Nine years ago today, the first of November, I was home alone when I heard the knock on the door, after which nothing would ever be the same. They found his body in Willow Creek, east of the Parks Highway, the road to Denali. Possibly he had been there since the day before. Dia de los Muertos. When was the universe ever this fucking literal?
After a few days passed–in a grief-stunned blur–one of the concrete chores was to retrieve his truck from the impound lot. I suppose I hoped the truck would reveal some clue to the mystery of his death, but that would not prove to be the case.
The truck bed was partially filled with snow, a few cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon frozen in place, scraps of lumber, the crutches that he had needed until recently. His last text to me weeks earlier, saved of course, reads “I think I snapped my ankle skateboarding. Can you take me to the emergency room?” Later we found out he had not been skateboarding, but had jumped off the roof of his friend’s house. Somewhere there’s a video of him leaping off a rock outcropping into a steep slope of soft snow. He emerges unscathed and speaks directly into the camera: “I recommend it, dude.” Heights, including earth, for example, were just things from which to launch himself.
That his truck was a mess was no surprise. What was surprising was the clutch was shot. I had to nurse it back to Anchorage, with no real expectation of making it home.
The decision was made to sell it rather than replace the clutch. I emptied the truck out, fully conscious that every object it contained was something touched by him.
I scraped up the greasy coins. That was one bag.
The cigarette butts, another.
And finally the guitar picks, which I added to the other guitar picks littered around the house. When he walked guitar picks scattered in his wake.
The last PBR.
We moved out of that house he off-and-on shared with us a few months after he was gone. Sometimes when I was in Anchorage painful memories were fixed to particular places, the corner of Arctic and Tudor, to name one stop on a private map of grief. I travelled through the city carefully. And now we’ve left Alaska.
Nine years gone. Dia de los Muertos. Don’t worry, Macklin, we’re never letting go.
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