Albany [Language]

When he said Albany, I froze up.
Albany; land of thunderstorms that light up the sky.
Albany; land of dreams that come crashing down.
Albany; land of 9 inches.
Albany; land of disappointment.
Albany; land of give or take five years.
Albany; city of New York where my long, lost high school love, Kevin, lived.
Albany; city of New York where my long, lost high school love, Kevin called me on the phone, one late night in January of 2001, and killed himself.
Steveo says we’ll go. And like the quiet person that I have become, I’ll follow…if, IF, I can stop at the cemetery. The boys look at each other and say, what the heck? Why the fuck not?
I haven’t been to this cemetery. I’ve been to too many in my short 298 years of life, but I have never seen Kevin’s grave. I didn’t go to his funeral. I was asked, but I couldn’t go. Too hard. He died on the phone with me. I wasn’t blamed, but I blame myself. I will always blame myself. Even after a couple of years of Kevin-based therapy;
I WILL ALWAYS BLAME MYSELF.
I get a heavy heart as Jesse turns the pathfinder into an old cemetery near downtown Albany. There is an iron overpass that spells out the name of the cemetery but I am too busy sitting in the car, getting car sick and running through my mind as to where Kevin’s grave is.
Take a right after the entrance, then a
left till you get to the very back of the
yard. Then, take another left. There
will be three trees and Kevin’s is next
to the third tree.
Jesse and Steveo are talking about helicopters and I slip out of the car; pack of Camel Wides and a brand new lighter…what good does a half fucking filled light do you?
It’s fucking dark.
Not scared or anything…but it is truly dark.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.
And then…there the headstone is. It’s simple. His name, his birthday and death day. And it says ‘loving son.’
My loving one, I think.
The ground is on its way to being frozen. I plop down. Don’t give a fuck about getting my pants wet. I would do anything for Kevin…well, almost anything. Apparently, I didn’t love him enough or do enough…five more years and I could have. I get close to his stone.
“Hi. Hey. Sorry, Kev…but I live here now. I’ll be down here more and I’m sure I should stop by Dowling Road and say hi to your mom…but another time. I live here now.” And I laugh. I laugh fucking hard. “Remember? Remember when you drew me a map of the US? And you put a picture of you up here in NY and then a picture of me in CO?” I laugh and then bite my lip as a tear fills my eyes up. “I’m here now, Kev. I’ll be here…every once in awhile…” I drift off. The sky is fucking clear. Stars, stars and more stars. “Hey! I can see my bull!” I point it out to him. It’s beautiful. Kevin was beautiful. “I gotta keep this short or the Army boys will be upset with me, but I have…just have…I have so much to say to you.”
Silence. There is no wind. There are no clouds. The car is quiet, even though I know that the boys are laughing about their Blackhawks inside…like they would understand. “I love you. I love you. I am tired of being on this Earth, Kev. Joining you seems like a beautiful thing to do. I gotta go. I never stopped.” I’m crying, of course. I get up, walk to the pathfinder and go to the concert.
I couldn’t get my words right so regret fullness fills my aptitude.
The opening band plays and I want to smoke. Steveo rolls his eyes and so I go outside of the venue. The nasty Hudson River is roaring. Things haven’t been going my way lately…I fucking miss the hell out of Billy. I sat out in the lobby and thought about all the fantastic times I had with him, what a wonderful person I thought he was and what an OK person I thought I was with him.
Valentine’s Day, the couch, his family, coffee, whispers, the bar, rugby, life beyond, the hospital, the cancer night…
The river looked better and better. Black raging like my soul…cliché as it sounds. Cold and quick. I would swing life away. I snuck three beers out in my coat, found a rock above the river and contemplated.
Contemplated.
He would win if I succumbed to his treating me like shit…right?
I just wanted to make it right.
That is all I wanted to do, was make it right.
I just wanted to…
“Say you’re sorry, right?” a voice asks me, in the middle of the river. I turn to look and Kevin smirks at me. I wipe the lone tears away and nod. “Not going to do any good, partygirl,” he says to me, using my one and only nickname he deemed. He sat down, lips blue in death , not the cold. I breathe in the smoke and offer him one. He takes it, not lighting it, though. “These things will kill ya,” he says before hacking up a great big laugh.
“Funny,” I say. Real funny.
“Look sweetie…it is much too soon for me to be seeing you again, you know? I mean, jumping into the fucking Hudson? You ARE out of your mind,” he says. I nod.
“Can’t that be the case, though, Kev? Maybe I am out of my mind.” He shakes his head.
“Naw…your mind and heart got all confused.”
“I just don’t see what my purpose here is. And…” I pause, “if heaven is so fucking great and everything is better there, what is the fucking point of stopping death? Why not just speed up the process…right?” He leans into me. He’s dead but I sweat I can smell his Old Spice and Marlboros.
“It isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. I miss things.”
“I miss you,” I mutter. I have forgotten Kevin in the wake of being sick, getting my heart stolen and being replaced by Blackhawks. I used to think of him every day, especially after he killed himself. Every single dat. But, time heals all.
“Time heals all,” he speaks, reading my mind. I guess that is one perk of being omnipresent. “You are going to use that line you always use in your poems right about now: Time heals all. You wish time would hurry the fuck up.” I nod then cry. Solid tears in a steady stream. He allows me to do so and I would have hugged him if I could’ve. His shoulder to cry on…I shake my head in disbelief. “I’m not going to lie, partygirl. This won’t be the last time you cry about Bill. Nope. And it isn’t going to be easy like the rest. But if you know that, then maybe you’ll stand up on your own two feet for once, instead of looking to others to help you walk.”
“So what the fuck do I do, Kev? What the fuck?” I say softly but loud enough to be heard over the Hudson. “What the fuck do I do?” He looks at me with those Irish green eyes and his half cocked smile.
“I’m not God, baby. I don’t know what you should do. I can’t see into the future. What I know is that I loved you so much through your fucking tough ass times. He didn’t. You have every right to be sad…” he spoke, the volume of his voice trailing. “Don’t let him get the best of you.”
“But he got all of me. That is the problem, Kev. All of me. Everything I own inside of this pitiful body, I gave to Billy.”
“He didn’t deserve it.” Why can’t I ever see that common suggestion? “Look, I’m here to tell you I love you. Your friends fucking love you. You have tomorrow to look forward to,” he sighs. “His memory will fade. Not soon enough, but soon. After all…it worked in your favor when it came to me, right?” he asks smiling. I nod, reluctantly, but guiltily.
Time.
Time.
Time.
Time.
“I swear I’ll come visit you more often,” I say. His light is fading, the music dimming. “I will.” He pulls his smirk out of somewhere and say sot me the long last words he ever spoke to me in my life…
“I got you, you got me…we’re stuck in this together, foreva.” He bops me on the head, stands up and turns his back.
“Thanks, Kev,” I say. “Thank you for appearing.” He turns back around to me, lips still fucking blue.
“Get over it, partygirl. Move on. It’s tough. I know it can hurt you, baby…but give a little try. You have to live for everything you are, no matter what asshole says you aint worth it.” He turns around again, towards the seriously inky sky and walks away. My ghost.
My love.
My snowboarding hero.
MY leave off the ‘r’ when saying forever.
My mistake.
My vice.
Albany.