Penni Jones - Suicide Souls

“You’re welcome.”

The pull starts before I can say more. Doris did that on purpose. She probably likes to have the last word.

It’s almost too late. The Shadow is following me, barely hiding in corners and behind curtains. It’s getting closer, losing patience for my process.

This is my dad’s fault. He won’t cry. He never cried when I was alive. Not when our dog was hit by a car right in front of our house, not when his mother faded away with Alzheimer’s so helpless at the end that she couldn’t feed herself. Why would I think that my death would be the thing that made him human?

But it’s mostly my fault. I’m the one who decided to put the pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger. I’m the one who has spent too long with my other loved ones, too timid to help along the grieving process. I won’t even put out my scent: patchouli and Pantene. I hate being abruptly whisked from person to person with no knowledge of where I’ll land next. But most of all, I can’t bring myself to make these people cry again. I brought them enough suffering when I killed myself.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been dead a long time. I’m taking so long that people aren’t even that sad about me being gone anymore.

My mentor Edgar has warned me over and over that I can run out of time. But his warning never seemed real. It seemed like the warning parents give to not go swimming for 20 minutes after eating. And if it’s a for-real risk, why don’t they give us some sort of watch that’s a personal doomsday clock? Edgar doesn’t have an answer for that. He just rolls his eyes and makes some noise that’s sort of like clearing his throat and growling at once.

My dad is sitting in his recliner, dozing off then waking up long enough to take a pull from his Budweiser every few minutes. When I was a kid, he would sit his fat ass in that chair and preach to me about being a man. He would pass out before primetime with beer bottles at his feet, mostly empty but with a sip or two left that would spill into the carpet and no one would clean it up. The house always smelled like a flannel shirt that had been soaked in beer and then left to dry in a plastic bag.

His message of manhood was always lost in translation.

Sometimes you’re too close to something to really see it. Like when you hang a picture and you can’t tell if it’s crooked until you sink the nail and back away.

I didn’t really see my family for what they were until my cousin’s suicide when I was in college.

When I was nine and finally told them about the things my uncle would do to me on those nights they left me to sleep over, I was relieved that they didn’t confront him. I was relieved that the secret was off my shoulders and laying to rest on theirs. That I didn’t have to tell anyone else the words that would turn family member against family member, each one wondering if I was lying for attention.

They never took me to his house again and that was how they protected me. I didn’t realize until nine years later when my cousin Trevor swallowed an entire bottle of Klonopin that their silence meant he was still exposed to my uncle’s hunger, undoubtedly much worse once I wasn’t around to satiate the beast.

Our family portrait was crooked and always had been.

I asked Edgar once if he mentored Trevor, too. Edgar told me he didn’t know everyone who had committed suicide in a tone that made me feel like a racist.

My mom walks in and throws her keys on the table.

When she grieved, it was spectacular. It was like she knew I was there and wanted to put on the best possible show.

“Walt!” she shouts.

He grumbles a few unintelligible words and sits up. This is the same routine I’ve been watching for at least six months, but maybe as long as six years.

My dad never really liked me. He loved me in his own way, I guess. But he always found me to be a pretentious navel-gazer. I read too many books when I should have been throwing balls or working on cars.

“What do you want for supper?” she asks, the bite gone from her voice.

“I don’t care, Regina. What do you feel like?” He turns up a beer and gulps until it’s all down his throat.

Mom picks up two of the six beer bottles from the carpet and walks them back into the kitchen. She only stays because she’s afraid he’ll die without her, and he certainly would.

“I’ve got bowling league tonight. I’ll put a frozen pizza in the oven for you. Can you stay awake long enough to get it out before it burns?” She has her hands on her hips and her head cocked.

“Yep. I reckon.”

She sighs and walks to the bedroom.

The curtain flutters even though no windows are open, and no fans are on. I know it’s the Shadow. I have to do it, or I’m going to slip into Oblivion.

It’s easy to do, but every time I feel like I won’t be able to. Maybe because I hate to. But I must.

As soon as I decide that I absolutely must do it, my scent fills the room and my dad dozes off again. The smell of my memory might affect his drunken dreaming but might not.

My mom walks through the room and sees my dad sleeping. She smells me, I can tell because her eyebrows raise, and she looks around like maybe I’m sitting on the couch and have been there the entire time. She starts to cry, then shakes her head and leaves the room. Since I’ve already watched her grieve, this doesn’t help me at all.

The Shadow whispers my name, delivered straight to my ear from Death’s lips. I’m fucked.

I’m in my bedroom hiding from the Shadow which is ridiculous because I’m certain the damn Death Shadow can find me under bed among my old porn that I should have thought to throw away before I killed myself. Why my mom hasn’t thrown out all my shit is beyond me.

Even though I’m probably about to be sucked into Oblivion, the cover of Jugs catches my eye. It would be nice to have one last boner before I disappear into nothingness.

My last screw was about a week before I died. It was Daisy, my sort-of-but-not-really girlfriend. She was cute, with a great body and a gap between her front teeth. But she had no desire to leave Missouri, so I had no desire to treat her as anything other than a time-waster. I couldn’t face the idea of settling down with some down-home girl and never escaping.

I lived in Southern Missouri. It’s much closer to Branson than St. Louis, but even Branson is liberal and metropolitan compared to Brownsville. Less than 1,000 people live in Brownsville, and 900 of them are poor white folks who would only miss church for the Rapture.

My thoughts wander back to Daisy and I feel a tug at my crotch. Maybe I can get a boner, a weird ghost-boner that I can’t do anything with. The tug spreads all over. It’s not a boner. I’m being pulled away even though my dad hasn’t grieved.

Surely Oblivion won’t be so bad. If it is, I won’t know. Right?

But it’s not Oblivion. It’s a café with no food or coffee because we’re all dead here and dead people have fewer needs than the living.

I’m a table with Edgar and a young woman in a red dress with a plunging neckline.

“Luke,” Edgar says with a warm smile.

“Hi, Edgar.” Relief floods my guts, or what would be my guts if I had any.

“I see that look on your face. You thought you were headed to the end. Didn’t you?” Edgar is still smiling.

“Sure did.”

“Hey, if you’re going to stare at my tits can you please ask my name?” the girl in the dress says. I look up at her face. I’m sure I would blush if that was possible. She has a blonde bob and brown eyes. She seems too pretty for suicide.

“Sorry. I’m Luke. What’s your name?”