Naked

by David Sedaris

I was in my second year of college when I received the news that Ya Ya had died. My mother called to tell me. I cradled the phone beneath my chin, a joint in one hand and a beer in the other, and noticed the time, 11:22 A.M. My roommate was listening in, and because I wanted to impress him as a sensitive and complex individual, I threw myself onto the bed and made the most of my grief. “It can’t be true,” I cried. “It can’t be true-hu-hu-hu-hu.” My sobs sounded as if I were reading them off a page. “A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. A-hu-hu-haw-haw-haw-haw-haw.” I had just finished reading Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory and tried to pass it off as my own. “I feel like a piece of my soul has been ripped away and now I’m just a kite,” I said rubbing my eyes in an effort to provoke tears. “I’ll walk across the campus later this afternoon and search the sky, expecting to find two clouds shaped like hearts.” “I’ve got just the thing for you, bud,” my roommate said. “Just the thing for you and me both because, I don’t know if I told you this, my own grandmother died just a few months ago. My brother dropped by to do his laundry and there she was, stretched out dead in front of her trophy case. That shit is harsh, my friend. You and me have got some grieving to do, and I’ve got just the thing to set free the spirit.” His remedy involved two hits of acid, a bag of ice cubes, and a needle. We split a pair of gold posts and sat hallucinating in the dormitory kitchen as a criminal-justice major ...