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Story by Jeffery Carl Jeffersis

 

It was nice. Without question, it was. All hands were down, squashing the topic. About it, there was no doubt. None remaining whatsoever. It . . . was . . . nice.

Tom was thirty-four-years-old. He was a financial adviser to persons of much greater financial means than himself. And he looked much younger than thirty-four-years-old. That's why, perhaps, the elderly usher, obviously a volunteer, greeted him at the front door with a compliment regarding the pleasure of seeing a young man dressed in a suit, a dark suit. Tom accepted the compliment as though it had meant something. He accepted the compliment despite understanding that he was not nearly the young man that the usher had taken him for, and despite understanding that the usher was several generations removed from the young generation whose tastes in casual clothing he found obviously deplorable.

It was nice though, that much was clear. Everyone agreed. They agreed in various spats of unison. Heck, even Tom agreed, or, at the very least, he had found himself nodding in agreement each and every time he heard some blank face announce with sincerity, that it was nice.

Having not noticed him at the service, I walked quickly to the door to greet Tom. I had not seen him in several years, close to five, in fact. But the upside to his youthful look was that Tom's appearance had remained generally the same for nearly two decades.

We shook hands and I smiled. Tom did not smile. I stopped smiling instantly.

"So, umm," I felt doomed by my desire to break the silence, "the service, it was, you know . . ."

"You still smoke," Tom asked, finally making eye contact with me. I did not still smoke. I had never smoked, in fact, and Tom was certainly aware of that, having been one of my two best friends and all. Nevertheless, I was eternally grateful that he had prevented me from completing my thought.

"Sure do," I responded without hesitation. "Can I bum one?"

At first, Tom turned back toward the front door. Seeing the line of people entering, however, or perhaps just the elderly usher who had greeted him pleasantly, Tom opted to walk past me to the corner of the reception hall. I did not notice the glowing red "Exit" sign until we were several feet from passing underneath it.

The alley behind the bland, brick building was shockingly clean. Not a puddle, pothole, or piece of trash littered the area. There was, nonetheless, a dumpster. It appeared new and ill-equipped to pollute the air. At the same time, it did help add to the sense of returning to the age of high school, and sneaking away from class and all the squares in it to rebel with sticks of nicotine.

Tom expertly tossed a cigarette into his mouth and snapped his Zippo lighter into flame. I reached my hand out, attempting to maintain my charade, but Tom ignored it entirely. Apparently, Tom had simply wished me to accompany him away from the gathering of tears and cliché sentiments polluting the air inside.

"Did you see him," Tom asked in a nasally voice, suppressing the first inhale in his lungs. "You go to the viewing?" Tom exhaled several miniature clouds of frustration and smoke.

I had not seen Tom in several years, nearly five, in fact, because he had left. He had not moved away. That would have required effort, or planning, or packing. He had simply left, leaving all things behind, including myself and Sammy.

"No," I answered honestly. "I mean, I did go, I just didn't look, you know?"

I remember in exceptional detail being pushed toward the casket by my mother when I was nine-years to "view" my grandfather. I can still see his face at the snap of my memory's fingers. Still. Lifeless. Colorless. His eyes closed, but not in a manner that suggested in anyway that he was enjoying natural, peaceful sleep. I remain determined to never "view" again, for it seems an image I would only see during moods in the dark.

"I know," Tom replied softly, just before taking a drag so hearty that it burned one-third of the thin paper encapsulating the dehydrated tobacco. "Did it hurt?"

Sammy had never benefited from luck. I met Sammy in the first grade, when I was seven-years-old. Actually, I met Sammy at the same instant when I had met Tom. We had been grouped together in homeroom. And that was that. Things just clicked. Or, perhaps, the three of us were so young that we didn't know any better. Best friends are much easier to come by when you're untainted by thought or reality.

Sammy broke both of his legs sixty-seven minutes after the three of us had bonded. Several springs on the trampoline in gym class broke loose as he prepared to show off his patented Sammy back flip.

"No, I don't think it did."

We, and by that I mean the three of us, had all went away to our respective colleges. We maintained contact, though a bit estranged at times. But that did not matter. When we were home, at home together, we were at home.

On some level, that is the reason, perhaps, that the three of us all returned after graduation to find jobs and start lives, together. And that is the reason, almost certainly, that Tom had simply left, overnight.

We were at Blue Beard's, a mainstay lounge and bar throughout our lives as young adults. Sammy had asked Tom and I to meet him for drinks. To celebrate. To celebrate the good news. The source of the good news was a complete mystery to Tom and I. And it remained an even larger mystery after hearing it.

"I have a rare form of blood cancer," Sammy told us, several hours after delighting us with jokes and stories.

And that was the thing about Sammy. No matter how many times misfortune slapped him in the face, punched him in the stomach, or broke both of his legs, through no fault of his own, he was funny. He was fun. He was the epitome of happy-go-lucky happy-gone-lucky and beyond to even happier, no matter how unlucky.

Reflecting back on it now, I see that Sammy was the source. He was the bond. He, by himself, connected the three of us and ensured our hold. Reflecting back on that now, I understand why Tom felt that he had to leave, simply. The inevitable outcome of things was not worth witnessing, much like my grandfather's still, lifeless, colorless face.

"Those people in there." I believed that those words represented the extent of Tom's thought, but I was wrong. "Those people in there, they just don't know."

I disagreed with Tom, entirely. But I did not say as much. I understood his sentiment, but did not believe it just. Sammy was not and had never been capable of hiding himself. He dawned no veil. He offered no curtain to lift. He had no facade through which to break. He exuded joy. Or he had exuded joy, I suppose. His personality, his zest, his liveliness, could not be squashed or suppressed. He was more of a person than anyone I had ever known.

"I knew it would happen, you know?" I am not one much for irony or signs of fate. Nevertheless, I was, and still am, certain that I witnessed the only tear courageous enough to escape from Tom's eyes fall from his face and land on the tip of his cigarette, partially extinguishing it. "I just never, not like that, you know? That kid was all heart, and his blood killed him."

As Tom wiped his cheeks, I understood what he was thinking. I both understood his emotion and, at the same time, understood that he had not heard.

"Tom," I said deliberately, "the cancer didn't kill Sammy. He was in a car accident. Actually, we both were. I was driving."

"What?" As Tom blinked his eyes dry, my suspicions were confirmed.

"It wasn't my fault," I said defensively. "A truck blew out a tire, smashed right into the side of my car, the passenger's side." I considered how hearing the news might be affecting Tom. "Of all the luck, right?" Tom was the only other person in the world, besides myself, that could appreciate the sentiment.

"But, what?"

Despite how much time had passed, I still found it odd, seeing the forever cool Tom so caught off guard. So stunned. So awkwardly affected.

"Then how? You were there?"

I could tell from Tom's rambling of questions that his rambling of questions only represented a small proportion of the questions rambling in his mind.

"Internal bleeding," I answered truthfully. "That's what the doctors told me at the hospital." Having had time to come to terms with the events, I was a bit shaken by the grief beginning to flow through my veins. Each pump of my heart seemed to up the ante.

"I guess I saw him last, at least among the people here." It was the first time that I had made such a realization. "I guess, actually, I heard his last words. His last words not heard by strangers in white coats."

Tom's attention was speared, hooked, snagged, trapped, and snared. My heart skipped a beat in response to Tom's reaction.

"Well, what?" Tom, once again, wiped the corners of his eyes with the sleeves of his suit, his dark suit. "What did he say?"

"Oh, umm." I had been previously certain that I would never forget what Sammy had said. But, under the circumstances, being pressed and all, my mind went blank.

"What did he say," Tom asked again, making an interrogation of things. "What happened?"

"Umm, they put Sammy on a stretcher at the emergency room." I had never told the story before. I did not know the words. "And, I don't know, the last thing I saw, they were wheeling him away. I saw a doctor put his head on Sammy's chest, listening for a heartbeat or something, I guess. And he started asking Sammy questions. A bunch of medical questions."

I stopped talking. I was trying to digest all that I had just revealed, for the first time. I was cluttered.

"And?" Tom lit another cigarette, only because he had nothing better to do while in wait, I suspect. Leaning on me for information, he finally offered me one. I accepted the gesture, placed the cigarette in my mouth, and amateurishly sucked on the tip as Tom held the enflamed Zippo lighter in front of me. Only the bottom half of my cigarette was lit, causing me to have to inhale good and long, with only minimal success.

"And," Tom finally asked again, confident that he then deserved a response.

"The last question I heard the doctor ask him," I started, pausing to cough, "have you ever cracked any ribs?"

Tom looked thoroughly disappointed. I do not know what he had expected to hear. At that point, I imagined that Tom would have preferred that Sammy had died the painful death anticipated by his diagnosed infliction

"And Sammy said," I continued, "Well, I kicked a mule in the gut this one time. Think I got 'em pretty good."

Tom snorted. Or at least he made a snorting sound. And what began as a snort, transitioned into a smile. Then into a chuckle.

Never having relived the story, Sammy's finale, I had not stopped to consider it myself. Telling it to Tom, a best friend and a stranger, I could finally see it. I could finally see that Sammy had gone out on his own terms, largely because he had maintained his own terms while going out. He had been funny. He had been fun. He had been the epitome of happy-go-lucky happy-gone-lucky and beyond to even happier, no matter how unlucky. I even convinced myself that I had remembered the emergency room nurse giggling at his response.

In turn, Tom and I shared a glance. We shared a smile. We shared a recognition of things. A recognition that a life too soon ended had been well ended, whatever the case. And we accepted Sammy's last words. In other words . . .

We laughed, Tom and I. We laughed good and long. We laughed hard till it hurt. We laughed till we cried, one thousand tears.

Carl Jeffersis © 2010

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Jeffrey Carl Jefferis is a thirty-year-old Francophile who sacrificed his travels to act as caretaker for his aging parents, Carl and Kathy. He would like to express his gratitude to Kyra Knoll and Quo Vadis Cobb for their wealth of experience and encouragement which have inspired him to continue writing, even if not to change his clothes.