Chapter 6: We love what we loose.

One thing Roger knew he would never miss about Mimi was her answering machine. It was true that Mark and Roger had the most annoying message for their machine but at least it was witty and original. Maureen's and Joanne's were never the same, Collins didn't even have an answering machine and Benny's was always set and ready for a business call. Mimi's though, it was boring and every time he'd leave a message he'd feel unimportant and even melancholy. Simply she'd recorded it after celebrating her first night in her own apartment, high as usual, and never bothered to change it. "This is Mimi," he remembered hearing it say. "You know what to do." There were times he just wanted to scream at the way she said things so apathetically. It made him feel like she was aching just to finally pass.

It was mid-afternoon and Roger hadn't even worked up the energy to take the subway to the morgue. By this time it was two in the afternoon and Mark had somehow managed to get up, get dressed and make himself something to eat. Like usual, Mark offered with his best attempts to get Roger fed and Roger refused. Although polite about his refusal it was still the same shtick every morning. Mark observed Roger in his moment at the window, like always and sat across from him, looking hard into the eyes he thought might tell him something. Today they were like reading a blank page. Mark nodded, quietly accepting this fact. He waited a moment for the unspoken moment to pass and as soon as he moved to speak the both of them looked up. "I thought that maybe I could come with you to the morgue, just to have a little bit of moral support, if you want to."

Roger looked up from the spot on the wall that he was rudely staring at. He made his best attempt at a real smile and nodded. "That would be great, Mark. Just let me grab my jacket and then we'll go." He stood and moved to where his jacket lay in his bedroom as he spoke. Mark nodded and got up as well to put down his coffee mug, grab his own jacket and knapsack. Maybe it was Mark's own emotions taking over his brain but it seemed like suddenly they were on the subway. Time seemed to slip away these days almost as fast as his friends.

This afternoon Collins was doing his best morning after impression. He quickly pulled up his pants as soon as Benny's eyes opened. A little bit confused, Benny sat up and rubbed his eyes. "You going somewhere Collins?" he said, almost afraid to be left alone. Collins looked back at Benny and pulled a sweater over his shoulders.

"You know I had a good time, I'm just not the relationship type." He didn't crack a smile. It was more sarcasm than humor. Benny looked back up at Collins with a sneer painted on his face.

"I'm serious, just because I'm crashing doesn't mean I have to put up with your shit." Benny felt feverish and angry.

"I'm just meeting the boys down at the station." Collins remarked. "Mark and Roger are going down to the morgue to identify the body and Mark wanted me to come along. I'll be back in a couple of hours if that's okay with you darling." More and more Benny was regretting the decision to sleep over at Collins place. He averted his eyesight for the time being. He could feel a surge of emotion coming on and didn't feel like expressing it as much as he had last night. "I would offer to come and help out but I don't think that I could stand to be around a corpse. I think it'll just fuck me up."

Collins nodded; for once he understood exactly what Benny meant. He waved and exited his apartment almost too silently. He was too sure that this wasn't going to pretty. He was positive that this would be Roger's breaking point. Still, he continued onto grand central station to meet Mark and Roger. Roger and Mark.

This was the first time in two days that Mark had even turned his camera on, he was almost sure that he left it alone long enough to collect dust. Some of the film left on it was from a support group he, Roger and Mimi had attended just a few days before. He couldn't help but think that there was some kind of ghost left in his camera. He pointed the camera towards Roger who was buying the tickets to the train. He looked like himself, hassling the ticket giver as usual.

Collins always walked into a roomwith a bang and today was no exception. "I'm here." He said, loud enough so that the entire station could hear his rough, bass voice. Roger turned and smiled at Collins, greeting him with hug and a ticket. Mark sighed, this was going to be it, this was when Roger was going to break down. He just knew it. Mark was not excited for this trip, even more he was terrified but when his two friends looked over at him all that he could do was fake a smile and put his camera into his bag.

Again, a big chunk of time just dissappeared from Mark's life and as soon as he knew it was getting off the train by the morgue. Apparently he had been speaking to Collins about how he'd found Mimi the night before so when Collins asked "What did she look like?" Mark honestly replied.

"Peaceful." It took all of five minutes to walk to the morgue and when they reached the steps of the building Mark and sighed, closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't think that I'll be able to do this." Memories from the night before rushed through his head and suddenly Mark felt the need to vomit.

Roger looked over at Mark in remorse. It was obvious that Mark was traumatized and all Roger wanted to do was take that fear and disgust away from his best friend. But he couldn't and he figured that the only way Mark was ever going to survive this was to face his fears. Roger played the moral support card again.

"But Mark, you promised!"

This time Mark really felt the dissappointment in Roger's voice. It wasn't like the other times when he faked empathy, Mark could really hear the emotion in Roger's tone. So, reluctantly, Mark nodded and opened the door open for his two friends.

Immediately Roger went up to the front desk, with confidence, and said. "We're here to identify the body of Mimi Marquez." Suddenly something along the lines of indegestion or food poisoning stabbed Roger's stomach and he stumbled back into a chair. Immediately Mark and Collins rushed to his side, checking his forehead for a tempture and rubbing his arms to comfort him. After a few minutes Rogernodded, stood up and loosened his shoulders. The pain had passed he was ready now to go see his lost love. Mark and Collins stood up behind him and stared at eachother inquisitively. The morgue clerk did the same. Roger looked back at his two friends as Collins almost shouted. "What the fuck was that?"

Roger looked back at Mark with an "tell him" look but Mark just stared confused at him, shaking his head. Roger turned back around and grabbed Collins by the arm. "It was just a spot of indegestion, I'm okay now." Suddenly Mark felt like this wasn't going to happen today. Roger wasn't going to accept this and it hurt him so bad that he just strayed his vision to focus on something besides the dissappoiting Roger.

The clerk led them to where she was being kept but put one finger up to imply that only one person could go in at a time. Roger shrugged and followed the clerk inside. Taking the keys from around his neck, the clerk unlocked what looked to be a filing cabinet drawer and opened it. Accepting the surgical mask from the clerk, Roger peered over the drawer and lifted the sheet from the body and immediately he looked away. One image stayed in his head as he tried so hard to forget, but Roger knew he had to look again. He slowly looked down at the corpse and nodded. He never remembered seeing her so fragile. Mark was right though, she looked more peaceful that he'd ever seen her. Maybe it was what she wanted. Maybe she planned it all along.

"It's her." he said simply and made went straight over to the door, looking down at the floor as the clerk 'put her away'. As the clerk opened the door Collins and Mark immediately stood up from where they were sitting. Roger, unwillingly, broke the news witha silent nod to them. That was it, it wasn't just some crank or deceptive thing Mimi pulled, Mimi really was dead. Roger knew this in the back of his mind somewhere but all he could really think about was how terrible the smell was.

"We're going to have to cremate her." Roger whispered.