Andy’s buddy pumped a single bullet into his own
face—the end result of a hard life filled with booze and drugs and everyone
walking away. A passerby found his
lifeless form sprawled alongside the road at the very edge of the Elkhorn
Mountains south of East Helena.
Andy, though he really did not wish to, attended the
funeral services. He did not like the
weird music. Mostly, he did not like the
veil laid over the dead man’s face.
Though he knew better, Andy lifted that veil to see his dear friend.
Some of us do not go quietly. Some
of us dance off the edge, some leap, some claw the whole way
down. And when Andy peeked under the
cloth, he did not see his friend. He saw
chaos. He saw sea ships firing shells
onto burning lands. He saw a single, rider-less
horse, galloping across a smoky plain.
Andy went out drinking after that. He went to one of those bars we direct most
people away from—the sort of bar where you might make a fast deal on illegal
drugs, where you can buy and hawk stolen goods openly. He drank a lot. He pushed people from their barstools and
then swung the stools around. He made
threats to strangers. He hugged and
kissed his friends. Hugged and kissed
men.
I imagine Andy thinking his face was burning the
whole time, burning hot as desert sand under the high sun; his fists burning,
his mind finally grasping how life is sometimes the art of just barely hanging
on.
One day, years later, Andy jumped from the cliff.
--Mitchell
Hegman
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