Dead Silence

I do not know what to say anymore. No, that is not true. I have already said it.

I was in Washington DC this last week on a band trip. I was with 160 people whom I hate and maybe one or two I don't. The trip did not go as planned; we did not play on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We did not go to the National Archives. We spent all of ten minutes at Arlington. We did, however, spend ten or twenty minutes outside of the White House.

I stared at it for a long time. I blocked out the incessant chatter and turned night to day. I imagined that I was alone, there, on the foggy, rain-drenched afternoon of February 27, 2007. I looked to the West Wing and Oval Office and saw him there. I looked into the lighted rooms of the main building and saw him there. I looked at the dew-soaked lawn and saw him lying there. As the cruel hands of fate pulled me away from the gate, I whispered, ever so softly, "So long Mark."

And I thought then that I had found some sense of finality in those words. The word document in which I started the prologue of Martyrs is saved as so.long.mark.doc. I thought maybe that saying it to him would enable me to move on.

But obviously it didn't. Two nights later I was in the parking lot of a buffet in Northern Virginia. Out of sheer boredom, I turned to look up at the stars. I saw Orion. I remembered how, earlier that day when I had an obsessive-compulsive misanthropic attack, holding the flash drive in my white-knuckled hands was the only thing that really calmed me down. Staring at Orion, I knew that he wasn't gone, I wasn't over him.

At Dulles, when we were about to leave, I want to a gift shop called America! I wanted to buy a "Commander in Chief" travel mug, but I had spent too much souvenir money on a graphic adaptation of the Constitution. I spent minutes upon minutes agonizing. I looked up suddenly and saw the license plates with names on them. The panel happened to be turned to the M names. I saw Mark. I bought one without hesitation.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that Ralph and Mark's final parting is wrong. It needs to be different for Ralph, not just the same. Here it is revised. Take note of Ralph's final words to Mark.

Mark’s eyes filled with wet pity, “I am going to have to leave you now, Ralph.”

“No,” Ralph shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t leave me, sir, not now. I need you. I need this.” He gestured tightly in an effort to capture conversation with his hands.

 “You only think you need me, Ralph.”

 “No,” Ralph shook his head in a panic, “no!”

“You will be better off without me anyway. You will learn to be your own person again. You will undo all the damage I did,” Mark beamed at him with his sad hazel eyes and forced a teary smile. “You will learn to be whole again.”

“No,” Ralph shook his head while tears streamed down his cheeks. “You promised me that you wouldn’t just leave. You said that someday I would be able to go on without you, but you didn’t say that you would leave me before then, without any warning.” He plead, “I can’t do it, sir, not yet. I still need you. I still—”

“Oh, come, Ralph,” Mark smiled with a touch of the good-nature Ralph remembered. “Don’t be silly. Yes, you will hurt at first, but you will be able to get over the pain eventually. You will be just fine. No,” he shook his head with a broader smile, “I take that back. You will be better than fine. You will be happy again.”

Ralph stared at him with frightened black eyes. To Mark, he looked something like a puppy.

“Come,” Mark mustered the cheeriest tone he could, “let’s not part with tears.” He forced himself to stand up.

Ralph remained firmly planted on the floor, unable to get up. If he stood, then it was real; if he stood, Mark Adams was really going to leave him forever.

Mark extended his hand.

Ralph shut his eyes as Mark pulled him to his feet.

He opened them to the horrible reality of standing there, like that, about to say those words that he simply could not say. At the very least, he thought, Mark had not released his hand.

“Well, Ralph,” Mark was not smiling anymore, despite his words on how they should part.

Ralph was petrified.

Mark looked, for one last time, steadily into Ralph’s honest black eyes. He saw reflected the purity of his purpose, for once, but also his own sadness. He felt the hot wet tears on his pale cheeks. “Do not forget me, Ralph, but try to live without me. Be your own person again, and do not worry about what I would say.”

Ralph’s weeping blocked his entire respiratory system. He could scarcely speak. “Sir,” he managed to choke out, “I—”  He paused. He didn’t know what to say, not in the slightest. He wanted to thank him for everything, but that was not honest. He thought of other farewells, but none of them fit. There was nothing he could say, he realized, that could possibly explain the complexity of his feelings for this man. “So long, Mark,” he coughed and stuttered but somehow got the simple words out.

“Adieu, Ralph,” Mark forced a smile and squeezed Ralph’s hand tightly.

Ralph blinked to find his hand empty—to find that Mark Thomas Adams had passed out of his life forever.