They told me the steering wheel pushed Dan’s jaw through his neck. I had touched his neck a few times before. You’d need a lot of force to push something through it. They said the air bag failed. They used the word “instantly.”
The last time I saw him alive was at a poetry reading. We always bumped into each other at readings, especially at local bars. I guess it was more of a sideways glance across the bar, though, than it was actually bumping into each other. That’s how things worked after he said he never wanted to talk to me again. Dan hated me.
But first Dan loved me. He never told me he loved me, but I’m pretty sure he did. He went out of his way for me a lot. He cooked for me and loaned me money when Sam’s Club wouldn’t take my credit card. He took me to dinner. He bought me drinks. He was my designated driver. He always dropped what he was doing to help. Sometimes he would wake up early to drive me to work if we had stayed together the night before. I’d let him use my car. Dan hated my car.
He told me that every time he saw a silver Hyundai Sonata for the rest of his life he would look to see if it had Colorado license plates like mine and he would look to see if I was behind the wheel. That’s a lot of Hyundai Sonatas. He said every time he saw one he would get angry and tense and distracted. This was, of course, before he stopped answering my texts. It was a little too melodramatic for me to take seriously, like his death.
Maybe he got in an accident because he was looking too closely at a silver Hyundai Sonata’s license plate and not at the road in front of him. Maybe he was preparing himself for the imminent sense of anger and dismay that he described to me and that is what distracted him and got him killed. He said he got angry every time he saw me in person, and he didn’t know what either of us could do to change that. According to Dan, it was too late for us.
The last time I saw him alive was right before he died. There was no final exchange or any small talk. I was standing in the back of the room during a reading when Dan got up and walked past me and out of the bar. Maybe he saw me standing back there and that’s what made him leave. A few hours later they retrieved his angry body with the Jaws of Life.
He told me that he couldn’t escape me, that he saw my silver Hyundai Sonata parked all over town, that he would see me in person all over the place. He avoided me of course and never said hi. I could escape Dan, though, which bothered him. I could go to my job at the law school and I’d never see him there. I could hang out with my lawyer friends and he wouldn’t run into me with them either. He couldn’t even go to readings anymore without seeing me, he said. As a poetry student, he couldn’t even have peace of mind at a poetry reading because there was always a chance I’d be there. Apparently I was ruining his life.
I don’t think he ever explained to his parents how angry I made him. They stayed cordial with me after Dan’s silent treatment began, so they obviously didn’t bear a grudge like he did. Or at least they disguised it better. They were the ones who called me to explain the news, his mother in tears. His father took the phone and hung up after telling me when the funeral would be.
I decide to go to the funeral for Dan’s parents, and I let my boyfriend stay over the night before under the condition that he brings a suit and comes to the funeral with me. I can’t go alone. Now he’s dragging his feet getting dressed and when I tell him to hurry the fuck up all he does is grunt in response, the same grunt I always mimic at him so he can hear what a child he sounds like.
I have nothing else left to say to him while we walk through the parking lot. He’s done talking too. He doesn’t get it, why I feel the need to go to this funeral. He’s pragmatic like I say I am. We get to his car and while he fumbles with his keys I remember the last time I saw Dan in this parking lot.
It was the end of Thanksgiving break. He’d stayed over all but two nights that week. We didn’t do anything physical at first. I’d lay sideways against Dan with my head on his chest and we would talk in the dark. He would slide his hands under the sheet and draw circles on my back and shoulders. And on the final night we kissed and touched each other and I know it meant something to him. I had tried so hard that week to care like he did, but it still didn’t mean anything to me. The next morning I kissed him goodbye. The next week I ran into him pretending to read the draft specials at his favorite bar. Dan hated his favorite bar.
He said it only reminded him of me now. I spent a lot of time there. I did my homework there and made friends with the bartenders. I was there at least twice a week, late into the night on occasion. Apparently Dan had invited me to go there with him a couple times when we first met, but I discovered it on my own after rebuffing his offers. It was a nice quiet space with some dartboards in the corner. No TVs, no loud music. It frustrated him that he wasn’t responsible for introducing me to a place I ended up liking a lot.
He had wanted to spend time with me the week after Thanksgiving and I dodged his offers by using my schedule as an excuse. It’s true, though, I was busy. I was putting in too many hours at the law library while trying to keep up with classes. I didn’t have time for him that week, or at least that’s what I told him. When he saw my car parked downtown that night he thought it’d be nice to come over to his favorite bar to say hi to me, because he knew I would probably be there studying. Not an interruption, just a hello, except he didn’t say hello. He wasn’t pleased to see me there, drinking with someone else, not studying, and he looked terrified when we made eye contact across the bar. He came over and asked how I was doing and then left after nodding and setting his drink down. I texted him the next day and accused him of spying on me. He said he never wanted to see to me again.
Now we’re driving through downtown, like the downtown of any mid-sized city. Tighter traffic, one-way roads, parking garages and street meters. The bar is on the corner, empty with the lights off. They don’t open till late in the afternoon. My boyfriend sees me staring when we pass by and asks if I want to go there later, sometime after the funeral. Or whenever. He asks if I have to work today. I don’t answer and he keeps rambling on for a while. It was a mistake to bring him with. I’ll have to introduce him to Dan’s parents, to his siblings, all who know me from last Thanksgiving. They invited me to spend it with them because they knew Dan liked me and that I wasn’t going home to Colorado. It was one of the reasons I tried so hard to like him back. Now they’ll know that I had moved on even before he died, that we never worked things out. Maybe they’ll think I’m not as sad as I would have been if I were still involved with him, and maybe they’ll resent me for that.
It’s a long walk from the car to the church. Plenty of people are parking and then walking to the door in their black suits and dresses, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. People who do make eye contact give each other these tight little smiles and then turn away. Outside it’s clear and nice. Inside is different.
Dan’s parents are standing in the back of the church, attending to what is becoming a line of people offering their obligatory condolences. These people are all somber, some wiping their noses and damp cheeks, others just looking at the floor. Dan’s parents seem fine, almost as if they’re not at the funeral for their son, almost as if someone hasn’t died at all. They see me when I pull my boyfriend into the line. Dan’s mom perks up a little.
When we reach the front they hug me and they can’t help but say thanks for coming and that they knew how much Dan liked me. My boyfriend coughs and walks away to drink water from a fountain. I tell them how sorry I am and Dan’s mom’s eyes well up a little. They nod at me and I wait for my boyfriend.
He returns and puts his hand on the small of my back to usher me toward the casket. It’s closed. There’s a framed picture sitting on top, and from here I can tell that it’s Dan at a younger age, perhaps his teens. I swat my boyfriend’s hand away and make sure we sit somewhere in the back. I won’t pay my respects to the picture of Dan on the casket because I know he wouldn’t want me to. He wouldn’t want to see me here.
During the funeral I imagine what’s inside the casket, if they’ve stitched or stapled or glued Dan’s face back together, if they even tried to do that sort of thing. I imagine him in slow motion ramming into the steering wheel, the skin below his ears tearing, the sound similar to a ripping carpet.
They said neither he nor the other driver was drunk, but they wouldn’t say who was at fault. It had taken place at a traffic light. Maybe Dan floored it through a red light on purpose. Maybe he really was that mad at me for rejecting him. It’s all I can think about in my car, resting my head against the passenger window and gazing out after we leave the church.
My boyfriend calls Dan “the lovesick guy,” because I told him a vague version of the events that had unfolded over the past year. I don’t think he knows how complicated things got. I don’t even know if I know. He asks if I want to go to the bar again but he knows that would remind me of the lovesick guy so maybe we can go somewhere else. I say sure. We’re skipping the burial. And on the way I’m trying to remember what kind of car Dan drove and wondering why I can’t remember. Was it a Toyota, a Honda maybe? We stop at a red light and I check each car. I check the cars in the rearview mirror. I check the cars across the intersection. I’m trying to find Dan’s car, but I can’t remember. My boyfriend sees me focused on something, but doesn’t say anything and I’m glad he’s the one driving.
John Milas is a Marine Corps veteran and writing student living in Central Illinois. His writing footprint extends to various dusty corners of the Internet, but most importantly to Bloody-Disgusting.com where his reviews of the Tremors films have remained on glorious display since he submitted them during 2005 while a sophomore in high school. His internal monologue can be found on Twitter @johnwlits.