Death Becomes You

People often say, “Do I know you?” without realizing they’ve known me forever. It can get a little boring, if I’m being honest here. I wish sometime, someone would look up from their deathbed say, “Oh, honey, it’s you.” Or “I missed you, babe.” Or “Looking good, old chap.” But no. Never. It’s always: “Do I know you?” before, well, before rigor mortis sets in.

What would I say if I had the time to respond? I actually do have the time. It’s them who have run out the clock. But what would I say if we were having a conversation over a Stella Artois at a bar in the 13th arrondissement? “Do I know you?” is kind of an existential question. How well do any of us know each other after all. Camus didn’t get a chance to ask because the accident was so mercifully quick. Going instantaneously is really how you want to do it, trust me. I’m an expert. But I wonder if he had lived past 46, would he have looked up from scribbling at his desk and said, “Oh, it’s you,” instead of “Do I know you?” I’m betting yes. He was an advanced type of human. I recognize them when I see them because they’re few and far between.

Still, these are the kinds of questions I ask myself when I’m brooding. When I’m sitting on a park bench in London chain-smoking Gitanes and trying not to clock the nubile young thing sunning across from me. I never like to stare because if I do I’ll know the end. Spoilers detract from my pleasure, as you might expect. Seeing some bouncing blonde in a striped mini skirt and knowing what she’ll look like at 102 is nothing less than a buzz kill.

But if Playboy were doing one of their in-depth Q&A’s with me—something along the lines of “Questions with Mr. Death” and the “Do I know you?” query came up, I’d try to be honest. What’s it going to cost me, after all. I’d say, “Well, yes and no. In a way, we’ve always been bonded.”

What does that mean exactly?

Every time you’ve looked in the mirror, you’ve seen me, or a version of me, a shadow of me, looking back. I’m more prominent once you’ve made your first major milestones. You might have caught a glimpse at 19, when you discovered one gray hair that you immediately plucked. Or at 22 during an emergency appendectomy. You probably saw me at 40, with the beginnings of the crow’s feet and at 45 when your older relations began to expire. You definitely felt my presence at 50, when you had to go in for a colonoscopy—and hey, now they are recommending those tests for 45 and up, so book yours before it’s too late. At 60 when you found yourself groaning if you had to do a deep-knee bend, I was right there with you. And at 70 you could feel my condolences when your mates started leaving the building to meet Elvis. (Who departed in one of the worst possible ways. And even he saw me and said, “Do I know you?” in that trademarked drawl.)

Even with all the clues and hints and teasing, people are often surprised at the end. When the penny drops. When the puzzle piece fits. I can see the flicker of understanding as they realize that they were fooling themselves this whole time. That they had the answer, like Dorothy with her shiny ruby shoes, and never once clicked their heels.

Now, if I were being interviewed by GQ, it would be a different set of queries entirely. Less cerebral. More about what’s in my closet. Of course, I’ve been at this game a while, and I (not to toot my own horn) have been immortalized in quite a few pieces of art, stories, fables, novels, campfire tales, late-night movies.

During the plague, folks thought I had one look. During the Spanish Inquisition, a different visage. But in reality, my style has never changed much over the thousands of years I’ve been walking along the sand with you.

I am not what you see in pictures. I don’t carry a scythe, and I never did, even before scythes went out of style. I don't dress all in black, don’t have a skull for a face. The way storks don’t carry babies and, no, Virginia, there ain’t no Easter Bunny. Bergman made me white-faced with black robes. Memento mori manuscripts about me from the medieval years showed me always as a laughing skeleton, ready to take out both the wealthy and the impoverished with equal alacrity. Which I do, happily. You can’t, as the adage goes, take it with you.

Poe saw me in one form. Mary Shelley in another. I was apparently surprised to see a character in Samarra. Samarra was a long time ago, though, so I can’t really comment.

But back to one of the fictitious interviews. I can imagine sitting in a diner booth, drinking whiskey, listening to “Don’t Fear the Reaper” on the jukebox. Or maybe “Possum Kingdom.” Shadows deepen. The waitress eyes us morosely. A tape recorder makes a slight hum on the formica.

The truth is quite simple: While there is a me—non-binary, an equal gender opportunist—there is a hive mind version of me. When you’re born, you have life and me (aka death) inside you. It’s funny how few people question the life aspect. The life is more amorphous than I am, I suppose. Kind of like a light. A flickering bulb inside each and every living thing. Less of a personality. More of a vibe. Then there’s me. The opposite to the coin, the flip side, I guess, if you’re into vinyl. Like I’m into vinyl. Oh, do I love vinyl.

Every once in a while, when a person has a brush with me, a close call, they can feel the energy more clearly. I flex a little. I try not to. I don’t want to jump the gun. After that, be it a near miss at a red light or a heart attack that doesn’t quite finish the job, they’re forever different. Something shifts inside of them. A knowledge. A little gleam. And if they survive an action more intense, a gondola lift falling from a great height, perhaps, the Titanic sinking maybe, Polio, long Covid, a wet-palmed slip on a rope on the face of Half Dome, they develop not necessarily a death wish, but something that looks like a lack of fear. Something that occasionally turns them into dare devils. I love those people. We’re closer than most. We’re ride or die, buddies. Ride and die, I mean.

I wouldn’t swipe left is all I’m saying.

The way the system works is that I’ve kind of splintered, fractured. There isn’t a Death per se. A Mr. Reaper. A Grim whatever. 150,000 humans die a day, give or take. I couldn’t attend to everyone individually. I’m unique to each person, each animal, each thing that draws a first breath and then one day a last.

But back to the end, because I’ll always be there for you in the end. Folks will say, “Do I know you?” As if I might look like a teacher they had in third grade or a faraway relation they met once upon a time at a wedding or a funeral. They say it in hospital beds. They say it all by themselves in dark rooms, a razor in one hand.

It’s a slow dawn, generally, when they figure out that it’s me, and I’m them. That we’re one. You can’t actually have the A -side without the B-side, that’s the holy truth. You can’t have the light without the dark. And you can’t have all those years you had without me inside of you. Waiting. Always waiting. Patient. But don’t worry, babe. Death becomes you.