David TrinidadA Poet's Death
Rachel Sherwood
1954 - 1979"What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?"
--Erich Segal, Love Story
The first time we talked was in the rooftop cafeteria at Cal State Northridge. Misplaced poets, we sat amidst a crop of clean-cut freshman while, round the college, smog-smudged San Fernando Valley beckoned, panoramic and bland. I'd just returned from my debauched year up north - sad, drunken sex at the baths, in dark parks. You still yearned for St. David's, your stint as a foreign exchange student. In Wales, something fearless woke you up: you drank, wrote, fucked. Now, stuck in the suburbs, we talked poets, punk rock. This was the late seventies, disco's zenith. We both wanted to look like Patti Smith. We both wanted to look like Patti Smith on her Horses album: disheveled, pale, thin, intense. You were scanning Meredith's "Modern Love" for British Lit. I thought stale anyone before Sexton. You laughed, threw back your head. I puffed a Marlboro Light. In truth, you were too hearty, and I too uptight, to do punk. I praised, as twililght dimmed the grey valley, a poem you'd read at the student reading: a pitcher cracks, foreshadows a car crash. The skyline bled behind you. I'd also read that night - racked with stage fright, trembling uncontrollably. You seemed at ease, more confident than me. You seemed at ease, more confident than me, more independent. Lived on Amigo Avenue with a roommate, a moody science major; and your alter ego, a tomcat named Baby Tubbs. Still at home, I had no wheels. You drove a battered white hatchback full of newspapers, beer cans, comb, brush, books - half wastebasket, half purse. One night early on, we split a fifth of scotch, spread your tarot cards on the living room floor. You predicted long life for me, then said of yourself: "I might make twenty-five." Your roommate walked by, shot a look. Later, I passed out beneath Lord Byron's watchful eye. Passed out beneath Lord Byron's watchful eye - the poster tacked above your secondhand couch - I dreamt I was falling down the side of a mountain, a scarecrow, twisted and limp, limbs ripped, bouncing from rock to rock. On every wall an idol: Toulouse-Lautrec cancan in kitchen, young Chatterton's wan figure over your desk. Shuffling the deck, you asked the same question, drew the same black card: Death. Together we consulted all your oracles: Ouija board, zodiac, I Ching, palm, a fickle Magic 8 Ball. Hoping for more time, you inquired, I believed like a convict praying for a reprieve. Like a convict praying for a reprieve, you were more alive than the complacent suburbanites I despised. Drunk and peeved at the world, I started an argument that ended with you hurling a full Coors at me as I fumed down your stairs. Four weeks passed before we spoke, a rift I endured by writing a poem about the freak- ish night a black cloud followed us - we lit candles, toasted oblivion. Battle scarred, we entered the undergraduate poetry contest at Northridge. Daniel Halpern guest judged...or was it May Swenson? After your death, I'd be happy you won. What can you say about a twenty-five- year- old girl who died? That as a child she loved horses. And dogs. And cats. That Monty Python made her laugh. That she was alive to the disruptions of her time. That she liked Byron, Rod Stewart, Mozart, Waugh, Poe, Keats, the Cars. That she lived on Amigo and was my friend. That she once threw her keys in anger; once threw a New Yorker, shout- ing "I hate John Ashbery!" And that she once, after a speed-and-scotch-fueled orgy - Some Girls blasting, her last boyfriend passed out beside us - straddled, rode me like a horse. Rachel, can I say this: your cunt felt coarse. After your death, I'd be happy you won the contest - at least you had that. "Don't turn on me," you pleaded. Losing wasn't fun, but I couldn't begrudge you your prize. Burned out from an abortion, a vicious bite - a German shepherd lunged at your nose, slit its tip - and a violent unrequit- ed affair with your "Don J," a closet case obsessed with Kerouac, you spoke of making a change. By then it was summer: Blondie on the car radio, Fourth of July, craving fireworks. I remember headlights; reaching for the steering wheel, you. Next thing I knew, I woke in ICU. Next thing I knew, I woke in ICU: machines beeping around me, doctors and nurses hovering in an eerie blue light. Tube down my throat, I scrawled, with bruised hand, your name, question mark. My sister was steered in, wept to tell me you were dead, The night they moved me to a private room, you appeared, pulsating white presence, in the hallway outside my door. "I'm all right," you said, "You don't have to worry about me." I'd lie there in traction for six weeks, almost two decades ago, a ghost that fell from my own scarecrow dream, numb to that deadly drop. The first time we talked was on a rooftop. January 27 - March 10, 1999
David Trinidad's newest book is Plasticville (Turtle Point Press, 2000). His other books include Answer Song and Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988. He currently teaches poetry at Rutgers University and is a member of the core faculty in the MFA program at The New School.
