Johanna

    I hit a deer with my car a few months back. My girlfriend at the time was sitting in the passenger seat next to me. Her name was Johanna. I guess that still is her name, since she is technically still alive and all. At this point, it doesn’t really matter either way. I’ll get to that in a minute, though. First let me tell you this story, because I feel like it’s kind of important.
    We used to go on drives all the time. Not for any real reason. Just to feel like there was some kind of actual momentum towards some kind of destination. It was just to mix things up. Do something other than sit around watching Battlestar Galactica reruns on the Sci-Fi channel.
    It was late afternoon, getting close to evening. We found ourselves on a lonely dirt road called Old Sawmill Drive. There were still streams of sunlight leaking in through the trees, which towered over the car on both sides, shutting out the sirens and car horns that dominated the surrounding roads. There were numerous potholes punctured in the dirt below, scattered every which way. It had just rained the night before, and they were all filled with muddy water. I had my foot pressed down hard on the accelerator, so all the water would splash up through the open windows whenever one of the tires rolled over a puddle. Johanna was yelling at me to knock it off. I couldn’t stop laughing.
    See, when a deer runs out into the road, you’re supposed to stop, even if it’s all the way across by the time you get there. What people don’t realize is that more often than not, additional deer are following close behind. I know this, but I didn’t think about it at the time. I saw the thing run across, and I didn’t bother to slow down. Then, this little fawn ran right out in front of the car. Please don’t think of me as a merciless animal killer. I swear to God I had no time whatsoever to react. I heard its hind legs smack against the front bumper, and then it hit the ground and kind of rolled like a bowling ball to the other side of the road. I pulled over, solely with the intention of checking for damage to the car. When I opened the door and stepped out, the only thing I could hear was this scratching sound, complimented by the otherwise dead silence. I looked over and saw the deer I just hit lying on the ground, trying to pull itself along with its front legs. I can’t quite find the words to describe the sound it was making. It was like it was trying to scream, but didn’t have enough air in its lungs, so all you could hear was this raspy wheezing. It tried to lift itself up, only to stumble and fall back onto the wet ground. It tried this a few more times. I heard that when hunters shoot a deer, and it doesn’t die right away, you’re supposed to kill it, quick and easy, so it doesn’t suffer too long. I’ve never held a gun in my life. I don’t know anything about that. So instead, I did nothing at all. I stood there and watched this deer try over and over again to lift itself out of the mud, whimpering the entire time. Finally, it just gave up, and collapsed into the mud, trembling like a child with a fever. Its black eyes, full of tears, stared blankly off into the trees. It was still shaking when I sat back down in the drivers’ seat of the car, turned the key in the ignition, and drove straight back home. I didn’t check for dents or anything.
    Johanna didn’t say a word for the rest of the ride. In fact, she was pretty quiet for the short remainder of the relationship. Except for what was necessary, she didn’t really say anything at all. I guess I probably felt the breakup coming. Silence like that is pretty hard to ignore.
    But that’s not the case anymore. Now she's screaming. Screaming like a dying animal. I'm sitting in her closet, listening to it. Don't ask me how I got here. It's a long story and I don't feel like explaining. Maybe that’s not the truth, though. Maybe this is actually separate from everything else, and this event won't be remembered and it will have no actual influence whatsoever on everything I think and feel afterwards. All of this is just a literal manifestation of all the anxiety and suffering I’ve felt as a result of my loss. That would be nice.
    But that's not it, either. Everything I am telling you is more real than I could ever want it to be. I've been in this closet before, as well as the room attached to it. All these clothes hanging over me I've seen and smelled a million times. But not in the way they are now. They're all standing together, facing me like the front line in an army of clones. A million different versions of the same flawed spirit I would be more than happy to forget. I have a hard time believing these terrible screams and moans bleeding in through the closet door could belong to the same one. It’s all dead energy, escaping the body, as it becomes a corpse.
    I'm leaning up against a dresser that I helped her carry back in here not too long ago. It keeps rocking back and forth, hitting the wall behind it. Unfortunately, all these things surrounding me, shaking and rattling and smacking, can’t block out the sound of her screams. How long do you suppose one can put up with this? I need a distraction. This dresser may contain something interesting, but what happens if I come across a piece of underwear that played a part in some long-repressed memory? My stomach would drop through the floor. Oh for Christ' sake, now he's making noise.
    Go figure; this top drawer doesn’t contain any clothes. Instead, it’s entirely filled with scraps of paper: notes and letters and whatnot from school friends and relatives. Nothing from me, though. I kind of wish there was, just on the off chance that she might dig through here sometime in the next few days and feel the same nostalgia that constantly torments me. Maybe even decide to give me a call.
    We used to write emails to each other all the time. Yes, instant messages too. We were and are both casualties of the digital age. Email is a lot different than talking on the phone, because you have time to organize all your thoughts and make it sound exactly the way you want it to. But it’s really just a gimmick. I know she would spend just as much time as me trying to make her statements sound as authentic and unscripted as possible. I still have all of her messages stored in my inbox.
    I found this letter in an abandoned house one time. She and I always made a point of visiting old, run-down buildings. At first, it was the fear element. I never have believed in ghosts, but I do believe in perverts and crack addicts. We got such a rush out of sneaking into these places with nothing but flashlights, having no idea what was going to be beyond the next doorway. After a while, the fear was replaced by mere interest. There really is so much life and beauty inside of these places that goes unnoticed. An old stack of newspapers, dating back to the fifties. A large, bronze picture frame that holds the black-and-white smiling faces of a family of six. In a way, these things were ghosts. The rusted pipes, the creaking stairs, the broken mirrors, the moldy handrails. And of course, there was the mark left by the squatters and the delinquents. Graffiti, broken beer bottles, used condoms. I almost pricked myself with a syringe on one occasion. I also remember reading a William Butler Yeats quote scribbled on a brick wall, but God knows what it said. Anyway, I found this letter underneath a pile of old clothes on the third floor of a really big, Victorian-style home. It was dark, so I had to use a flashlight to open the envelope. It was addressed to Chester County Farms Prison, and had already been mailed. The letter was short, and was written with a broken typewriter. This is what it said:

I Thought I’d write you to see how you are. Don’t worry you will be out soon. Just keep your head up. God will see you through. I miss seeing you and how you make me laugh. This town isn’t the same without you. I not going to make this a long letter. I just wanted you to know that I care about you. Hurry up get out soon. God Bless.

    It pissed me the hell off, and I’ll tell you why. Whoever was supposed to be the recipient of this letter never even read it once. However, the outside of the envelope had phone numbers and shit written all over it, like the person who received it was just using it for scratch paper.
    Since we broke up, Johanna’s changed her email address. I know this because all my messages started getting sent back to me after the tenth or eleventh one. So, I guess all those letters I wrote to her are thrown away. Deleted. My small understanding of how the internet works tells me that web space is kind of like matter and energy: it gets recycled. It cannot be created, nor destroyed. So that little bit of room that those emails were taking up is probably now being used for some fetish porn site somewhere. Like scratch paper.
    I’ve dug through these drawers and memories long enough. It’s time to face reality. How am I supposed to get out of here? Do I wait until they’re finished and quietly walk down the stairs and leave through the back door? That would not be considered cowardly, because it would be less shameful to interrupt them and leave right now than to sit through the remainder of this single, epic orgasm.
    I know this wasn’t going on when she and I were dating. She never cheated, and that’s the truth. That isn’t some stupid thing I made up through denial. If I wanted to define a single, distinct cause of the relationship’s downfall, I wouldn’t be able to. Except for maybe the deer. I guess that would make the most sense. That’s about as fast as it all happened, and that’s the reason I told the story. God, I wish the noise would stop.
    He is getting joy out of torturing us both. Killing us both. Perhaps if I take a peak out of this closet, and make eye contact with her, I could connect just one last time before both our souls are dead. Let me just push the door open, just enough so I can look through with one eye. I can't see her. His pale, naked, impure body is standing in the way. Yes...standing. Her screams are coming from the other side. I am quite sure this is the end for her. And I will die too, once it is all over.
    The screaming finally stops! And now he collapses onto the bed. I can see her face clearly. She is defeated. She loosens her body and lets out one last breath, her life ending. I can’t stand the sight of this. I’ll just bury my face in these clothes behind me and breathe in their scent that I know all too well. Her legacy, perhaps. Her last unchangeable piece of life that I can still keep to myself, as it should be.

    I remember this Christmas party at her house a few years back. Both our families were there. My dad and her dad were having a conversation, and so were our moms. Our younger siblings were lying belly-down on the carpet, watching the TV. It was a pretty classic situation. What you would expect. Everyone was sitting around in their Christmas sweaters, sipping eggnog, talking about the lady's son down the street who was fortunate enough to get into Princeton or some other goddamn “ivy-league” school. The Christmas tree was standing shamefully in the middle of the room, only half-decorated. Everyone got too drunk, sat down and forgot about it. I figure Johanna's father ended up finishing it up after my family went home and everyone else went to bed.
    The music from the eight-track machine was blaring. And the laughter was probably even louder. However, in my silent observation of this whole scene, I heard the family dog in the next room, barking. The barking was long and constant. I have no idea what it wanted. Maybe food, or maybe it had to piss. But the truth is that it wanted something. It needed something. No one could hear it, because it was suffocated in all the noise and commotion of this small, drunken get-together. After a little while, I shook my head and ignored the barking, bringing myself back to the conversation at hand.
    Everyone else was still having a great time, smiling at each other. I looked across the room, and saw Johanna, smiling at me. I think she might have winked. Oh, how I resent that face today. I resent all of them and all their joy and contentment so much. I hope their smiles leave scars in the face of the earth.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is
-William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium