Knives Out

You can read maps; I can't. After fourteen years of marriage, I still get lost trying to read the map of you. You, folding your undershirts on the bed next to me, roll your eyes as I ask questions out loud, retracing my nine-hour road trip to see Elliott Smith at the Avalon Theatre in Boston with Rebecca my junior year of college. You never met Rebecca. She's one of the reasons we're here now. Together.

On the morning of October 28, 2000, I overslept. Rebecca and I missed the train from Wilmington, Delaware. Determined to get to Boston, Rebecca drove, stopping at gas stations, picking up each states’ map along the way. I remember seeing signs for Albany, driving across the Tappan Zee Bridge.

I spent all weekend navigating the webbed map of the internet trying to find the flirtatious band member who jauntily played the piano for “In The Lost And Found (Honky Bach)/The Roost” during Elliott Smith’s set until I landed on a blurry picture of him: Tim Dryden. Rebecca had gotten us passes to the after party upstairs in the Avalon. “You have this great vibe about you...maybe it's because of me,” he said. His cowboy hat perched on top of his curly blonde hair as we leaned against the railing, me in a thick wool turtleneck sweater and a ponytail.

Some memories melt over time, like the Gargoyle ice sculptures in the Avalon’s back room for someone’s Halloween themed wedding. I remember the elaborate costumes parading in the door after the venue went from depressed girls in flannel to a raging club scene featuring Wonder Woman. 

For Halloween 2007, you and I dressed up as Ritchie and Margot Tenenbaum. "Needle In The Hay" was the first Elliott Smith song you’d ever heard; he opened the show in Boston with it. Swigged beer in between the songs. His Figure 8 tour. The last song was "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by The Blue Oyster Cult. Did he fear? Ritchie Tenenbaum made his attempt. I did too. Ritchie and I both lived. Elliott Smith did not. 

You and I had a moment of silence for him in my car on a nondescript fall day in 2003. You didn't really know me, but when my mix tape came on as I drove us to the Safeway near our church to buy salad, you looked at me differently. And that, I joke, was just the tip of the iceberg. 

I can't find that Elliott Smith tape Rebecca made for me after our hiking trip to England's Lake District when she decided I needed an education in music. I knew him as the guy in the white suit standing on stage at the Oscars in 1998, playing "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting. He lost Best Original Song to Celine Dion that year. A Titanic mistake. You don't think I'm funny.

I ask you not to leave our knives out on the kitchen towel to dry on the counters. But you always forget. I take the black handles and wipe the blades down and put them away, always thinking. How did it feel? Why did he do it? Who stabs themselves twice in the chest? I'm still not convinced that Jennifer Whats-her-face didn't do it. But back in November 2003, I hadn't attempted to overdose on Celexa yet, Elliott Smith was dead, and you were intrigued. Neither of us wrote about that grocery store run in our journals.

Neither of us kept up journaling after we got married. You do the grocery shopping for our little family. You chop onions and cook dinner every night. Our son, Elliott, sleeping in the next room, has been ours for all of his seven years of life. I write in our room, listening to music. You let me read your old journal. In your handwriting, all these intimate words that I wish you would say now. You wanted me to keep writing poetry. Do you still feel the way about me that you did in my attic room with the lavender walls covered by black and white photographs, or on your twin bed on 24th Street with the Radiohead poster on the wall, listening to Kid A? 

I know I’ve written this story before, but I keep needing to tell it again. Taking out the knives each time, watching them gleam, but looking older and duller with time. These weapons that we use on ourselves, each other, still wound.

I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow.