deepundergroundpoetry.com

Marshall

1.. Marshall suffers from an abundance of logic. He's a miserably logical individual- but he doesn't act like it.
2. Dogs are preternaturally attracted to Marshalll; it's like he's covered in ham.
My ex-boyfriend's Lab loved Marshall so much she jumped through the passenger window of his Miata to greet him. Not an easy feat for an obese canine.
3. Marshall likes super feminine women. Maybe because he's not very masculine.
4. Marshall was never attracted to me, but then he dismissed Cindy Crawford as not that hot. "Not curvy enough" he complained.
5. Marshall was a fat, nerdy kid. He killed that hated boy with daily body building sessions, starting at the ivy league college he dropped out of one credit short of graduating.
6. Marshall spends hours perusing body building magazines in coffee shops. He likes my food comments about the hulking, oily men: That one's arms look like challahs. That one looks like he's made of of brisket.
7. Marshall and I never had sex so we weren't having an affair. But really, we were.

I hate questions like 'If you could have lunch with any person, living or dead, who would it be? The inquiry makes me picture my dead loved ones all lined up like shelter dogs, waiting to be chosen. Can the question be changed to a party instead of lunch? That would work. But, jeez, it's just a hypothetical question. So I'm okay, really I am, with saying I'd pick Marshall.

Marshall and I would have corned beef sandwiches, one of our favorite things to eat together. I'd joke for the hundreth time that he wasn't a real Jew, because lettuce and tomato on steamed corned beef on rye is sacriledge. "I need the fiber" he'd tell me. I'd glance around the restaurant and target a patron. "Who is that man?" or "Who is that woman?" Marshall would size them up with laser sharp, hilarious accuracy. I know it would be at least close because I always showed Marshall a picture of any new man I was dating. "Who is this man?" I'd put in the subject line. His responses were eerily accurate. Prescient really.

I'd ask Marshall how, when he was one of the most squeamish people I'd ever known, how he managed to hang himself in a crappy motel 20 miles from home, days after his only child's seventh birthday.

I'd ask him if he wants to see his daughter now - twenty years old, a skinny, beautiful Instagram influencer and artist with sweetness in the giant green eyes she inherited from him. She misses you, I'd tell him. I know, I've Googled it.

If dead people can cry, I know he would. Maybe harder than he had in his whole 44 year life, where he pretended to laugh everything off. I was his favorite laughing partner.

I'd ask him the questions I've wondered for years, including ones I'm ashamed of. What was the last thing you ate? What is the last thing you ate that you were able to enjoy? Why didn't you tell me more about what was going on? Why didn't I ask you more? What was the very last thought you had about me? What was your very last thought?

As you felt your life ebb away, did you regret your decision?

Are you happier now?

I hope he'd tell me yes, he's much happier now, it's good
It's better
It's peaceful
He gets to play with dogs, and eat corned beef sandwiches, and read muscle magazines. The brisket men come to life and work out with him. There's trivia games every day, and he always wins, just like in real life.

There's only favorite things, and fun.
No worries of bankruptcy
No angry, disappointed wife
No impending threat of jail from his 'I never meant it to happen this way' white collar crime.

I never liked life all that much anyway, he'd remind me
I know. I remember the disorientation. The out-of-character deja vus.

"Hey", I'd tell him, "Your mom called me the day after you died. Had you been to Chicago to visit her? Had you mailed her anything?"

No?

"She said in the morning she found a scrap of paper with just a phone number on it.  Your writing. She's pretty sure the table where she found it was clear the night before."

When I answered she asked who I was. "Who is THIS?" I'd demanded, emotionally raw from crying all night. When I heard the name Ava, I remembered that was your mom's name. It pissed me off that of all times, some woman named Ava was calling me. Then when she said her last name I knew.

We met once, briefly, I reminded her. Nine years ago. Marshall and Tracee's wedding.

Then I got lost in my own head for a moment. The wedding. Where the girlfriend / fiancee/ wife I never liked proclaimed, in her attention-seeking whisper voice, "I love Marshall because he treats me like the queen I am." Her audience roared. I didn't.

Your mom and I talked for 90 minutes. I was on my lunch hour. I breezed in and told my manager I'm taking extra time. After all, you were not only dead, but coordinating meetings for me.

Your mom was thrilled to know of our close friendship She hardly knew who I was. "He never shared much about his personal life with me.". She's happy to hear you had friends. Hosted parties. Found some enjoyment in life. She said when you were a child you used to cover your ears all the time. I never knew that.

You held her hand when she came out to visit, a month before you died. "He was saying goodbye to me. Of course I didn't know that at the time. I mean who kills themself?

About 800,000 people a  year, I could have told her days later.

Marshall takes everything in, then asks if I have any more questions.

I do: why had we not seen each other in almost four years?  I was in Tacoma. You were in Long Beach. It wouldn't have been that hard.

Marshall shrugs." At least we had a great time the last ever time we saw each other."

We had indeed. Marshall, his wife and two year old daughter had been living in Las Vegas. I'd flown in to meet a man who turned out to be horrible (I should have listened to Marshall's 'Who is this man?" response). I wasn't going to meet the guy until the next day, so Marshall and I hit the Las Vegas Strip, starting with the Stage Deli.

As I contemplated choices Marshall waved his hand. "Get them all." I laughed.
"No, seriously. Get whatever you want. Everything you want. I'm going to do the same" The table was soon covered with enough food for ten people; an absurd, defiant Just try to suck now, life feast We didn't do it justice, but it didn't matter. It was about freedom. Friendship. A celebration.

We walked back onto the Strip and Marshall rented us a rickshaw. We laughed that we barely fit. Neither of us was abnormally large, but the seat was designed for couples. We were enjoying overlapping each other. We joked to deflect the easy comfort.

We stopped at The Bellagio. The dancing fountains were getting ready to Rhumba. Opening notes to a popular Marvin Hamlish Broadway tune. And then  a single sung word: "One..."

BOOM!

Hundreds of multi-colored water jets climb the sky, racing toward the moon.
As the song continues ("singular sensation, every single step she takes...) Marshall and I instinctively turn to each other, wide eyed in amazement. We laugh.

Later we're at the top of the fake Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel. A photographer approaches us and begins posing us like a couple. We're instructed to put our arms around each other; to look into each other's eyes.

We're cracking up in the photo. As though the idea of us being a couple is hilarious. When hit up to buy it, we study it, individually fixated on our changes over the 12 years we've known each other. We're both heavier. More ordinary looking. We simulatenously shake our heads no.

"I went back and bought it" I tell Marshall. "An hour before leaving for the airport. I just had this feeling I should have it."

A soft blur is swirling over Marshall. His face is beginning to pixelate. This seems perfectly normal.

"Hey, listen, I truly don't want you to rush" says Marshall, "but it would be really cool to have you on the other side...the last time we spoke- remember we were each in dollar store parking lots-.you mentioned not knowing how you were going to get through the rest of your life. That  you sometimes thought about ending your life... do you still feel that way?"

I know he didn't mean to hurt me, but really? I was talking about killing myself a mere five days before Marshall ended his life? I wasn't a friend, I was a drowning partner, pulling him down. There were so many hints I'd processed as normal hard times. We were living over 1,000 miles apart. How could I have known?

Easy. By the picture he'd sent me of his family's Thanksgiving dinner for three. The look in his eyes had shocked me. That night he shared that his wife had hissed at him to look happier. 'Don't you want our daughter to have joyful family memories??'

It will get better for him I'd rationalized. I hadn't asked the right questions. Hadn't said the right things. Hadn't flown out to see him. Hadn't understood why, about six weeks before the end, he sounded unusually happy and upbeat. Again, I didn't question. Maybe I could have saved him.

As his appearance pixelates further, he reads my mind. "You had nothing to do with my decision. You were a great friend."

Marshall's voice is starting to fade. He's waiting for an answer about whether I'm committed to the rest of my life.

":LIFE IS HARD...BUT I'VE DECIDED i LIKE IT!"

Why am I yelling?

Marshall laughs. "Good! That's as it should be. I'm happy for you!."

It's the last thing I hear him say. His voice went soft, softer, no volume. Oddly, this phenomena also felt normal.

Marshall is gone. I'll keep talking to him. Maybe have another pretend lunch. Continue to write about him.

He's with me at those times.

No logic can dictate otherwise.






Written by Pinkdreams
Published
Author's Note
Everything I've written is true, except the name Marshall. I opened with a numbered list because I felt an urge this morning to write about 'Marshall', and to do it on paper. The only paper in easy reach was an old journal. The page I opened it to was the numbered list. I had forgotten about it.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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