Michael Ford: Suicide Notes

The weirdest part was that after she was gone everyone else just went back to their pancakes, like nothing had happened. I guess maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal because they’re crazy too. Maybe this kind of thing happens all the time. But not to me.

“What was that?” I asked Sadie, who was sitting across from me.

She shrugged. “Who knows,” she said. “She just snapped.”

“Just like that?” I said.

“Sure,” Sadie said, like she knew all about it. “The last time I was here, a kid woke up one morning and thought he was Santa Claus. He came out with this pillowcase full of stuff he’d taken from his room, and started handing things out like it was Christmas morning.”

Next to her, Bone laughed. “That’s excellent,” he said.

“It’s weird,” I said, looking at Bone. It occurred to me today that I have no idea why he’s here. I’d ask him, but I really don’t care. Besides, there’s enough weird to go around as it is. He can keep his to himself.

“Whatever,” said Sadie. “Anyway, they’ll drug her up and she’ll forget all about it.” She picked up a sausage and waggled it at me. “Wee-wee-wee,” she said. “Wee-wee-wee.”

Bone cracked up. “Wee-wee-wee,” he said, joining in.

At first I thought it was kind of mean of them to make fun of Alice. But it wasn’t like she was there to hear them. And, anyway, maybe that’s how nutcases handle things like that. I wouldn’t know.

Only Juliet didn’t laugh. She just sat in her seat, picking at her pancakes. She had a blank expression on her face, like she was trying really hard not to think about anything at all.

Later on, in group, Cat Poop talked about what had happened.

“Is Alice all right?” Juliet asked him. It was a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t all right. She was nuts. But Cat Poop knew what Juliet wanted to hear, because he said, “She’ll be okay.”

Okay? How can she be okay? She set her mom’s boyfriend on fire after he did who knows what to her, she’s in a mental hospital, and she thinks she’s the piggy who went wee-wee-wee all the way home. That’s pretty much the definition of not okay. I shook my head.

“Are you concerned about Alice, Jeff?” Cat Poop asked me.

That was a good question, I’ll give him that. I mean, Alice and I weren’t friends or anything, but I did feel a little bad for her. After all, it’s not her fault she’s nuts, right? She had a lot of bad stuff happen to her. But like I said, we weren’t friends.

“I just want to make sure what she has isn’t contagious,” I told Cat Poop.

He pushed his glasses up, so I knew he was annoyed at me. “I think you know the answer to that,” he said.

“It’s a good question, though,” said Sadie. “What if Alice has some sort of virus or something that went to her brain?”

I looked over at Sadie, wondering if she was being serious. She winked at me.

“Alice doesn’t have a virus,” said Cat Poop.

“But there are viruses that can make your brain go all weird, right?” Sadie asked him. “Like Mad Cow.”

He sighed. “Yes, there are,” he said. “But no one here has a virus.”

I gave a fake sneeze. “Uh-oh,” I said. “I think I’m coming down with something.” Then I oinked. “I think it’s Mad Piggy!”

“Wee-wee-wee,” Bone said. Cat Poop looked at him. “Wee-wee-wee,” Bone said again. “I think I’m coming down with something too.”

Then Sadie started. She fake sneezed and said, “Wee-wee-wee,” along with Bone. The two of them were trying really hard not to crack up, and so was I.

Then Juliet stood up. “Shut up!” she screamed at us. “Shut the hell up!”

We did shut up. She’s never yelled like that, and it took us by surprise. Juliet glared at us, her hands clenched and her whole body shaking, like she was trying to make our heads explode using the superpowers of her mind.

“Stop making fun of her,” she said, really softly. “Just stop. It’s not funny.” Then she sat down again and looked at the floor.

Maybe she had a point. But come on. Someone yelling about being a little piggy going wee-wee-wee all the way home is kind of funny when you think about it. Sure, I feel bad for Alice, but that’s no reason to go all serious. You’ve got to laugh at stuff.

Anyway, I’m not like Alice. I’m not like the rest of them either. So excuse me if I get a little sarcastic about it when they do something nutty.

Alice is gone. Bone told us this morning over breakfast.

“They shipped her out to Morning View,” he said between bites of cereal. “I heard the nurses talking about it.”

“What’s Morning View?” I asked.

“It’s where they send all the nuts who are never going to get better,” Bone told me. “She’s a lifer now. I guess she wee-wee-weed herself all the way to a padded cell.”

“And then there were four,” said Sadie.

I looked at her. “What?”

“And then there were four,” she repeated. “You know, from the nursery rhyme.”

She started to recite in a singsong voice.

She stopped. “It goes on until they’re all dead,” she said, spreading butter on a piece of toast. “But right now we still have four.”

“What happens to the other four?” Bone asked her.

Sadie took a bite of toast and grinned. “We’ll have to see,” she said.

“You guys are sick.”

It was Juliet. She was sitting a few seats away, her eggs and bacon getting cold on her plate. She hadn’t touched them. She was looking at us, and all of a sudden she started to cry.

“Why do you have to be so horrible?” she said.

Sadie put her toast down and wiped her mouth on her napkin before answering her. “Maybe because that’s how we deal with it,” she told Juliet.

Juliet shook her head. “You’re all just afraid,” she said. “You’re afraid you’re going to end up like Alice.”

“I’m not,” I said before I even realized it. Everyone looked at me. “I’m not going to turn out like Alice,” I repeated.

“You already are like her,” Juliet said. She was staring at my hands, which were resting on the table. Actually, she was staring at my wrists, which were still bandaged. “You just don’t know it yet.”

I put my hands in my lap. “What I know is that nothing was going to stop Alice from being crazy,” I said.

“And what’s going to stop you?” Juliet asked me.

To tell the truth, I was getting a little creeped out by Juliet. At first I thought she was just delusional. You know, with the whole Sex and Violence thing, and her crush on Bone. But now I think there’s something even more wrong with her. It’s like she thinks she can see inside people. She just comes out with this weird stuff, and you can tell she really believes it.

Well, she’s wrong about me. She can stare all she wants, but she’s never going to see inside me, because there’s nothing in there. Everyone could tell that Alice was loony tunes. I’m not blaming her for that or anything, but she was. I, on the other hand, pretty much just had one bad day and now everyone is making me pay for it.