Moki died yesterday morning. i don’t know when, it may have been the wee hours. I didn’t get around to phoning 911 until midday today. I’m not sure why. It could be because I thought he would miraculously rebound. What was the expression Joan Didion used? Magical Thinking?
So somebody came by early this afternoon. I can’t tell you who it was. I think there were a couple of people, and they inspected the corpse. The question was put to me again and again: why did you wait so long to call? The answer was, I’d never had a husband die on me before. I needed advice from someone.
So I’ve blotted out that first visit. A couple of hours later, I was awakened from a nap by a couple of young female patrolmen with flashlights. Apparently I’d left the door ajar. I think I acted very peevish and sort of bawled them out for surprising me that way. Gillian Pisciotti and Nicole McCann, I believe their names were. We hung out together for two or three hours and became good friends. In the meantime we were visited by an ME, a medical examiner named Donaldson. She had family from Belgium so that was something we had in common. She had some pointed questions for me. The vodka bottles. I assume she saw the Morton Williams bags inthe living room, not merely the few pint and liter bottles in the pantry. I said I was responsible for most of that. Moki always wanted vodka around but he didn’t drink much, so much of the v went down the drain.
The cop girls and I went downstairs to Starbucks and later to the Duane Reade across the street. One of them bought a lip-balm variation I’d never heard of, begins with C. The other one bought a little travel size of Listerine. Further into the night they showed me their prowler car, and pushed the buttons to show how the revolving lights and siren worked.
A couple of negroes were standing outside 60 West 57th when we came out of Duane Reade. They were the body-bag boys. They spent a helluva long time packing up the corpse. The cop girls and I sat in the corridor while we waited for them. I had a twinge of tears when the bag came out of the apartment. But I suppose I’m mostly over that now. The gurney went down on the passenger elevator and he cop girls and I followed. Moki went into the hearse or ambulance, and the girls and I went into the squad car, briefly. I felt carefree afterwards. It was a quarter to nine and I went out to see if there was a liquor store open. I think I drank a full liter between yesterday afternoon and this morning.
22 Nov 2023, two days to go
One advantage to having Moki gone is that I can now focus on fitness again. I don’t have to worry about getting home from the gym to take care of him. Funny to think that for several weeks I was celebrating Taco Tuesday by bringing him tacos from Taco Bell at 8th Avenue and 51st St. Sometimes I got tacos from the old Natureworks on 55th, now called Cinco de Mayo. A superior product but Moki preferred the Taco Bell ones.
I don’t know what to do for entertainment now. I can finish reading the memoir of David Foster Wallace by his old fiancée in the London Review of Books. I never cared for Wallace, or at least never thought I’d care for Wallace, so I never gave him a chance. Moki and I spent much of our last two weeks watching Tinker, Tailor (both versions) and Smiley’s People. Television entertainment interests me not at all. I wish I had another liter of vodka, I really do. Do you suppose Moki has any interesting drugs in his medicine cabinet? I rather doubt it.
