Vinnie's jacket
Nussbaum, Anna
Anna Nussbaum VINNIE'S JACKET What I'll take with me Vinnie loaned me his jacket one night when we were sitting in his basement bedroom listening to the Fugees and catching up. He'd been smoking...
...My state...
...She called me inside and said, "Anna, Vinnie Franz is dead...
...Vinnie took too many of the painkillers he'd been given by the shrink and they stopped his heart...
...When Vinnie died I wanted to go back to the days when I first met him in sixth grade...
...The night he died I had gone to the movies...
...I called Vinnie every day, and he called me...
...I hugged him close, all warm and alive...
...It was an unintentional overdose...
...Sometimes I think there's nothing left...
...I chose the red and blue plaid...
...Dry lightning illuminates the muddy red clouds at dusk and the blue gray clouds at night...
...The next weekend I went to a party in my hometown wearing Vinnie's jacket...
...Vinnie let me pick out a jacket...
...My jacket no longer smells of him...
...Because I don't want to sell out my friend and I also don't want him to be forgotten...
...People had piercings in their cheeks and lips and tongues and eyebrows and bellies and noses...
...I saw a movie about a man who blew up the world, and I came home to find my mother waiting on the front porch...
...He'd lifted me off my feet and held me in the air for a long time...
...The kid was crazy in love with God...
...He'd been losing much weight...
...All I could do was sob and scream "No...
...Wild fires raged in Colorado...
...Vinnie died in June, right after graduation...
...I signed his yearbook...
...Or at least that's how I felt...
...I saw Vinnie the night before he died...
...He had been in pain, but he wasn't a complainer...
...He was the person with whom I was my best self...
...And he was dead...
...With Vinnie I was funnier, smarter, braver, kinder, more beautiful, more faithful...
...He sat in the back...
...He was the one I yelled with...
...They want to know who was at fault...
...My world...
...Afterward he got doughnuts and ate them on the roof of the nearby hospital looking at the sky, and smoking...
...He was the one who made me laugh so hard I couldn't see...
...The hard part at such times is waiting to see what will be consumed, what will endure, and what will change forever...
...It was one of his purchases from Goodwill...
...He'd been smoking in the stairwell leading into his room...
...What interests me is how one friendship can teach you about loyalty and laughter, and how one friendship can carry you from one road to the next...
...He'd had exploratory surgery and had been seeing various doctors, one of whom suggested a psychiatrist...
...Forever...
...We didn't even say hello anymore, we just picked up the phone and started talking where we'd left off...
...Its cotton exterior and nylon lining were worn and smooth...
...The jacket smelled like him, like Marlboros and sweat and Calvin Klein cologne...
...Vinnie couldn't come...
...Now I go to Vinnie's grave at Evergreen Cemetery and I sing to the sod...
...I danced to the punk band in the basement, and smiled at people who didn't smile back...
...I told him all about the party the next morning on the phone...
...He went to Mass on foot every Sunday in middle school...
...I walk at night wearing Vinnie's jacket and search the sky...
...It took off...
...He was fun...
...He kept all my secrets...
...He watched out for me...
...I rode my bike over to his house...
...I take long walks and converse with the air, but the subject isn't there...
...They say that death is a part of life but for much of my life it wasn't...
...because Vinnie was my best friend...
...No one knew exactly what was wrong...
...his mom and sister didn't attend...
...Then I tell a joke he told me and people laugh, or I check my oil the way he showed me, or I let a guy pay for lunch the way he used to do, or I put on mascara Jersey style and I know he'd approve...
...That's what we were told...
...But I do want you to know his name.know his name...
...I think about all those days and nights spent in each other's friendship, and the days when he was my only friend...
...I walked in and surveyed the scene...
...Women had elaborate tattoos that hung like necklaces across their collarbones and dipped into their bosoms...
...Adults want to focus on why Vinnie died...
...It had a grease stain on the sleeve from when he'd worn it while repairing his old Ford...
...This past summer everything started burning...
...That's what I did...
...We'd promised never to lose touch...
...It felt good and I wore it home...
...We loved each other, that's what I take with me...
...My church...
...That was only a dollar seventy-five," he told me smiling...
...At first he laughed 'cause it was funny, but he kept laughing at the sound of his own laughter...
...I felt sure I was the youngest person there...
...He thought the weight loss might have been caused by anxiety...
...I shoved my hands in the pockets of Vinnie's jacket and breathed deeply...
...He let me keep wearing the jacket through April and into May until he decided I might as well keep it...
...This has been a hard story to tell...
...I slouched confidently through the crowd...
...But that doesn't interest me so much...
...He sent me notes in class about how much Jesus loved me...
...Don't tell me this...
...It was full of twentysomethings who for whatever reason had hung around Colorado Springs after high school either to work or go to community college or both...
...He was the last person with whom I could still be a kid, long after I could no longer be a kid with myself...
...Vinnie's jacket made me feel safe and loved and cool, the way he made me feel...
...Everyone looked ironic and beautiful and disaffected...
...I'm looking for my friend...
...Because the door had been open, it was cold...
...It smells like me now...
Vol. 130 • February 2003 • No. 4
