The Sunday Paper: Ode Part 1 of 4, by Daniel Perry.
Martin
Reading Paul’s stories felt wrong, but we didn’t get a choice. The morning we found out, his mother pushed the green notebook toward us.
“Maybe we shouldn–” I started to say, but Molly lunged in front of me and took it. She buried her head in Gail’s shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.”
We climbed the stairs and entered Paul’s old room. The desk had been cleared for us, and his mementoes were piled neatly to the left: a few certificates, a framed photo of him and Molly graduating Teacher’s College, and on top, a small jade carving of a bird. Molly wrapped the statuette in her fingers. She brought it to her chest. A whimper escaped her lips and she replaced it, glaring at me, having caught me staring.
“It’s a nightingale,” she said. “I got it for him in China.”
She sat on the chair and set the book in the centre of the desk. She opened it and turned the pages sternly, determined to read them all in one sitting.
That was two days ago. Things haven’t changed much. After every reading we do of Paul’s eulogy, she returns to the desk and opens the cover.
Today, she whines when she reaches the end.
“Martin, you have to read it.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“You’re his oldest friend!”
I’ve known her forty-eight hours, and already, she’s yelling at me.
I keep my voice even.
“If he’d wanted me to read it, he’d have shown me.”
She snaps, “You’re a callous asshole, you know that?”
I sit heavily on the bed and it bounces beneath me. If I’ve learned anything about Molly, it’s that resisting is pointless. In a minute she’ll be beating her fists on the walls, her face turning blue. I reach out so she can thrust the book into my hand, and I open it in the middle, to a page that’s exxed over. The next one is missing. I flip until I find something I can read: a disorganized ramble about a boy who loves basketball, just like Paul did, and who, despite his big frame, is no good. (Just like Paul.) The hero misses the last shot of the finals but the team carries him off the court anyway. Perfect. The Rudy ending. But then, for some reason, there are two more pages, about tryouts the year after.
I skim through a story about Scout Camp next – I was there, I don’t need to relive it – and it’s followed by a bit about Molly. I skip this entirely. Paul was always gaga over girlfriends, and though she tells me they’d been together three years, I doubt that she was any different. This week’s the first I’ve heard of her. I guess it had been a while since I’d seen Paul.
Last, before the blank end pages, is a screed about Paul’s father’s affair. I read two long and emotional paragraphs and then I close the book. No one should see this. But at the desk, Molly pouts above her pink sweater. Her face is kind of ruddy, her lipstick’s too red, and her Betty Page cut and black dye-job scream poser.
We’ve been stopping and starting for two days now, arguing about which stories to tell, and which to leave out. Which ones best encapsulate Paul. She wants to use them all, and her expression is falling. She’s going to start crying again. Fuck. I re-open the book to the section about Scout Camp and I take a small notepad from my blazer. I don’t actually read but I scribble a few words.
As Molly looks on, almost smiling, I wonder what Paul The Writer would think. The truth is, I don’t know anymore. It’s already been eight years since we left our tiny hometown, Currie, for college in Waterloo. Paul studied English at the University Of, and I went for Business, at Laurier.
We expected we’d see each other all the time, at first: Thursday nights at Phil’s, the seedy student bar, and in carpools home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Slack Week. We even planned a trip to Europe after second year, though it fell through when his parents split up. We had barely talked since.
Two nights ago, Paul jumped off the Main Street Bridge and he drowned in the Waubnakee River. The muddy water’s not so far down, and though it’s deep, it’s docile. Head trauma, said the coroner. From the fall.
But we jumped all the time when we were kids, in winter, even, until our frosh year, when – drunk and home for Christmas – we set out to see who had gained more weight from caf food. The bridge is so low, there’s no way you can hurt yourself. Even when the water’s frozen. I went first, and I heard the cracking sounds the moment I landed. From above, Paul watched me high-tail it off the ice, his hand on the railing as he knelt in the snow, laughing. Really laughing.
Killing himself.
Had he died any other way, I’d tell this one tomorrow. It’s a perfect closer, too, I can hear it: “When his mother asked, ‘Well if Martin asked you to jump off a bridge with him…?’, my oldest friend, Paul Weaver, said ‘Yes.’ That’s how I’ll always remember him.”
We’ve got to get it right tomorrow. I understand. After death, a person lives on in his words. His story. But for an English major, Molly’s taking this awfully literally, just sitting there, staring out the window. I’d rather just get to the point. People are going to miss Paul, and it’s sad that he died. He was a great friend, once.
I cap my pen and put it in my pocket, and then I say her name.