Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

If there’s one thing I learned from the last time I was arrested, it was to never to carry any dope on my person for any reason, just in case something goes wrong and I end up getting searched. The rule of thumb in any criminal enterprise is that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. My six-month harsh lesson from Kroger reminded me every day not to carry dope into a store and it looked like it was paying off this time because I had just been repeatedly searched by the police without any problems. However, things got seriously fucked after the second officer decided to go out and talk to Jenifer just to “make sure she was ok.” I wasn’t out there but somehow the cop convinced her he was a friend and just wanted to confirm there wasn’t any stolen merchandise from the store hidden in her car. Even though we had just scored dope, which was just sitting right inside her console, she decided to live in fantasy land and gave fucking Officer Herrera permission to search her car. What?!!

When the officer came into the store with a couple baggies full of fresh brown heroin, my self-confident smug look of self righteousness fell to the floor. I couldn’t believe they had gone out and busted Jenifer for possession. I was already thinking of what I could do to get her a lawyer or bail her out when I noticed the officers murmuring to each other.

It turns out there wasn’t anything in the car with the paralyzed girl at all, but I had secretly kept the bags of heroin in my pocket the whole time they repeatedly searched me! They brought the fucking drugs into the goddamned store so they wouldn’t have to deal with the paperwork and hassle of arresting a handicapped girl. The next thing I knew I was in cuffs and as we walked out Ms. Plainclothes was yelling to the entire store how they had just busted a shoplifter at “your neighborhood Wal-Mart!” I stopped and looked at her for a minute just to give her the dead eyes and explain they actually had taken merchandise from me. The cops almost broke my arm (fucking break it off you pigs!) when I did that and I also requested the police immediately confiscate the store videotapes for my legal defense and impending lawsuit against Wal-Mart. They laughed at this as if I was joking even though they knew I wasn’t. To Protect, Honor and Serve, my ASS!!

The absolute worst part was being led in handcuffs out to the squad car in the pouring rain past Jenifer who had this look of malice on her face that hurt me more than anything in my life. She let me know it was over right then by saying “Bye Sam” in a voice tinged with anger that meant it really was finally over. That’s all I hear again and again and again in my head right now, the only person in my life worth anything has finally given up on me.

I’m going to kill myself. No meticulous planning. No slow degradation. Straight Richard Cory all the way. My old belt should be good for a simple hanging, maybe strong enough to crack my neck if I do it right. No note. She knows I love her and everyone else knows I’ve tweaked, what could I possibly put in writing that might explain it all? One last call to my mom to let them know not to be afraid. I’ve finally figured out a permanent solution to my permanent problems. I have the advantage of knowing it gets better on the other side.

Goodbye Jenifer, I loved you so much.

Suicide Watch

Thankfully I’m still here on this plane of existence, but I’m royally pissed at my mom for doing something I can’t bring myself to forgive her for right now.

God intervened in my misery right after I wrote my last note of desperation, when my thoughts were still at their darkest. I retired to an empty cell in the 72 hour holdover tank wearing the same clothes I had been wearing when arrested 6 months ago and then released and re-arrested last night. Six months of stink plus one day and I smelled like a corpse. I took the old leather belt from around my waist and worked it into a loop that would tighten around my neck as I leaned forward to hang from the bottom bunk, hopefully cutting off my air supply long enough to die before anyone checked up on me. It was the only way to do it without someone noticing and intervening, long enough for me to finish the job.

I got down on my knees and said one last prayer for forgiveness. A year or so before, after the accident, I had asked God to show me a better way within 2 years or I would terminate my existence for the benefit of society and I apologized to Him for ending our agreement early and not living up to my end of the bargain.

But as I put the loop of belt over my head and around my neck I heard a commotion down in the dayroom. People were gathered near the front windows like the guards were passing out free beer, so in spite of the welcome distraction, my curiosity got the best of me. I figured my business could wait another minute anyway and I walked down the thick metal steps to see what was going on.

Apparently somebody in the 72 hour holding tank next to ours had hung himself during the same moment I was praying and contemplating the best way to hang myself without botching the job. There’s nothing more pitiful to see than an unsuccessful suicide attempt except maybe a heroin addict killing himself slowly. I pushed through the crowd of miscreants and watched through the unbreakably thick windows as a group of guards were carrying the anonymous body of a man wrapped in a prison blanket out of the next tank. Part of the blanket had fallen open and as he bounced past I could see the empty eyes and tortured expression of his poor soul reflecting back at me. Dead.

While the other prisoners around me started crazily hooting and shouting insults at this man’s body I just stood slack-jawed and realized right then and there how stupid it would be to give in and actually die in this place. All the bastards were getting me down and I was about to blindly commit the only unforgivable sin. Seeing that guy’s face was the only thing that could have kept me alive that day and as I watched his body being taken away, it was if all my worries and sins and troubles went with him.

I went back to my cell, put my belt back on the right way and just cried and cried and cried for the longest time while God sat next to me on the bunk not saying a word. Without speaking he touched my head, filled my mind with a fraction of His awareness and then when I blinked he was gone. Conversation over. I felt reborn, still angry and emotional and confused, but reborn as a child of innocence and light. I KNEW right then that no matter whatever happened next, everything would be ok. I shuddered at the thought of what I had almost done and how close I came to ending it all. I shuddered to think how that poor man had to sacrifice himself to save my life, a few minutes difference, one forgotten prayer and I could just as easily have been HIS example.

My mother made the call to the jail after I hung up on them so abruptly earlier that evening. I guess I was wearing my emotions on my sleeve and she figured out what I was going to try and do. I was still feeling good and smiling about actually “talking” to God when they came into the tank and grabbed me, dragging me down the metal stairs, down the hall and threw me in a freezing solitary 6x6 cell with a wide-angle camera in the corner. Since one guy had succeeded in killing himself today the guards decided to actually take my mother’s warning call seriously whereas normally the guards prefer to just leave the animals in their cages to wipe themselves out whenever possible. I tried talking to the SS guards, insisting I wasn’t suicidal, but their only preventive response was to toss me into the blinding white concrete room. They took my shoes, slammed the door and left me in there for hours.

…and hours…