The Absent Emptiness

"THE EVER CLEVER DINNER GUEST"

That was the title of the first piece that I had stumbled across. I found it while shuffling through some old rough copies of Hunter's. He was an editor for "The MD Remedy", a local young writers publication. It was a medium budget basement company, but it was the place to go if you wanted to start your career.

Hunter had been an editor for quite some time, until as of late. Oh that's right, you don't know yet do you? Hunter is dead. Yeah, dead.
He took his own life for unknown reasons. It was odd really, he wasn't a manic depressant, he was a glum person, witty, smart, and with humor as dry as the Gobi. But he was never capable of taking his own life.
It never really occurred to me that someone like him would end himself. He seemed to have everything someone like me wanted. Good looks, good taste in just about everything. Everyone loved him.

The police investigated briefly, and ruled out homicide for the fact that the gun was still in his hand, with powder burns on his hand from firing. Not to mention he was shot from an upward angle, from below the chin. He did it to himself, without even a friendly proper note.
He used to joke about how if and when he was to go, he'd write up a traditional Japanese death poem, but in complete proper Japanese. He said it was his last "fuck you" to us because none of us knew how to read Japanese. Clever boy.

His close friend Ethan, who was also an editor for "Pulp Friction" magazine, was their with me to go through Hunter's personal belongings left in his apartment.
As sad as we wanted to be, we just couldn't find ourselves to harbor that emotion on this day. We were silent, I worked on clearing out his study/editing room, while Ethan set upon the bedroom. We would each work on one room per day. We hoped to be done before the end of the week, which was his funeral.

I had only wished the crime scene cleanup had done a better job, they didn't bother tossing out any bloodstained papers, and they had missed the rusty red spots on the wall behind the chair that he had killed himself in. All that they had managed to do was remove the stains off of his chair, and cut out the offending blood and brain spattered carpeting of the room in sections.
I sighed and set about my task, hoping to finish as quickly as possible without getting too emotional or getting caught up on sentimental things.

I was on my hands and knees, sorting out the scattered papers, trying to discern which ones to keep and which ones to toss. I hoped to salvage some of his original work and get it published as a memoir or tribute a volume, but knew the chances of getting anything published around here, even for a dead comrade was rare. You had more of a chance of catching an STD than getting noticed, edited, and published here in Maryland.
Still, he had more pull than me and I figured some publishers out there would know his name and some of his work. It was worth a shot.

I found it, stuck to a crumpled page of his haiku''s about ducks and nature, stained with speckles of faded brown gore. I was ready to toss it, not wanting to read the ruined work, when the title caught my eye, "THE EVER CLEVER DINNER GUEST". I couldn't help but read it out of sheer curiosity.

"HE GOES FROM TABLE TO TABLE
MAKING HIS ROUNDS LIKE ANY CRAFTY DIPLOMAT SHOULD
HIS EYES SHINE WITH THE WORST KIND OF KNOWLEDGE
A HANDSHAKE THAT BRING A NATION TO IT'S KNEES
STRIP A NATION RAW, THEN TOSS AN AMERICAN FLAG GARMENT
HE CAN DECLARE FULL SUPPORT FROM THE REAR
HE CALLS THE SHOTS, BUT WON'T STAND IN THE LINE OF FIRE
HE WANTS ONLY WHAT IS BEST FOR HIS NATION OF HIMSELF
UNDER HIS GOD
HE IS THE EVER CLEVER DINNER GUEST
HE IS GOOD FOR ONE THING
AND THAT IS NOTHING...."

I was stunned with it's gritty, white knuckled written assault upon who I assumed was our President. I had to snicker to myself, feeling as though if I smiled, I'd split my head in two.
I wanted to get Ethan in here, to read it himself, but I thought he wasn't ready to read blood spattered paper.
I looked for an author, and saw that most of the name had been stained with blood. Great.
With a sigh of impatience, I was ready to discard it, when I heard Ethan walking back to the study.
I do not know why, but for some reason, I felt compelled to keep it.
To keep this tiny morsel of political satire and angst. I folded it hastily and pocketed it, figuring I could scrape away the dried blood with an X-acto knife later on to find the writer or at least hold it up to a good light source and read it that way.
Ethan entered the room with a milk crate full of random items. He'd been busy, had I been standing here this entire time? I looked at my near empty cardboard box, feeling like a jerk for slacking off. I looked up at him, trying to think of a good excuse for my lack of work.
He looked sad, but then again, Ethan always looked sad with his light blue eyes.
His lip quivered slightly, he looked away, an expression of self disgust in his own weakness scrawled his face. He hated to cry, his father would tease him about it, so he learned to swallow it down.

I got to my feet and walked over, giving his back a reassuring pat.
He nodded, sniffled, tried to turn away, but ended up turning back around and weeping bitterly on my shoulder.
I don't know, sometimes I can be an asshole and a dick. As he cried on my shoulder, all I could think about was the mystery author in my back pocket, and that Ethan was soaking my shirt.

I gave him another pat on the shoulder and gently moved away from him.
"I'm sorry I haven't really gotten anything done yet, I was sort of soaking things in and I sort of..."
my voice trailed off.

I really didn't have a good excuse, I thought about telling him about the poem I had found, but for some reason still, I felt he didn't deserve it for some reason or another. It was mine to enjoy, discover, uncover, it was mine.
I never really asked to be put into a situation where I had to be the new "Best friend".
In fact, I absolutely hated it. I suppose one could call it a selfish feeling, callous, even bastardly. It wasn't that I didn't want to be a friend to him, just not that kind of friend.
I wanted to keep it simple, just a guy to hang out with, but it wasn't going that way.
He would want to hang out more than usual, which is understandable and expected. I didn't want to be alone anymore than he did, I just didn't want it to be with him.

He finished sobbing and wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"I'm really glad you're here with me Tyler, I don't know of anyone else who could help y'know?"
"Yeah, I know, it's not a big deal man. What matters is that we just help move things along."

Okay that wasn't the best thing to say, because Ethan gave a look, "Move things along?"
He shook his head, picked up his crate of things and walked out of the room.
I shook my own head and began to fill my box up with as much as I could that was in reach.
I pulled down a few books off his bookshelf, emptied two desk drawers, dumped his office supplies into the box, and for good measure, threw a few files from his filing cabinet in.
I was done, I didn't want to face this or do this anymore now, so I grabbed up my box and headed towards the living room. I looked for Ethan, but didn't see him, so I called out to him.

He came around the corner with his crate, "Yeah what's up?"

"You ready to go? I got most of his office in this box, I'm sorry, I just don't feel up for anymore for today, is that okay?"

Ethan nodded, he motioned toward the front door with his head, "You drive?"
I said I would and we left, locking the door and turning the light timer.

On the drive home, we sat in silence, neither of us making any attempts to lighten the mood.
Ethan was lost in his own thoughts anyway, I had mine as well. Everything just seemed off and irritating.

I don't know at what stage of grieving I was in, or even if I was grieving at all. I just felt bland all over, like a shade of grey and white. This all felt more like an inconvenience now, because I knew at some point all those emotions would come welling up. Then I'd break down and cry and sob and someone would put their arms around me and tell me how "it's okay, just let it all out".
Fuck them. That's how I felt, fuck them for making me feel so weak. Yeah angry, that was what I was, just angry now. I wanted this all to just sort of stop and pause for a moment, long enough for me to make sense of all this. It was nonsense but it was real, and it hurt.