Raymond

1.

In the dream, you are stuck in a hotel, waiting as you had waited in all those jail cells. The hotel has greying patterned carpet, peeling paint, and wallpaper. Obtuse scenes of birds of paradise or Bo Peeps with their cunning sheep. You polish white sneakers with an old toothbrush and line them up neatly underneath the bed.

You hear distant laughter around corners, from a further room, echoing from different halls, crystal glasses clinking delicately in lamplight. But you can never find them, the secret revelers. You never see anyone.

2.

Perhaps, sitting in the faded lobby staring at an old landscape painting you could burn with no regrets, you become all of our wishes for you—your real friends, your neglectful family—all of our wishes for you when you were alive realize themselves here.

Perhaps, at dusk with dust motes sparking heroic in the dying light, you round a corner and there is a lone door open among the endless line of doors in this bare but not unfriendly hallway. There is sunlight coming in through a window somewhere, and you have to walk through the dust, twinkling like a million tiny stars, to enter this room. And you are not afraid, even though no doors have opened before.

You pass through not even wondering what could be on the other side because when you're dead, what use is there to wonder anymore?

There is only one chair, a lamp, and a desk in the room. The desk contains a sketchbook, pens, markers, a notepad, envelopes—everything you need to write or draw us a message—the ones you left behind, things that will find us in our dreams. Do you see it? Have you found this room? Has the sun gone down, and have you turned on the brave light? Are you lonely?

Are you lonely?

Are you lonely?

3.

All the years flowing backward from now to those distant days—you, me, and B—on the roof with our whiskey and all that smoke, sending everything up to heaven. Gone. All of us wait now like you, but not with you.

Faded, inaccurate memories of you float up and out of me: jail cell letters, conversations drunk out of our minds, doped up until kingdom come.

You wait alone, knowing it may be a while before we come. All of us struggle, even when we are not thinking of you. We struggle towards you, hoping to find you at last.

4.

Will I always be afraid of the dark because of you? Always watching doorways?

The monster of my life, dead. And I am not free. I can't see a way past you to myself. Angry and weak, I am afraid.

I shouldn't complain. It's incredibly selfish to complain because I'm here and you're stuck inside your death waiting for everyone to be with you, and it'll be so long until anyone comes.

It will be a long while before I see you again, and I am afraid.

I am afraid.

I am afraid.

5.

It's nearing dusk as the Pittsburgh/Bay Point train heads into MacArthur Station.

I write in my journal and pretend I'm talking to you. So many years battling each other, ignoring each other—I didn't say hi the last time I saw you—just normal, and then you died. And now you're the only person I talk to.

Now that you're gone, finally, finally, lean in close so I can tell you something—remember, like secrets when we were kids?—you loved my writing. I loved your art. I hated your music. You hated mine. We were so cruel to each other! Do you remember that?

We never thought we would die.

6.

Do you see us waiting for you? All of us, bewildered and grasping. You, searching for loving hands and finding them. Hands and faces. Hands and faces.

Do you see my face?

I am so ashamed.

Wherever you are, I hope you hear this.

I love you. I love you. I love you.