Flowers for Iris

Josh Vigil

Friday

The chest pains have stopped. Outside, past the yellowed windows, a spoonbill spreads its pinkish wings across the sky, bringing darkness into my room. Bobby has left me; I am alone in this dark. I told him I was done eating, that I wanted to see how many days it took. He got upset, said life was worth fighting for. This was before relief settled like a feather over my chest. I stretch myself across my bed, pinch at pockets of fat. Death still sounds delicious, a knob of sweetness to roll across tongues. Turning it smaller and smaller. I push papers off the edge of my bed. The eviction notice flies across the room, slipping under my desk. Where will we go? is a question I have not asked myself. Six feet under ground. Light footfalls incoming, light fills the room. Bobby says he wants donuts. I say save the cash, we’ll need it. He presses himself against me, across me, his hands finding a solid grip to my arms. You’ll turn me purple. I’ll show you purple. I send my tongue across his cheeks. He lets out a shaky breath, a weak laugh. What have I done to us? I ask. He looks at me. The chest pains have stopped, I tell him. Let’s get donuts.

Tuesday

I take a sip of cherry flavored cola. Beads of moisture roll across my knuckles and onto the ground. Bobby has a shift at the bar; I don’t have work today. Though, my apprenticeship as a film editor is hardly a job. A handful of hours a week for a thimbleful of bucks. I plant myself along Vinoy Park. The heat beats down. I press my fingers against my chest. Nothing. The pains started a year ago. No doctor could explain what it was. CT scans. X-rays. Blood tests. Nothing was uncovered. Now, I spread across the grass. Happy.

Wednesday

I take myself to a bar, a dingy spot in some dark pocket of Tampa. Thick, velvety drapes cover the entrance, and the walls are sweating and red. I order a dirty martini. I send large gulpfulls into my mouth. I examine the bar, the old men slumped across. Hair thinning, beer bellies looming. The faces are slack and weathered. I have a second dirty martini. I light myself a cigarette. The bartender says, No smoking. He runs a rag along the bar, scrubbing at the occasional stickiness. He looks at me like I am an idiot. I take a long drag. I’m a nurse, I say. He continues scrubbing, remains silent. I get up, collect my items. My cigarette is still lit. I go outside, taking one long puff after the other. I lean against the wall made of brick, watching cars beep by. Crowds of young people push through. I watch them, hoping to meet an eye, hoping for them to invite me for a ride. That’s all I want—company. I don’t need anything else.

Thursday

I think of Bobby when he’s gone. The memory that keeps passing through my mind this evening is a minor one, but one I cannot be rid of. In it, we are sprawled across the beach. It’s a warm day, but the sky is clouded and gray. The stretch of sand is oddly-colored, dirty-looking. The umbrella we tucked ourselves under whistles against the wind. It is turquoise, and old, with wan spots that could give at any moment. I settle myself belly-down. Bobby is beside me. His eyes are slate. Dark, wavy locks of hair crash past his ears. Stubble flecks his face. He licks his lips, takes a pull from his seltzer. His shoulders are pink, and tufts of hair cover his chest. I have stopped reading my novel. He scrapes his fingers through my hair. What does he say? His mouth moves, he talks. In bed, I can’t remember what was said. I curl into myself.

Saturday

I tell the doctor the chest pains are gone. He gives me a lollipop.

Sunday

We were standing on a road outside St. Mary’s when he asked me out. The lamppost above us flickered, swathing us in its greenish tint. Do you want to get coffee? he asked. He pointed across the street at the diner, with its blinking neon signage. Folks lined the counter, and a few were flecked across the booths upholstered in cheap plastic. I said sure, why not? We crossed the emptied street together. Inside, he ordered us each a coffee, and a single Danish as well. We’ll split it, he said. I told him I never understood the allure of a Danish. You’ve just never had a good one, he said—he was not lacking in confidence. Why do I want cheese in my pastry? He told me they are made of cream cheese, not real cheese. I blushed. I don’t think we spoke of anything important that night. Though I wouldn’t call it small talk either. Our exchanges felt weighted, as though there was urgent and meaningful subtext beneath the words that tumbled out of his mouth, and out of mine. Maybe this was because we met in AA. Maybe this was because I already knew everything I needed to know. We felt for the edges of our lives, already with the understanding of what mattered most to each other, and how alike we knew we were. We hardly said a word of significance, yet everything rang heavy. Our views on pastries were just as important as anything else we could have shared that night. I thought it made us wiser. There would be a second date. A third. Many more.

Thursday

Last night, I could not sleep. I took myself to the shore. Walked along the stretch of sand. The waves lapped quietly. The moon glowed brightly. I walked and walked. When I returned, I spotted the house down the block, how it was all lit up still. I moved closer. Through the wide glass windows, I saw the widow Nina. She had her arm raised, and was swaying at the center. Soft music played, a hushed murmur. She moved left then right, her left arm raised as if dancing with an invisible partner. Her other hand was pressed firmly against her chest, a string of pearls sandwiched between. She swayed. The music played. Her cheeks were wet with tears. But she was smiling, too. Overcome by ecstasy, by grief. I imagined she was dancing with her husband’s ghost, as she does most nights.

Saturday night

I have so much love to give, I tell Bobby in the middle of the night. Then, I think of that love, and I put it through a furnace, watching that love turn into ash.

Wednesday

The landlord calls to ask if we received the eviction notice. No, I tell him. We’re being evicted? He sighs. Remember Iris, I ask him. He is silent. It’s your fault, I tell him. Your fault she killed herself. He hangs up.

Monday

For our fifth date, Bobby took me out on his boat. We packed a wicker basket full of snacks, a wool blanket folded to the side. The sailboat was a majestic structure. Sleek, painted white and blue, with a thick and stable mainsail, a reliable mast. He jumped aboard first, then offered me his hand. His flaxen skin, light arm hairs. The muscles that rolled along as I took his arm, and was lifted aboard. We set sail. The heat was not unbearable, and the breeze was a welcome relief. I arranged myself in a corner, facing Bobby as he maneuvered the boat, ropes knotted across his flesh, how he would pull, running from one side to another. Then, we were still. He came to me, asked me if I was impressed. I was. I fed him grapes. He kissed my neck. The sun was behind us, a brilliant dot. Its golden light shone across Bobby, who nearly sparkled. Perhaps this was when I knew I loved him. I said, I could stay here forever. What’s stopping us from doing that? he asked. Now, I tell him to sell the sailboat. Unless he wants us to get evicted. You could at least try getting real work, he snaps. Because working at a bar as an alcoholic is real work, I say flatly. His eyes burn.

Friday

Iris and I spent many hours the past year together, stretched across lawn chairs in our building’s backyard, with its piles of loose construction work, old tiles, and beams of ancient wood, and a nearly-black, sogged-through mattress. At its center, a pool that had been sloppily filled with dirt, and the poor grass that had since grown from it. We could hear the rats screech, scuttle, our neighbor's chortle. It had been my idea to turn the pool into a garden, but it was Iris's resolve that actually got the job done. This was before her eviction. Before her suicide. She was the one to knock on my door, say, Time to go to Home Depot for some seeds, then follow me the mile-long walk for the purchase of materials. Pink coneflowers. Purple and white dianthus. And the marigolds, so many marigolds. She flew beside me on her skateboard, her golden hair seeping into the sky. She pressed her palm on my neck, gave me a half-hug. Iris told me about losing her mother that afternoon, her only family, and I told her about losing myself. I didn’t know she was like me, the ground an unsteady sinkhole waiting to take us in. You can do all you can, and still die; death is always on the table.

Saturday

It is two in the morning. I bring my face to the flowers, drag my palm across their bulbs. Somewhere, Bobby is dancing, or maybe searching for me. I have left him, I don’t care. Perhaps that was my plan all along, to abandon him there, the way I have been abandoned myself. I smell the soil, its dampness. The sky that burst into a shower. I study their colors, brilliant purples and reds. Across the flowers, I search for some kind of message, but all I am is struck by their beauty. Perhaps, in its own way, that is Iris's message. Something about beauty, and life, and its ephemerality. Remember to water your flowers, Iris had said one afternoon, her fingers prodding the dirt. Our flowers, I said. She smiled, took a small bulb and brought it to her hair.

Tuesday

The days pass like this: I water Iris's flowers, and twice a week I go into the editing bay of the local station. I watch as the editor clips at interviews, assembling them into one consumable whole. He does not let me touch any equipment. I can only watch.

Friday

The chest pains began around the time of Iris's funeral. When I began drinking again. I had parked my car along a quiet drag, where one bar stood at one end and another stood at the other. I chose one. On a warm stool, I ordered a vodka soda. I raised it up, watched as the dim light brightened the floating contents. The lime. The ice. The questionable debris. I took it into my mouth, downing the swirl of flavors in a quick gulp. A burn hit the back of my throat. I exhaled. I ordered another. The bartender filled up the same glass, pouring the vodka in then spritzing the soda from the coil. The bubbles at the top gave me comfort. He went back to swiping the counter with a rag. His hair was drips of honey, and reached his shoulders. He had thin lips, and homely eyes. Once I was done with my second, I asked for a third. The burn at the back of my throat was gone, and a certain warmth had settled within me instead. It was my first time drinking in two years. I felt the contours of space give way, and I did not mind. I would take my time with my third drink, I decided. He filled up a new cup, and took away the old. The sides dripped. The citrusy scent lifted up and into the air. I dragged a finger along the sides, traced figures using the condensation, the leftover soda. My hands were sticky; I was happy. By then, Bobby had also gone back to drinking. Our collected chips, down the drain.

Friday night

But with the pains gone, I am allowed to dream again.