We are responsible for telling this story, mostly because Coral cannot. She just discovered her brother dead in his apartment. Suicide. Coral’s brother, Jay, lived in Long Beach, California. It was a cheap apartment even though he could afford more. Jay didn’t like the idea of moving, because no one really likes the idea of moving, especially men nearing forty. People like to dream of being elsewhere and suddenly having all their things elsewhere with them, but moving is what Coral refers to as some bullshit. We’ve done the research. The apartment peeked out from between a row of houses and one other multiunit building. Bougainvillea, gardenias, and other low-water-tolerant plants that add pops of color to lazy landscaping crawled along the facing. Long Beach was an oily, salty city nicknamed Weirdbeach by those not likely to fly a gay pride flag on their lawns anytime soon. The long, sleepy horns of boats at the extremely active port moaned into the night. Coral had finished a brief conversation with Jay about eleven minutes before arriving at his apartment. He didn’t mention the suicide. We are certain.
There wasn’t much blood. There wasn’t much blood visible right away, that is. We believe this is why Coral didn’t notice when she walked in. The studio was dark, the way Jay liked it, with blue walls, a blue sofa, a blue entertainment center and blue rug. It was like diving into the ocean at any time of day, if the ocean were hot as fuck, humid, and smelled like burned bacon and coconut-scented candles. Coral thought the place was empty but was startled when she saw the shape of Jay under a blanket on his bed.
It was so quiet I thought no one was home, Coral said.
She went to the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator.
You need to go to the grocery store. Where’s the water? It’s hot as fuck in here. Yeah, I was surprised when they offered me the deal, but now that it’s signed I can talk about it, you know. I know you knew something was up and I don’t keep people in suspense with hints and things, but it’s like a pregnancy. You don’t talk about that shit until it’s deep in the process and you know for sure. That’s what people say, at least. Men don’t think about that junk. Let me give you another metaphor, since that is what I do. So it’s like in football when you talk about who is going to win or not. You don’t jinx that shit by oversharing why you know. Or maybe that is what you do. Y’all be extra with that down to the mathematical. Mofos walking around with 300 credit scores can recite every statistic from 1967 to the present about some team. How are you still under that blanket?
That’s when Coral walked close to the body of Jay in the dim light and saw what we know. She handled it as well as could be expected, which is not well in the long run, not well at all. Some people scream at death. Coral fell down with vertigo. Everything silent. The heart causes that, pumps all the blood to all the extremities so it feels like your head is going to pop, and your fingertips go numb with the pressure. She tried to grip her phone and couldn’t. She tried to breathe and couldn’t. Failure to accomplish basic tasks is typical when in shock. Time moves differently. The body becomes lighter and heavier simultaneously, like dark matter. One goes in and out of existence involuntarily. We know it was three minutes before Coral came to her senses and called 911. The phrase came to her senses is a common one, so we used it, but it is spectacularly inaccurate. Losing the illusion of safety in this life is being more at one with the senses than ever. Glimpsing death does this. It is a reminder that people were tender, shell-less, watery husks of nerves. Because so much could hurt them, we believe that forgetting some pain was even possible allowed people to choose existence, to become numb to every sensation. There is no replacement for that kind of amnesia about mortality; the simulations in games or movies are not close. Death IRL is an ice bath from the inside out. Still, we like to think that in other circumstances, where an emergency was more time-sensitive, Coral would’ve behaved better, but we have our doubts and would not put money on that outcome.•
Excerpted from Dead in Long Beach, California, by Venita Blackburn. Published by MCD, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2024 by Venita Blackburn. All rights reserved.
