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“But the worst part,
the absolute worst part,
is the constant slipping
of your tongue
into the new empty space,
where you know
a tooth supposed to be
but ain’t no more.”
In section 5 ("The Sadness"), Will asks the reader to imagine grief as though the reader wakes up and finds someone ripping out one of their back teeth. This encapsulates the disorientation and pain of grief and suggests that his brother’s death feels as though something essential has been taken out of him. It’s as though he’s lost not just a beloved family member but a part of himself. Though this metaphor gestures towards a ripping, overwhelming pain, Will says that the pain itself is not the worst part and describes searching and searching for the missing tooth with one’s tongue. This parallels the way Will is continually searching for his brother and remembering his absence over and over again. It’s almost as if part of him still can’t conceive of a life without his brother and is bewildered and freefalling, trying to make sense of an incomprehensible loss.
“IT’S SO HARD TO SAY,
Shawn’s
dead.
Shawn’s
dead.
Shawn’s
dead.
So strange to say.
So sad.
But I guess
not surprising,
which I guess is
even stranger,
and even sadder.”
In section 6 ("It’s So Hard to Say"), Will forces himself to repeat the fact that Shawn has died, suggesting that his language for grief has not yet caught up to his reality. In some ways, the loss of his brother leaves him grasping for language. The increasing length of the space before Shawn’s name seems to parallel Will’s blankness, as though he gets lost in the emptiness left by his brother’s absence. Will’s grief is also complicated by the fact that his brother’s death doesn’t come as a surprise. Given the nature of their community and the violence that their family has experienced, Shawn’s death seemed almost inevitable. This sense of inevitability increases Will’s sadness. It seems to create a sense that his brother never had a chance. The strangeness that he expresses also suggests that Will is struggling with shock and bewilderment. Like his language, his sense of reality is struggling to catch up with the reality of his brother’s death.
“AND THERE WAS A SOUND
like whatever makes
elevators work,
cables and cogs,
or whatever,
grinding,
rubbing metal on metal
like a machine moaning
but coming
from the mouth
from the belly
of Shawn.
He never said nothing to me.
Just made that painful
piercing sound”
Section 268 ("And There Was a Sound") takes place after Shawn starts crying in the elevator, violating the first of The Rules for the first time. He still has not said a word to Will. The sound of metallic moaning that Shawn makes instead of speaking evokes a sense of keening or a funeral wail, suggesting that the pain inside of him outsizes even the language he could use to express it. The sound expresses more than Shawn could in words. It evokes the tremendous amount of pain that Shawn has suffered because of his early death, because of the violence he suffered and committed, and because of his brother heading down the same path. The sound also conveys that some pain is not articulable in words, suggesting how confusing, bewildering, and otherworldly Shawn’s pain is.
