November 26 - This is what was left when he was gone

The number 21. What could twenty-one possibly mean; it is only a symbol after all, and only we imbue it with meaning. It evoked the legal drinking age, a sort of honorary adulthood even once the threshold of eighteen was passed. More than that, it hinted today at a mark of greatness. The number 21. White outlined in gold, on a burgundy background. The jersey hung in his locker still, inert, no breeze here. That is how I imagined it anyway, that day, imagined that it hung and that on the stool below the peg were the cleats. There was dirt on them still, stains of white chalk; they had been used, lived in, propelled by feet running on their way to greatness. Yes. The hulking shoulder pads, the shining burgundy helmet, the protective armor that was meant to ensure safety. None of these things, of course, could protect him in the end. They still came in, dove in, to hamstring him, hungry wolves with teeth gnashing, the flesh ripping, tearing loose tendon from bone with their sharp fangs. No, not fangs; that is a butcher’s knife there, blade down in the mattress so the down fluffs up from the comforter in the first snow of the season and settles on the bed and creates an icy chill in the air before it should be this cold. He should leave, but he has never left the neighborhood; something said he still belonged here. Was his girlfriend scared? Yes, I imagine she must have been scared, but still he thinks, “I’ll tend to my home. The team can travel without me.” It is right, deems the coach, it is the honorable thing to do. And so today, the burgundy jersey hangs here, inert, unworn, and the teammates walk past and avert their eyes, strong men who have been reduced to staring at the floor like shy little children as they move past because sometimes truth hurts too much to look at. Burgundy to hide the blood, gold to adorn the spirit inside. Burgundy to mask the flood that gushed forth from the artery that sucked out his life.

Wrong, wrong, this “burglary” this. These few objects adorning this locker, this is what was left when he was gone, shapes not bubbled out without the man’s living form to fill them, the chest heaving with the exertion after the play that propelled his name to the greatness. The few objects, waiting in a locker that he won’t walk past again, while the teammates file out to practice for a game that won’t quite make as much sense this week. He would have wanted us to play, they say in consolation, clapping one another on the back, shoulder, slapping hard to hide the pain. Black upon black, I imagine the team wears, deep mourning for the stinking, black, heaving wrongness of this, this “burglary.”

This. Because it is not just these few objects in the locker left behind. This, because he was not just teammate. He was pere, fils, I think at the gym, because the words seem more innocuous in French, easier to swallow somehow, but the English translation marches inexorably across my brain. Father, son, they say. This, this, is what is left behind.

Half-man, half-beast, ferocious. Half-lived. Words used to describe more than a life, but a presence, a factor. Let us not idealize; no one has come here to read empty platitudes or exaggerations. Because it didn’t matter at the end of the day, that there were agents fired off, or that there was (or was not) that vicious spat of phlegm. These things can be wiped clean. Because nothing can be left behind when life is sucked out before it is time, no matter how empty or full that locker. This death makes strong men’s eyes weep, as they collapse against a woman for a hug that no one else quite knows how to give, as they gather around the virtual forums they have created to share in a grief they were not prepared to have. Strangers, words made into holding hands, ribbons fluttering on virtual chests. He flatlined, said the one in a panic. Once. No twice. The rumors fly back and forth through the cybersphere. Bated breath, updates checked at early hours of the morning when people should have found their beds, but all eyes now are on a hospital bed that no one can see. He gave a squeeze to the doctor’s hand! Woke up? Yes! Responded to doctors. Out of his coma. And for a moment, one, there is hope.

No, says another, he has just come to say goodbye.

So tell me where is sense in this: to be deemed number one in a county, to reap the honors, the awards, that hang now in a home wrenched open and gutted, the threshold crossed, these metal plaques the witness to what might have happened in the moment before a life was lost. Tell me where is sense in this: a fifth overall draft, destined for glory, destined to Live. Yes live. Where is sense in leaving the mewling eighteen-month old babe in her cradle, the girlfriend huddled under the sheets, the goose down comforter snowing where the knife blade still slashes a thick gash through the bedclothes, the front door open, the helicopter chopping its way through the night, the cell phone dialed with fumbling fingers because the phone cord was cut.

It is a sick joke that a simple injury, no career-ending pains here, sidelined him, flatlined him. I won’t fly this weekend, coach, we imagine him saying now, and home sweet home, home safe home becomes burgundy bloodbath. So where is sense in this.

Twenty-four. That is the number hanging bold and black now, only twenty-four short years that a man who should have been legend can now claim to his name. Things far worse than this bloodshed went wrong in those twenty-four years if they can render life into death, and lead to such burgundy blood spilling onto the carpet, such sickness this, such waste of a life before it is time.