heaven is a good song

i remember when i was working at the record store and our store manager called the entire management staff in. we thought we were in trouble.

we all petered in waiting for the details of our amiss and he looked long at us with a strange face.

"yesterday," he said " when fawn went on her lunch break and didn't return, she went home and closed her garage door and waited for the last of her life to run out. we don't knwo exactly why yet. she got a phone call here just before her break that really upset her. we're not sure who it was yet. i wanted you all to be the first to know."

when i walked out of his office i could hear "heaven" by the talking heads playing on the stereo.

this was to be the second time that song had chased my suicide encounters.

i was freinds with fawn. but only int he work way. we didn't congregate after work or meet at bars to talk. fawn didn't drink. she didn't do drugs. she was an accomplished recording artist who had just completed her third album and had her first novel in the publishing works.

we enever found out why, but i know it doesn't matter.

she loved moby dick. i'd told her how much i hated it that day before she left for work. i told her it was four hundred pages too long. i told her that day she had to wait to go on lunch on account of a crowd at the register.

had i let her go, she might have missed tha call. she might have missed what it was.

i spent a great deal of time turning all the events over in my mind, the way i always do when this happens. wondering what mean things i could have not said or what i could have said that would have been nicer or how i could have let her know that i looked forward to seeing her.

i wondered what i could have said that would have changed it. i wondered what i could have done that would have at least made it go smoother.

but i stopped wondering long ago. now i just think about her when the sun comes in the window just right or when i hear "heaven" int he background in some store or some room or a freind's car and wish i'd have told her i was glad i got to spend the time with her that i did.

"heaven" was always one of my favorite talking heads songs.

2003-01-05 | 10:09 p.m.
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