Death's Basement

....workshop short story drawing on some repressed memories.

I reach the bottom of the green carpeted stairs, turning the corner by the bar to meet a scene I will not soon forget: Every member of my dad’s side of the family, congregated in my grandmother’s dim basement; sprawled and standing across the two rooms, over the picnic table and random metal folding chairs. The teal table cloth is skewed, and there are three empty fresca cans on the bench next to my uncle. My grandfather is slumped in the wicker chair to my right, his face in his hands, and I am utterly lost. No one looks up at me as I enter the throng. Each face I turn to is red and teary, and my stomach clenches tightly at the thought of death. I look to my cousin Katie, nearly six, and she is not crying. Her round face is questioning and confused, and she reaches up to her mother, who is sobbing loudly. I make my way over to my grandfather and sink to the floor beside him, placing a small hand on his knee.

                “What’s happened? Why is everyone here?” he slowly removes his hand from his brow, and though I should have expected it, I am shocked at the wetness on his cheeks. He seems to struggle for a moment, as if he’s not sure the words will mean anything to me.

                “It’s your uncle Jim. He’s …. Well… he killed himself. Last night.” I blink. All I do is blink. Over and over and over, faster, and it seems my skipping eyelids generate heat and fill to the brim with it. I open my mouth to ask how, but my words don’t work. I look back at Katie, his daughter, and realize that she has yet to grasp death’s hand. She is concerned for her mother, but not for herself or the impact this day will have upon her young life. Her brother, Matt, is my age, and feels the gravity of the words I just heard. I slowly turn and head back for the stairs, the sounds of wailing and sniffles too much to stay amidst and when I reach the stairs I take them two at a time, running from the stifling sadness in that basement.

                Upstairs I find a bowl of m&m’s and return to the sofa where I had been watching cartoons, only this time I did not laugh at tom & Jerry. I absently pop m&ms into my mouth one at a time, letting them melt and dissolve before adding another.  I let my eyes slide out of focus on the garish colors of the screen and thought back to the day before, when I had seen him at my house. He had come to pick up Katie and I to come to my grandmother’s to fill Easter eggs. I remembered thinking that I didn’t really like him. I didn’t like how he talked or how he dressed; always the same navy sweatpants and stained sleeveless undershirts. His hair was unkempt and uncut, his glasses too thick and antiquated for the present day. I turned the TV up louder, the sounds from downstairs seeming to double as I did so. In my head he was coming back, later in the day he would return to the house and we would all have a good laugh. Also in my head, further back, was the truth that he was gone from this world for good, and there was no changing that. My eyes are still hot and I’m shocked to realize that I’m crying.

                Katie stomps up the stairs and runs into the den where I sit and throws herself onto the squished blue sofa next to me. Her face scares me; red and screwed up in as much anger as a six-year-old can hold.

                “Mom says dad isn’t picking me up today!” she screams, her voice unsteady. “She says- she says-“she stops, her little chest heaving with constrained sobs. “She says he SHOT HIMSELF!” she yells, the air charged with unbelievable tension; the room ringing with her shrill voice in the empty silence that follows. I can’t wrap my head around these words, coming from this child. Today is too much. I need to close my eyes.