Chapter Text
“Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”
—William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
———
It was November 26, the time was 11:38 p.m., and Hamlet Dane I was dead of a heart attack at fifty.
His only son, Hamlet II, sat alone in his bedroom, over 200 hundred miles away. His phone was in his hand, but the call had long since ended. Or maybe it had only been seconds. Hamlet didn’t know. He was unable to do anything but sit in the exact spot he’d been sitting in before he’d received the call informing him what had happened along with the instructions to pack a bag. A car would be coming to pick him up in an hour and then it’d be to JFK to board a private flight to D.C. The news hadn’t broken yet, and his mother and uncle had thought it would be best to get him out of the city before the chaos unfolded and the media were alerted.
All this was inconsequential to Hamlet. The only thing he’d heard was your father is dead. Dead, dead, dead. The permanent kind, the kind you didn’t come back from. Was there another kind? Spiritual, sure, but physical death was irrevocable.
In a kind of jerky, spasmodic movement, Hamlet got to his feet—his phone falling onto the rug at his feet—and walked calmly down the hall to his roommate Horatio’s room. He knocked on the door twice, two quick raps, before he slowly eased it open. He didn’t have the capacity at that moment to feel guilty about waking Horatio up.
“Horatio?”
A sliver of low, golden light from the hallway illuminated Horatio, who slowly sat up in bed, his forearm over his eyes. “Hamlet?” he asked, his voice rough with sleep. “What time is it?”
Silently, Hamlet shut the door behind him and sat down at the edge of the bed. Horatio blinked at him, not awake enough to consider turning on the lamp. Hamlet was grateful for it. He didn’t want Horatio to see whatever must’ve been on his face, and he wanted this moment to stay dark—unreal almost.
This can’t be happening.
Horatio blinked. “Hamlet?” he ventured once again, a little more awake this time.
He decided not to beat around the bush. “My father is dead.”
Horatio jolted into total alertness. “Oh my god. What…I mean…” He trailed off. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It was a heart attack. I just found out.” Saying the words had imbued them with truth, and the weight hit him like a tonne of bricks. He dug his nails into the meat of his palm.
“I didn’t know he had problems with his heart.”
“I didn’t either. All that red meat, I guess,” he tried to joke, but then he was just crying, hunching into himself and sobbing, his entire body aching with it. He couldn’t stop. The tears were choking him, burning his cheeks as they flowed.
Horatio fumbled for the light and the room turned yellow and warm. “Let me make you tea—”
“No,” Hamlet interjected, suddenly afraid of the idea of being alone. “No, please stay.”
Horatio nodded and settled back down, his hands folded neatly atop his lap like a little Victorian lady’s. “Tell me what to do,” he whispered. “Tell me how to help you.”
But there wasn’t anything and they both knew it. Without a word, Hamlet crawled between the sheets and lay down, his hands at his sides, tears still flowing down his cheeks like a faucet, but there was no longer any ache attached to them. It was just a removed fact: oh, I’m crying.
“Just let me stay here for a minute,” he murmured, turning to bury his face in the pillow.
“Of course. Do you…?” Horatio gestured to the lamp.
Hamlet nodded, and a moment later, the room was dark again, the only light coming from the window and the distant, pale moon. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and half-wished he’d gone to the bathroom instead to tear his skin up like the child he was stuck as—the urge was there, he was itching with it—but then Horatio settled down next to him, a comforting presence who he hadn’t yet run off, and he relaxed an infinitesimal amount.
They lay there in silence for Hamlet didn’t know how long, until he heard Horatio’s breathing even out. A glance at the clock told him that it was 12:18.
He could’ve stayed there forever and ignored all this, but if he didn’t answer his phone, someone was going to knock, and he didn’t want to wake Horatio up again. Taking care to be quiet, he got out of bed, packed a bag, and checked his phone right as a message pinged from Marcellus letting him know that the car was outside.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when he came into the hall and saw Horatio standing in his bedroom doorway, shrugging on a coat, his glasses and shoes on as well. Hamlet was too grateful to say anything, so he didn’t. They rode the elevator down to the lobby without a word, and as Marcellus loaded the bags out front, they didn’t speak either.
“Hey, bro,” Marcellus said to Horatio, giving him a nod.
Horatio smiled and nodded back before finally turning to Hamlet. “You’ll call me?”
“Every night,” he said with false cheeriness. “Expect long letters from the front.”
Horatio’s look was flat. “You won’t…You’ll take care of yourself, won’t you?”
They both knew to what he was referring. Hamlet swallowed. “Don’t worry about me,” was all he said. “You worry about everything, but try not to worry about me. You’ll get gray hair.”
Horatio rolled his eyes. “I see what you’re doing.”
“Is it working?”
Another eye roll. Already, Hamlet missed him and his life in New York. He had the sense that this would be the last he’d see of it. He wouldn’t be coming back. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
“Just…Please take care of yourself.”
“Don’t worry. Only one of us can be nuts at a time and Ophelia just got out of the psych ward, so. Spot’s taken.” When Horatio only sighed, Hamlet inched forward and lowered his voice. “I will be okay.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” he lied, and he had the sense that Horatio could tell.
They looked at each other. Marcellus called from the car, “Not to interrupt, but we need to get on the road.”
Horatio’s Adam’s Apple was bobbing. “Call me,” he repeated.
Hamlet gave him the two fingered salute. “Righty-o.”
“Have a safe drive,” Horatio added, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
“Stop worrying!” he called a last time before waving and ducking into the car.
When he started crying again five minutes from JFK, Marcellus and Bernardo—who was driving—had the decency to pretend that nothing was happening.