Daniel Lurie

27 Club

I.                

In late August, I was sitting on the wet bricks

outside the house in Virginia,

watching my neighbors scream at each other

again in the middle of the street.

Thought about calling the cops,

but didn’t. Turned the TV up that night

while watching a movie with my sisters

so they didn’t ask if that was gun shots

or fireworks. Our mother was in the hospital down the road,

hooked up to the machine she called a Christmas tree.

A few days later, I lay next to her

in a rollaway bed listening to the rattle,

to the PCA, which I imagined was moths

beating their bodies against the plastic cage.

After Ivy’s bike was stolen,

I bought a baseball bat

for my sisters and showed them how to bolt

the rotted fences in the backyard shut.

I started smoking cigarettes to have something

to do with my hands.

As I filled out paperwork

and answered calls at the hospital,

the palliative staff in white coats told me

I was too young to handle this type of grief.

But I knew the rules of grieving.

II.              

There’s a reason why there’s no recent photographs of my mother.

She was always behind a camera.

I had to ask her to stage me.

I realized I felt awkward when I hugged people, so I looked up guides

online to see where my hands should be.

I searched for videos of people smoking,

watched them absentmindedly flick ash, 

without making eye contact with the cigarette. It was hot.

After my best friend, M’s dad kills himself,

I fly to Jacksonville for the funeral. The pastor

isn’t what I imagine. He’s dressed in a polo,

slacks, has tattooed arms like tree trunks. He says the deceased

isn’t with the family, isn’t watching over them,

that he’s too busy flying around a god seated on a throne,

over, and over, for all eternity.

This is supposed to be comforting for the family.

After the service, there’s bottles of whiskey,

bottles of tequila, racks of beer. A wedding video

from the 90s plays in the background.

M and I talk to our friend Bobby about running

out of time. M pats his pocket, says he’s got his trusty white Bic.

Bobby hits his arm. She says for her 27th birthday

she wants everyone to masquerade

as someone from the club. Says she’ll be Amy Winehouse,

of course, looking down at the likeness etched

into her skin. M, with his dirty blonde hair

says he’ll be Kurt Cobain.

III.            

I’m running out of time. My youngest sister, Sasha, texts me

from Las Vegas to ask if I heard about the actor that died

in a motorcycle accident. We grew up watching him

in all our favorite television shows. A news article says he was only 27.

He was the same age as me, I text back.

I know I have a habit when my sisters make excuses

for me smoking, so I quit, cold turkey.

I thought I wanted to die,

but I want to make another Thanksgiving.

After living most of their lives with their legs dangling,

I’ve finally found my sisters a home in the Palouse.

Here, they can smile at strangers.

Last week, Dana showed me how to ask for help

by cradling an outward fist

in her cupped hand.

I wanted to ask her how to sign regret.

When I leave my sisters’ apartment, I hear them singing

loudly and off-key. I break

into my mother’s email

to retrieve the Netflix password.

A subject line catches my attention:

Jennifer, What Brings You Alive? It’s from an art newsletter

she signed up for. This grief is the smallest

robin’s egg, nestled in my hands.

If I’m good at something, it’s grieving

us all back to life. The trees, the river,

the ravens, they all make a sound.

I’m here. I am here.

Can you hear me?