What Friends Are For

A sideways slam of the sleeper car roused me from my nap. We had only begun the ascent into the Alps and yet it had become colder on the train or at least, I imagined it had. I had been dreaming of him. Maybe I have been for a few days, but I only now realized it. It was just six weeks ago, there's no reason to think that it wouldn't occupy my thoughts, especially at night when I wasn't really there to fend off his memory.

We had only just begun the leg of the journey that skirted Lago Maggiore. We must have left Laveno only a few minutes before I awoke. We were really still following the Italian Plain – which is what he had called it as if it were some true geographic feature of note. It was just a goddamn name he had made up. It could just have well been the Gallarate Plateau, or the Lepontine Foothills for that matter. Oh well, he was dead now and it really didn't matter.

After you hit Pointe Tresa, (I always called it Puta Tresca after an encounter I had there two summers before), the Alps proper move down to follow the lake and the rail line around to Maccagino and finally to Magadino near the northern tip of the lake. I always insisted on going to Magadino, though the climbing and skiing there is not as nice as in some of the more popular resort areas. That was precisely the reason I liked it so, and precisely the reason that they hated it so, especially Sean. It was also the root of the matter as we wouldn't have quarreled had I not insisted on Magadino, again.

I never really liked Switzerland to begin with. I was always happier in Italy, though I preferred Madrid or Barcelona to them all. Castillan is the only other language I can really understand; though I found that when I speak Spanish with a heavy Italian accent, the girls in Tuscany pretend to understand me. My French is passable, but not the way anyone speaks it in Switzerland, though after five years now I can make myself understood in Magadino. I rearranged myself and the pillow against the window of the compartment and tried to doze off again staring at the lake and feeling the cool air overtake me.

In a moment it was all around me. Ice and snow mixed in with the dirt and the rock as it began to slide in to swallow me. Sean's screams became silent although his mouth still gaped open and his throat constricted to voice them. His hand reached out for me but it began to slip away as I reached for it. Only, it wasn't he who slipped away but I. I moved faster away from him and down the mountain. I felt my form following the contours of the ground as I slipped faster along, and then I swung free. I was free of the earth and the snow and the ice and I felt relieved. Then I looked back over my shoulder to see the mass of mountain rising up out of the morning mist to greet me. As I swung myself up in terror, I fell from the bench in the compartment and onto the floor.

I lay still for a moment, as my eyes adjusted, and I caught my breath. I oriented myself and realized that I was once again on the train, or that I was still on the train. My heart beat to break and my hands shook. I sat back up and stared out the window.

It was early evening out. I recognized from the bend in the shore that we were about an hour out from Magadino. I shouldn't have tried the trip in one go. We usually stopped in Arsizio for an evening and then again in Gallarate for a day or two. All of us knew girls in Gallarate and, being Americans, we were immensely popular. Sean's face was well known there, from the magazines, and the rest of us rode the crest of his open fame and never bothered to trade on our own. We often stopped in Laveno though, in the last two or three trips, we rarely even got off the train there. The last time we spent the night was when we quarreled with Christian and he returned to New York. So, there was a bit of an omen about the place. If Christian had been to Mount Cenere with Sean, there wouldn't have been an accident even if I had still refused to go. But now I was alone to blame as Miguel was no experienced companion and Ray was no companion at all in that situation. (Even more so than I, Ray refused to go anywhere near the mountains. He preferred to stay in the pubs and brothels, as would I, except when we went out on our weekly group climb or ski).

It was dark when we pulled into Magadino, thank god. I could think of Sean in the darkness and he was not imposing. But thinking of him during the day, I would remember why I came here and I would begin to feel that I couldn't bear that anymore. I found my baggage and waited in the lobby of the hotel across from the station. The desk clerk knew who I was and why I was there. He asked me not to go up tonight, but he knew I would. I sat in the cafe as he brought me a glass of brandy with coffee in it. I waited.

I couldn't believe that Sean was gone. I had thought of him before in the last weeks but never as gone for good, merely gone. At times, he would leave with Ray for weeks on end, or he'd be off with someone's wife or another model. But now he was gone. He was gone -- offered up to that simple god of his in that simple paradise. He was the only one I could talk religion with and not get angry or frustrated. Although his arguments for Christianity were no better than any other's, there was something in his simple acceptance. He didn't question, nor did he persist to convince, which some might claim is a fault of mine. He was satisfied and happy, always. Now he knew all the great answers. Yet, it wasn't his time. It was no more my time either, but I could have brought him down alive. Now, as it stands, it is upon me to bring him back dead.

The car from the Mount Cenere Lodge picked me up at about nine p.m. I say car, but it was actually some kind of tractor. It had snowed recently and there was little that wasn't packed in against everything but tractor, sleigh and ski. In the summer this is the most beautiful, vibrant country. Green, young and alive. But in winter it is dead. Frozen, black and dead. I looked around and knew that I would never return here. Perhaps I'd go back and find Christian in New York. Ray had long since gone off to Roma. He didn't know to blame me, but he was too heart broken himself to remain in Milano. I really couldn't go to New York though, because Christian would know that I was to blame. Miguel waited in Milano, but I wasn't going back there either. I hadn't really thought about it before now but I wasn't going to see any of them again.

We arrived at two a.m. Victor helped me with my bags to my little chalet and told me that he would fetch me at six in the morning. They had told me that it would take six weeks to recover the body, but I knew that once they found it, they would want it gone and me with it. I gave him the envelope and told him that it would cover the expenses but not to open it until I left. He felt the weight and examined the outline of the money and the letter inside and seemed satisfied. I hoped he would as it might complicate things if I had to answer for the contents too early. I opened my bottle of bourbon and had a long drink before I fell asleep.

I woke up at five. I cleaned myself and looked over the supplies I had brought. I hoped it would be enough. Then I sat on the floor and took another series of long drinks from the bottle.

Sean used to make us laugh because he couldn't drink well at all. He always got too drunk and always became sad and apologetic. Ray used to laugh at him and that only made Sean cry. Mike used to laugh at Ray and always tried to get some woman to take Sean home and make love to him, which they invariably wanted to do anyway. Then I always stepped in and saved him from his fate. I usually carried him off somewhere and returned in time to see the woman leave with Ray. Then Mike would laugh at me while I cried.

Victor took me to the church where the rescue party would return with the corpse. They brought it in a cotton body bag and placed him on the altar, then they left me. I knelt beside him and cut the ties on the bag. I pulled back the shroud to see a frozen flesh shell that bore a striking yet dissimilar resemblance to my friend. I quickly pulled the shroud closed because I began to imagine the ice melting and the hideous corpse coming alive when he thawed. I called for Victor and they came and led him away.

Sean lay on the bed in the chalet. It was just turning dark and I had woken near the fire well rested and only slightly drunk. Sean lay on the bed. I tried to remember how he came to be dressed in his suit and patent leather shoes, until I recalled trying to force the slowly thawing feet into the slippery leather. I also remember throwing up into the snow, but I can't recall if that was before I changed him, or as he lie there naked and frozen before me. Now he looked beautiful and at peace. He was no longer a frozen corpse, he was Sean again, at least in this light, and the haze of Kentucky bourbon.

I changed into my cold weather gear, except the parka and my last pair of socks. I poured the gasoline all over Sean and the room, then I walked out into the still night. A light snow had begun as I readied my skis. I had placed them about seventy yards from the cabin. I used my snowshoes to get back and forth. They wouldn't be able to distinguish the shoe marks until morning and they might not venture into the tree line to see the ski trail for a couple of days. That's what I hoped.

I hiked back to the cabin and looked once again at Sean. Finally I could say goodbye. I apologized, bent down and kissed his forehead. My lips burned from the gasoline and I washed them with the rest of the bourbon. Next I poured 190 proof alcohol all over Sean and said a silent prayer to his god. At the door I lit a rolled magazine, one with him on the inside cover. I allowed it to catch well and I tossed it upon Sean. The magazine rolled through the air in a lazy arc of orange and blue flame and landed square on his chest. I watched a blue flame explode and stayed to see it burst red. I ran to the skis as amber light slowly filed the window. I quickly had the skis and pack on and I skied to the top of the last knoll. From here I turned back to watch the flames. It began to snow harder and I watched the flames lick at the sky past the structure. I could see the body lying on the bed through the flames and I felt the heat in the distance or at least, I imagined I did. I waited as the flames melted the evil snow and ice. I waited to see the form follow me. I waited to hear his laugh and to see his white, mischievous smile approach in the moonlight. But he never rose out of the flames. As I heard voices coming alive out of the main house, I turned, tears frozen to my face, snot pouring out of my nose. I skied blindly the whole thirty mile trip down into the village of Isone where I planned to catch the early train down past Mount Generoso and into Italy.

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Mike Allison (c1995)
mike@thelastsocialist.com