I never meant to become a tragedy porn (star). Of course
I don't think anyone does, really. It just happens. The first bad thing.
Another. (And then another, if you're me, another after that.) How people turn
to look, and they are nice about it, how they slow down. But you can feel it,
the looking. It's human nature, after all. I have looked at a thousand
tragedies myself, still do. The meaningful squeeze of a shoulder, faces
crumpled in concern but also naked curiosity, relief. There's nothing wrong
with it.
And maybe I did this to myself. After all, I write about
it. Even when I sit down to write something funny, the sorrow spills out. Grief
unspooling like those black snake fireworks coiled and lazily roiling, a
sulfuric intumescent sadness that twists itself uncomfortably until it's just a
pile of ashen turd on the pavement. Yes, that's what it's like. Sodium
bicarbonate sadness in my belly.
Of course it's also like this: Alexa! I say. Play
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah by James Basket! And we dance in the kitchen, me, Bryan and
the kids, Ozzy so proud that he taught himself to whistle. My oh my, what a
wonderful day. I post happy photos on Instagram because I am happy. It is
summer. I go out to dinner with friends. My brother recently died of a drug
overdose, I am able to say now with what I think is a normal look on my face,
knowing that they are getting the wrong impression of my brother. He was not a
drug addict like that, I want to say but I don't, except I guess he was a drug
addict like that. I'm sorry, they say. Thank you, I say. Plenty of sunshine,
comin' my way...
I called the Medical Examiner's Office every few days to
see if the toxicology reports were done. I couldn't understand how Chris
Cornell's report took a week, but my brother's report would take over 12 weeks.
We finally got my brother's report on the day that Carrie Fisher's toxicology
reports were made public. Carrie Fisher had cocaine, methadone, ecstasy,
alcohol and opiates in her system, although cause of death was sleep apnea. WTF?
My brother's cause of death was listed as accidental, an acute hydrocodone,
carisprodol, meprobamate, and gabapentin intoxication. A bigger WTF, if you ask
me. I think I was hoping for something harder, like heroin, so I would know
that he was in deep. But maybe that is me being naive, not understanding yet
that an addiction to prescription pain meds, muscle relaxers and nerve blockers
are just as hard as heroin. I have ordered the full toxicology and autopsy
report, looking for answers that I know are not there. Sometimes I think if he
was going to die doing drugs he should have at least had more fun. Again, me
being naive, stupid, and I shouldn't think that.
Instead I think about how I look when I am crying while
driving home from work. Stopped in traffic on Valencia Street, I wonder if
anyone sees me. I put my hand to my face and feel dramatic. Then I think about
how we are all on stage now with social media, or maybe it's just how it is
being a girl, thinking about how you look even when you cry. That thought feels
very un-feminist, and I push it away. Analyzing the crying makes me stop crying,
but I try to squeeze out a few more small sobs because I can feel it in my
chest all tight and kinetic. More than likely it's that I feel as if I am in a
movie, that this is not my life, that this is not me driving down the street
trying to cry in my car because my brother is dead, because I don't have a
brother anymore, because I have no one to talk to about the smell of the rotten
plums from my childhood. I poke at my insides with these thoughts as if they are a sore in my mouth.
Alexa! Play Poop in My Fingernails! says Ozzy when I get
home, even though I asked him not to play that song. I take away his Alexa
privileges but not before I hear, I wipe really hard, and my toilet paper is
weak, sometimes I break right through and my fingernail is rubbing up against
my poopy butt-cheek... How long is too long to not get over your brother dying?
Oh, I know there is no right answer to that, and I know that even if there
were, I am only 3 months out, so not even close to a time limit that doesn't
exist. Still I feel like maybe I should get over it. Move on. Write about the
way my hair feels now that it's long enough to brush against the tops of my
shoulders, how Zoey is going to middle school next year. (!) I really don't want to be
anyone's tragedy porn, but here I am, making jokes because grief is
embarrassing, and because resting on it too long is annoying. Like the song says, you're
never gunna get it completely clean, poop in my fingernails, poop in my
fingernails. I grab Ozzy's hand and we dance, me hoping that him telling Alexa
to play that particular ditty was a non-sequitur, not a segue of action into
song.
xo,
S
Images of the incredible Chromatic Typewriter by artist Tyree Callahan, a conceptual art piece about the translation of art into words.
