“It’s okay. You just look once, say if you recognize him or not, and it’s over.”
He was way off. I had not laughed from anguish or lunacy, but rather because, putting my hands in my jacket pockets, I discovered I was carrying Lincoln’s pistol. A gun at the morgue! Who was there to shoot when everyone was already dead?
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine.” At another time I would have been very paranoid, but not now. I was in a morgue with a pistol in my pocket, about to be shown my dead son, who’d hanged himself earlier in the day purely because of me and my beloved wife. Thought of like that, a pistol didn’t mean much. His gun. My fault. His death. My fault.
“It’s here. This one. If you’ll just stand back a few feet, please.” There were rows of large drawers against the wall and it took an instant before I realized there were bodies in them. In the middle of the room were metal tables with drains at the bottom, but except for one, they were empty. We had stopped at the one.
There was a thin white sheet covering him. Underneath that sheet was our son, our crime, my dead Guardian Angel. The man pulled it down.
I didn’t want to see the face first. That would have been too much. As the sheet slipped down, I purposely looked at the middle of the body. He had such a small belly button. When he was young, tickle a finger into that belly button and he’d laugh, laugh, laugh. The arms were thin, the hands delicate. They were not yet a man’s hands, but would be soon. I thought of them moving, touching things. Pushing french fries into his mouth, cupping the back of his sister’s neck when he’d taught her to swim. My eyes ran up his arms to the narrow shoulders but stopped when they came to the red groove around his neck. The dividing line; a cruel red gash around his neck left by the rope. What was worse, the grayish-white skin on his face, the closed but protruding eyes, or the red cut around his neck?
“Mr. Fischer?”
“Yes? Oh yes, it’s my son. That’s Lincoln.”
“I’m afraid that although the cause is obvious, we’ll have to do an autopsy on him because of what we call ‘wrongful death.’ It’s required—”
“I understand.” I felt the gun in my pocket. It had grown warm since my hand had been on it. What would this man do if I suddenly pulled it out?
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what your rules are here, Doctor. Would it be possible to be alone with him a few minutes? Is that allowed?”
“Certainly. I’ll pull this curtain across too so you’ll have privacy.”
I hadn’t seen the curtain pushed back against the wall, but I was extraordinarily grateful to him for his kindness. He slid it over and quietly said he would be in the next room when I was finished. I thanked him and listened to his footsteps walking away. The door opened and swung shut with a small squeak. Lincoln and I were alone for the last time.
I felt my heart fill with a life full of words I wanted to say to him, all of them apologies, all accepting the blame for this waste and loss. I wanted to bow down to him… It became a confused mob of thoughts and emotions, but I didn’t want words anymore. I wanted to say goodbye some other way. The worst thing on him was the red gouge around his neck, so I lifted a hand and touched it. Touched the bloody swollen groove with two fingers, ran them slowly down the red line. Thought: I’m sorry. So sorry. I’m so sorry.
Until his head began to move.
Slowly at first, side to side. Was it? Was it really moving? Yes. Oh yes, it very much was moving! Faster, farther and farther side to side.
I looked and now there was nothing on his neck. It was clear, unblemished. No red cut, no death mark. It had disappeared. Just pale skin now. The pale skin of a young man.
When I came into the room he was dead. When I looked directly at him he was dead, his throat cut through by a rope. You know it the moment you see it; one look and there is no question about it. Dead.
Now no mark and he was smiling. Then it sounded like he, this corpse, my son, was clearing his throat. Hmm. Hmm. Ahem. Next there was no mistaking it. A laugh. His head rocked back and forth. Our dead boy laughing. His mouth opened and his tongue, his strangled tongue fat with dead man’s blood, burst out dry and obscenely large. His eyes opened. They were bulging.
Side to side. Laughing.
Terrified, I put the gun to his head, to his temple. It moved with his head from side to side. Side to side. His eyes, bloodshot but seeing me, focusing, were laughing too. The red mark was there again on his neck. The death mark. My fault.
He stopped moving. He tried to speak but couldn’t with that tongue. He closed his eyes, opened them again. They were normal size. Only the blue-gray skin was the same.
He looked at me. His lips were pale and dry, chapped. “What are you going to do, Dad, shoot a dead man?”
I tried to speak but could not. Could not pull the trigger either. My eyes started to blink fast. Tears. I tried to speak but could not.
“Pull the trigger, but it won’t work. Or maybe it will if you do it. I’m not allowed to. I gotta stay and take care of you.”
“Lincoln—”
“I hate this! I want to die! It’s no trick. I’m not playing any fucking games. I want to die! Pull the trigger, please! Maybe it’ll work.” He smiled again, unable to go on. The smile went away. “I’m so scared! I don’t want this. I just want to stop. I just want to go awaaaaay!”
I loved him so. My son. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know.” Closing his eyes, he rolled his head back and forth, back and forth. The blood-red belt across his neck. “They won’t let me go! What else am I supposed to do? I’m so scared!”
I slid my arm across his body. He grabbed it with his own and pulled it down to him, hugged it to him. My son. My poor beautiful son. I dropped the gun on the floor and climbed onto the table. I took my son in my arms, pulled him to me. My son. My fault.
“Hug me. Hug me tight.”
How long was I there? How long did I hold him, talk to him, try to reassure him I’d do what I could to make it right, to help, before I heard her voice? Lily.
“Max! What are you doing? Get off him! Stop it! Get off him. Oh God!”
Without realizing it, I had my head on his chest and was talking to him, telling him things. I don’t remember what things. First I heard her voice, then I understood it was hers, and only then could I lift my head and look at Lily. She was so near. How could I not have heard her come in? She stood so near with the curtain in her hand. Her other hand was on her mouth and she stared at me, disgust, pity, and hatred all together in one look.
“Get off him! Please, Max, get off!”
I was about to answer when I saw the girl over her shoulder. She must have been standing out in the hall and came into the room when she heard Lily yell. Seeing me on top of Lincoln, she raced over and grabbed me by the hair. I read her T-shirt. It said “Nine Inch Nails.” The same shirt she’d worn yesterday when Lincoln was alive. The same dirty pants and combat boots. The same white spiky hair and sixteen-year-old face. Little White.
She grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, screaming at me to get off! Get off! In that shrill, furious, sixteen-year-old girl’s voice.
I let her pull me. I let her take me off and away from Lincoln. I let her, because seeing her there then as she really was, as she had been all the time, I knew. Inside me she had forced a terrible eye to suddenly open and see the truth.
It was only then that I knew, or understood, or whatever the right word is. I knew this girl was sixteen and had always been sixteen. I knew that there were no angels. Knew that short hours ago I had been given one last chance to save my son but had lost it through my madness and excuses.
There was no place left for me.
How lucky Lincoln was to be dead.
And he was dead.
