"my son died
two months ago"
photos lean back on the arms that hold them up
littering the black and gold-flecked sofa table
could be anyone's family
but they are his
his sons
from two marriages
arm's around each other
"that one's the feisty one, can you tell?" he says, pointing toward the shorter blonde kid with the cocked head and the face-splitting grin
i can
but i don't say anything
"i made everyone get up and hug each other at the funeral
hugs are the only real energy passing between us
the only possibility of real change for us." he's talking
but his eyes are somewhere else.
i stand a few feet away from him, thinking about my own son, who
doesn't speak but
hugs like crazy
two days later
i'm standing in a garage
somewhere else
piling a life of boxes
one atop the other
"we knew each other then," he says
"yes, i had a baby on my hip," i answer
"i wouldn't have liked that." he says
he talks about his work, "...the only thing that matters..."
he says:
"i'm notorious for working twenty hour days"
he's smiling and laughing and pushing up glasses
"how are you holding up," i ask him,
he looks everywhere but at me, the dirty lexus parked in the garage, the pool, the back door, everywhere his eyes can find fixtures free of inquisition
and then he says it anyway
"well how can you be, under the circumstances, how can anyone be?" then he goes back to telling me stories about work
boys die
they die from all sorts of things
cancer
heroin
there's no second-guessing what today is going to look like
his mother stands in the tossed apartment
sweating
pushing back hair she probably hasn't washed in over a week
but why bother
somehow, she's beautiful anyway
in clothes, she pulled on without thought
"fine.
I'm fine."
she says
a moment later, she's not fine
it's not fine
he died
in his car
by himself
his
heart
s
t
o
p
p
e
d
.
and no one was there
it's west hollywood
i think
there are hundreds of people
walking dogs
going to the cafe on the corner
running in and out of apartments on the way to the goddamn gym
no one was there
she says
someone's dying next to me
every day
around the corner on the next block
upstairs
in rooms I've never seen but pass by
in cars and
in hospitals and
in arms
sons
sons of sons
the boy died
the father died
the son died
the mother died
and we're all running to our cars to go to the goddamn gym