The Dead Student Read Online Free PDF

into a trip to the liquor store or a nearby bar. Like Odysseus from antiquity and legend, he tried to rope himself to a mast.
    Day Two: At the end of a day spent raw and shaking on the floor by his bed, he finally answered a succession of calls from his parents. They were angry and disappointed, and probably concerned, as well, although that was harder to discern. They had left messages and it was clear they knew why he’d disappeared. And they knew where he’d disappeared to. Not specifically. They didn’t need to know the exact addresses of the dives that welcomed him. And he’d learned that he’d missed his uncle’s funeral. This detail had pitched him into an hour-long sobbing jag.
    He was a little surprised, when they’d finished talking, that he hadn’t gone out for a drink. His hands had quivered, but he was encouraged by even that small show of addiction-defiance. He had repeated to himself a mantra: Do what Uncle Ed would do, do what Uncle Ed would do. That night, he shivered under a thin blanket, although the apartment was stifling hot and the air moist and humid.
    Day Three: In the morning, as his pounding headache and uncontrollable shakes started to diminish, he’d called Susan the assistant state attorney who had given him her card. She didn’t sound surprised to hear from him, nor did she think it unusual that he’d waited so long to call.
    “It’s a closed case, or nearly closed, Timothy,” she had gently informed him. “We’re just waiting on a final toxicology report. I’m sorry to have to say this, but it’s designated a suicide.” She did not say why this detail made her sorry, nor did he ask. He had weakly responded, “I still don’t believe it. May I read the file before you put it away?” She had answered, “Do you really think that will help you?” It was clear that her use of the word help had nothing to do with his uncle’s death. “Yes,” he said, with no certainty. He made an appointment to come to her office later in the week.
    After hanging up, he’d returned to his bed, stared at the ceiling for over an hour, and decided two things: return to Redeemer One that night because that would be what his uncle wanted for him; call Andy Candy because when he tried to come up with the name of anyone in the entire world who might listen to him and not think he was a half-grief-crazed drunken fool running his mouth irrationally, she was the only remaining candidate.
    Matheson Hammock Park was an easy bus ride for Moth. He sat in the back row with the window cracked open just an inch or two so he could pick up the scent of hydrangeas and azaleas carried on the slippery midday heat, without compromising the steady cool wheeze of the bus’s air-conditioning. There were only a couple of other folks on the bus. Moth saw a young black woman—he guessed Jamaican—wearing a white nurse’s outfit. She had a dog-eared paperback Spanish Language Made Easy study book in her hands. Moth could see her lips moving as she practiced the language that was nearly essential to working in Miami.
    At his feet, Moth had a plastic bag with a large media noche sandwich for them to share, some bottled water, and a fizzy lemonade drink that he recalled Andy Candy had liked on their other picnic-type excursions to South Beach or Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne. He could not remember ever taking her to Matheson Hammock, which was, in no small way, why he had chosen that location. No shared history in this park. No memory of lips grazing, or the silky sensation of young bodies touching in warm water.
    Love dreams were best forgot, he thought.
    He did not know whether Andy Candy would actually show up. She had said she would, and she was probably the most honest person he knew, now that his uncle was dead. But the realist in him—a very small part, he inwardly conceded—had doubts. He knew he had been cryptic and obtuse and probably a little scary on the phone, with his sudden talk of murder.
    “I