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“Dead in Long Beach, California”

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Be are responsible for telling this story, especially because Coral can’t. She just found her brother dead in his apartment. Suicide. Coral’s brother Jay lived in Long Beach, California. It was a cheap apartment, although he could afford more. Jay didn’t like the idea of ​​moving because nobody really likes the idea of ​​moving, especially men who are almost forty. People like to dream of being somewhere else and suddenly taking all their things somewhere else, but moving is what Coral describes as some nonsense. We did some research. The apartment peeked out between a row of houses and another apartment building. Bougainvillea, gardenias, and other water-tolerant plants that added splashes of color to the languid landscaping climbed the facade. Long Beach was an oily, salty town, nicknamed Weirdbeach by those who weren’t likely to plant a gay pride flag on their lawn anytime soon. The long, sleepy horns of boats in the extremely active harbor groaned into the night. Coral had finished a brief conversation with Jay about eleven minutes before arriving at his apartment. He didn’t mention the suicide. We’re sure.

There wasn’t much blood. That is, there wasn’t much blood to see right away. We think that’s why Coral didn’t notice it when she walked in. The studio was dark, just the way Jay liked it, with blue walls, a blue couch, a blue entertainment center, and a blue carpet. It was like jumping into the ocean any time of day, if the ocean was damn hot and humid and smelled like burnt bacon and coconut scented candles. Coral thought the place was empty, but was startled when she saw Jay’s figure under a blanket on his bed.

It was so quiet that I thought no one was home. Said Coral.

She went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator.

You gotta get to the grocery store. Where’s the water? It’s fucking hot in here. Yeah, I was surprised when they offered me the deal, but now that it’s signed, I can talk about it, you know. I know you knew something was going on, and I don’t keep people on their toes with hints and stuff, but it’s like pregnancy. You don’t talk about that shit until you’re in the middle of the process and you know for sure. That’s what people say, anyway. Men don’t think about that shit. Let me give you another metaphor, because that’s what I do. So it’s like football, when you talk about who’s going to win or not. You don’t jinx that shit by giving too much away about why you know. Or maybe that’s what you do. Everybody be extra strict down to the math. Motherfuckers walking around with 300 credits can recite every statistic about any team from 1967 to now. How can you still stay under that blanket?

Then Coral walked close to Jay’s body in the dim light and saw what we know. She was coping as well as could be expected, which is not good in the long run, not good at all. Some people scream when they die. Coral fell to the floor, dizzy. Everything was silent. The heart causes this, pumping all the blood to all the extremities, making it feel like the head is going to explode, and the fingertips go numb from the pressure. She tried to grab her phone, but she couldn’t. She tried to breathe, but she couldn’t. Failure to perform basic tasks is typical of shock. Time passes differently. The body becomes lighter and heavier at the same time, like dark matter. You go in and out of existence involuntarily. We know it took three minutes for Coral to come to her senses and call 911. The sentence came to his senses is a common example, so we used it, but it’s spectacularly inaccurate. Losing the illusion of safety in this life means being more in tune with the senses than ever before. A glimpse of death does this. It’s a reminder that humans were delicate, shell-less, watery sheaths of nerves. Since so much could hurt them, we believe that forgetting some pain allowed humans to choose to exist and become numb to all sensation. There’s no substitute for this kind of amnesia about mortality; the simulations in games or movies don’t come close. Death in real life is an ice bath from the inside out. Still, we like to think that Coral would have behaved better in other circumstances where an emergency was more time-sensitive, but we have our doubts and wouldn’t put money on that outcome.•

Extract from Dead in Long Beach, California, by Venita Blackburn. Published by MCD, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2024 by Venita Blackburn. All rights reserved.

DEAD IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIABY VENITA BLACKBURN

<i>DEAD IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA</i>BY VENITA BLACKBURN” title=”<i>DEAD IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA</i>BY VENITA BLACKBURN” src=”https://hips.hearstapps.com/vader-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/1713912760-dead-in-long-beach-california-2000×1000-6628390859c48.jpg?crop=0.4xw:1xh;center,top&resize=980:*” width=”2000″ height=”1000″ decoding=”async” loading=”lazy”/></div> </div> </div> </div> <section data-embed=
Portrait photo by Venita Blackburn

Venita Blackburn is the author of the story collections The Black Jesus and other superheroeswhich won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, and Wrestling with a girlwhich was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for lesbian fiction.

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