about the house?”
“It smells like an ashtray, but it’s still standing.”
Turns out Ping-Pong balls are highly flammable. Who knew? Only the porch roof took a hit. The trucks arrived before the fire had a chance to spread inside.
“What happened?” Paige says.
“I don’t know.”
“It looked like you were burning furniture.”
“Just a few items.”
“Gavin…”
She doesn’t say more. What can she say? What can I say? Whatever revelry or relief I felt last night was stamped out long before the flames were. By the time I heard the sirens, I had regained enough clarity to search frantically for the fire extinguisher I assumed we had but couldn’t recall ever seeing. I was already asking myself over and over: What have I done? What the fuck have I done?
Whatever I did, I accomplished nothing. I dragged everything outside but still couldn’t empty the place. My phantom love lives on.
“Where are you right now?” Paige asks.
“Home.”
“I don’t think you should stay there.”
“Where would I go?”
“Can’t you crash with someone for a while?”
There’s nowhere to run. I realize, now, that this phantom love of mine isn’t a separate entity. He’s more like a limb after all. He’s part of me.
“You could come here,” Paige says.
“New Jersey?”
“Yeah, New Jersey. What’s wrong with that? When’s the last time you visited?”
I was born there, raised there, spent two-thirds of my life there. But since leaving, I’ve been back only once and that was many years ago.
“Maybe you just need to get out of L.A. for a while. You’re done filming, right? You should take a trip.”
“Maybe I’ll climb Everest.”
“I’m serious. We have a whole separate apartment downstairs. You can come and go as you please.”
“Thanks, Paige. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t blow me off.”
“I’m not.”
“We miss you, Ollie and I both. We should’ve checked in on you sooner.”
She and her husband flew out for the funeral last month. Before that, I hadn’t seen my old college friends in years.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I appreciate you calling.”
I hear voices through the window. I had already forgotten they were out there, the paparazzi or whoever they are. Some are dressed in plain clothes, some appear camera-ready. All of them confirm the fact that the fire was real and not a figment of my imagination.
“Will you think about it?” Paige says.
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
I’m not sure I believe in promises anymore, but I promise anyway and we say our good-byes.
I almost didn’t answer Paige’s call, but I’m glad I did. It’s so easy to forget that not everyone I see and hear is a phantom. Though at times it feels like I’m experiencing an extended hallucination, this is indeed real life and there are still real people out there with whom I have actual ties.
Paige and Ollie are the ones who set me up with Syd. Paige was Sydney’s childhood friend. I was Ollie’s college roommate. That rarely works, the wife’s friend dating the husband’s friend. But this time it made sense. Syd and I met out here in California as New Jersey transplants. We saw each other as new but also familiar.
But enough about that.
It’s time to see the backyard and assess the damage. I’m about to walk outside barefoot but I realize it’s too treacherous. After putting on my boots, I step over the downed porch roof and onto the patio. A ring of black-gray char surrounds the perimeter of the pit. Overall, though, it’s good news: three-quarters of what I hauled outside never reached the fire. Most of it remains intact, laid out on the grass and patio like for-sale items at a flea market.
It’s a surreal thing, greeting my interior life outdoors. Even more strange to see it all under a bright sun. The night had obscured the intimacy of what I was trying to burn. Now, in open daylight, it’s impossible to ignore my ties to these objects.
On the grass I find Syd’s duffel bag. I retrieved it last night from the back of our bedroom closet. When Syd passed, I stuffed a bunch of his belongings into the bag, just to get everything out of sight, and I haven’t opened it since. Until now. I kneel down and open it.
Most of the things, besides the framed photograph of his mother, which he kept on his nightstand, are toiletries and small personal items. There’s an electric toothbrush, a tube of Kiehl’s moisturizer, hair paste, his black horn-rimmed reading glasses, his wallet (still full of cash), and a few bottles of medications. There’s also his navy hoodie, the white strings bitten up and hardened. But it’s the item that’s sunk to the bottom of the bag that has my full attention. His electric shaver.
I open the soft black travel case and hold the razor in my hands, gripping the cold metal. The razor clicks on, its vibrations shooting up my arm. I turn it off and a rain of debris falls on my fingers. Tiny dark hairs.
I run my thumb over the serrated edge. A blackish residue clings to my skin. Like ash, something formerly human, formerly alive. I close my eyes and try to picture his chin, cheeks, face, that exact portion of him. I shouldn’t be doing it. It’s stupid and masochistic and indulgent. But what makes the act truly regrettable is that I can’t actually see his face, not entirely, not as clearly as I’m expecting. My imagination, not my memory, is doing most of the work.
But I wanted to forget, didn’t I? Last night, yes, I wanted to forget. Today, I’m not so sure. My memories of Sydney are finite. He and I will never build a new one. To burn what little remains in a burst of self-pity or despair or frustration feels now like a terrible mistake.
I’m not sure what to do next. There’s so much to clean up. It seems insurmountable.
I start with a simple task: Put the razor back in its case, the case back in the bag, zip the bag up. I wipe my hand on the grass and then on my shorts. The faint blackness remains. Some spit and a vigorous rub won’t remove it either. The stain keeps. Already, I’m exhausted.
Instead of rising to my feet, I stay in the overgrown grass, staring at the rear of the house. I picture myself walking back inside, having to exist within those walls, trapped there with my phantom love. Even worse, with all those eyes peering in, all the unwanted attention I’ve created.
Paige is right. I can’t stay here any longer.