A Dream With a Baseball Player

Or, How the Dead Visit Unannounced

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I got a bird that whistles, I got a bird that sings.
— Bob Dylan, “Corrina Corrina”

Bar none, the worst part of any dream is realizing you’re in one. Sometimes this occurs unceremoniously, but last night someone showed up in mine who didn’t quite belong.

Josh left us nearly 12 years ago. I won’t talk about how he died here—I already wrote that essay. If he were afforded another day, I can imagine him taking a look around and declaring how far we’ve strayed without him. And to his credit, that would be true.

When Josh died, teenage smoking was on the decline. Last night, he offered me a purplish vape in the backseat of an unfamiliar car. He never hit it in front of me. His younger sister, Corrina, passed on it. I’m sure I took the battery that destroys your insides and held it for a long time, but I don’t recall doing so. What I remember is thinking, “This will end and he’ll be gone.”

I want to feel the warmth of the cloud of nicotine fog curling from his mouth. I want his takes on Anora. Josh knows nothing of the world after the pandemic or the Obama administration, and for that, my cousin is somehow the lucky one. But like I said last time we discussed him at length, I know I can’t have the things I so desperately want. I can’t even tell him how bad things have gotten.

Last December in New York, I slid into a dim booth at a vegan Italian restaurant with my mom and aunt. For some reason, after we ordered, I turned around to face the wall behind me. Nestled into one of the built-in shelves was a dove-shaped clock.

Doves have trailed my family since Josh’s departure. Auntie Angie, Uncle Sherman, and Corrina frequently spot one (or several) on their vacations. In the Abrahamic tradition under which I was raised–no, indoctrinated by my pro-life parochial school teachers–the bird, in conjunction with the rainbow, represents God’s promise to Noah, that the Earth’s destruction by water was a one-time thing. I wonder if God plants the doves for us, implying that we will never have to bear a loss of this magnitude again.

A girl can dream.