Jarek’s urn was alabaster. She stood on a pedestal. I glanced at her at the start of the service, then stared at the spider web swaying across the ceiling. Honestly … I was wondering when Jarek’s father would hang himself. And he hanged himself. Just like the son at the time when everything seemed to be cool. The same bug was biting them. I thought then that I would not succumb to him.
I don’t remember much about the priest’s sermon at Jarek’s funeral. Yeah. He mentioned that he was a cheerful, friendly boy. He knew him because Jarek was active in the parish as a volunteer. My mind was far away anyway. I looked at his parents. Her mother, drugged on medication, had a hard time recognizing people. She was pale, silent, it seemed as if she was going to die too. Andrzej got a little smaller. With a low neck, as if a weight he would not even want to resist pressed down on him. The priest stopped his speech for a moment. An unexpected silence attracted attention. And he added: – You cannot connect his death with the breakup with Kamila.
At these words on the fourth bench, the young girl staggered and burst into tears. And it was already known which Kamil was.
I knew he would do it
It was fucking cold in the cemetery. At least I wasn’t thinking about the funeral, just how cold it is. I felt my skin tightening, goosebumps covered, a shiver ran down my body as I heard: – Grry, grry … The gravediggers were inserting the CD into the recess of the columbarium. And after a while deaf, forever: – Wooo.
– My syyynnneek! – the lips blurted out of Grażyna. She began to slide down the wet pavement. She was supported by the mourners standing next to her. And the gravediggers tightened the screws on the plate. Then a long line of condolences. Grażyna “did not glow”, only nodded her head.
And Andrzej? For a split second we looked into each other’s eyes. We used to be very close. Often the family compared us to each other, said that we have the same hay in our heads. In fact, we shared this deprecha gene that was circulating through the family. My and his younger brother were different, such a better sort. Yes, it’s not just about the hair.
I looked Andrzej in the eyes. I already knew what he was going to do. And I felt I couldn’t help it. I would have done it in his place too. The last thread that connected me with life was the thought that the children are still so small that my wife will stay with them alone. With them, and with credit.
At the wake, we sat alone in the restaurant smoking room. Out of duty, I muttered: “just don’t blush any nonsense.” Andrzej said: – Well, you see, none of us, no one else in the family had the courage, and he took out such a number! Already on Thursday, something started to happen. Something about his miss. We couldn’t get through on Friday. And then we got a call from the dean’s office that he was dead. Because you know, he went to a polytechnic. He said that the girl would join next year after graduation – he said holding a cigarette in his bony hand.
He hung low
When my mother called me six months later that Andrzej had hanged himself, I couldn’t even shrug my shoulders. She said, “They found him this morning.” He hanged himself in a tree by the cemetery. He hung low, his knees touching the ground.
My mom always liked to rummage through macabre details. And I was surprised that Andrzej did it only now. There was already hope that it might not come to that.
The urn with Andrzej’s ashes stood on the same plinth and in the same church as Jarek. The cobweb was there too. Grażyna pale again. Before the gravediggers tightened the plate and buried the ashes, she kissed her own hand and held it against the urn. They had been separated from Andrzej for two years, but Jarek’s death made them live together again.
The funeral and the funeral was organized by Andrzej’s brother. Krzysiek, the factory director, always spoke as if he was in a hurry. At the cemetery, I approached him, he said nothing. When we shook hands, he burst into tears. He was shaking. I put my arm around him and took him to me.
It wasn’t about sex
And life went on – like in the song “Jam”, which we both listened to. I didn’t have time to think about Andrzej. I was busy with another mistress. You could call it a classic case of midlife crisis in a guy.
One evening, after sex, she blurted out: – Why are you so sad?
I thought it was quite dark that he couldn’t see my face. I thought I didn’t want this life, and it wasn’t just casual sex.
I’m getting divorced
It started innocently… with work. I finished at 17pm. A few minutes before I fidgeted. I knew my wife would call in half an hour. That I’ll hear the children on the phone again and her scream that I’m gone. I was delaying leaving the company. There is always something to do in my job. Instead of eight hours, it was ten. Then I changed my job, then I started explaining to my wife that I had to implement myself, that it was taking time.
After the move, he got even longer access. I was home at 23pm to leave at 7am. Meanwhile, things went from bad to worse at work. Productivity dropped, and on top of that, sleepless nights. Regularly at three o’clock, I stared at the ceiling.
I came across an addicts meeting a bit by accident. Gamblers, alcoholics and drug addicts at the table.
– And I’m a workaholic. And I can’t live anything but work. I get divorced – I burned out and didn’t go to the group meeting anymore.
Wife screams as if from behind the glass
My dismissal cut me off. The company has closed. I used to play computer all day long. After being hit by an arrow, the people turned into skeletons, then dispersed like smoke. I was such a man. After a dozen or so hours of playing, I was “freaked out”, I was numb. It immobilized not only the body, but also the thoughts. Screams, wives was like behind the glass. I had them in… I couldn’t stand it until it rained that I was hopeless, that I was not a man. – Gay! She screamed when I didn’t feel like having sex for the next few weeks. During the quarrel, I collapsed. I couldn’t say anything. But sometimes I was overcome with anger. It started to move when I thought of my wife’s lover. I discovered their relationship by accident. She confessed to everything. I wished I had left her then, I still regret it, but the children were small, we had a loan.
Cure yourself on the head
After three months of arguing and another prompt from the bank, I thought I had to do something about it. In the following month, I felt that I could not stand it. Moving again, accidentally found a job. The scenario was duplicated. Sitting up late. And in the middle of the night, flipping from side to side. My wife screamed that I woke her up, that I was nervous. Fuck…! I knew it without her screaming.
On top of that came the embarrassing ailment … anal itching, and then lower. Scrambled to blood. I went to the doctor. Haemorrhoid guest. I described the symptoms. – If it doesn’t hurt, but itches, it’s a problem with the head – he said. Then he poked my finger there. I blurted out: – Anal intercourse is? I started laughing. After a while, he fired even better: – You should be treated for the head, not the butt. You will take a pill and it will soon be a brighter day.
I went to a psychiatrist. I was out of work again. In the company, I did not agree to a salary cut. The number of working hours was astonished. I was adjusting the budget with orders, but it was associated with sitting at home in front of the computer. And with my wife. A spark was enough to make the plates fly. And then I met Andżelika. It sounds trite like her name. I turned to the max. Although the warning light should have come on at the beginning. I went abroad to do physical work – on a construction site. Complete failure. I ended my acquaintance with Andżela, I returned to Poland, but with my wife I was also unable to last more than an hour. I went to a psychiatrist, privately. He prescribed me some medications. I threw the prescriptions into the corner.
I force myself to live
I didn’t know it hurt so much. God gave me health and a body stronger than others. Some people, even at my age, have already had cancer. But I didn’t have any favors as far as my head is concerned. I don’t know if I am the book model of the eternal “depressant”. I get out of bed, like on springs, I’m motivated by a new job. Only that I catch the fact that a weaker day is enough and I immediately get scared, totally insecure. Then I work slower, I make a lot of mistakes. I hide in such a warehouse in the company, I hide. Or I don’t leave my room so that no one can see my face. That slumped mouth that I hate around me. I sleep briefly: four or five hours a week. No, I have no problem getting up, I’m afraid to fall asleep. Because I know that fear will get me. I’m already afraid to be afraid. I’m scared until it hurts. I’m looking for ways to die quickly. Cycling and training, sometimes every day. After such a day, I close my eyes, fall into a nap, it seems to me that after a while I open them, and it turns out that a few hours have passed. From week to week I am getting more and more sleepy. I know I can do this for another two or three months. That’s why I got involved in voluntary work and sports to go out to people. Surround yourself with friends. I haven’t been to the proverbial beer for several years. Even my kids don’t want to see me. I justify them because after leaving home I didn’t speak to them for months. I did not want to. I gave up my life so far. I think I was close to becoming homeless, but I just mobilized with the last of my strength. I didn’t quit my job because I have to pay off my loan. I force myself to live everyday. I feel hopelessly helpless. I am ashamed of this. In more difficult moments, I repeat to myself the words from the song that the priest played at Jarek’s funeral, but it is not better anyway: – Like a tear in the rain, this moment …
A few days ago, my ex-wife called and said: – I signed you up to a psychiatrist.
Visit in three weeks. Maybe this time I will go. I will buy drugs. I’m clinging to that thought.
The names of the heroes and the author’s surname have been changed.