Michael Ford - Suicide Notes

The Goth girl looked really unhappy, and the host asked her if she liked her new look. She said she hated it, and everyone got really angry, like they’d paid for the makeover themselves. Then this guy stood up and said, “I’d never ask you out looking the way you looked before.”

The girl looked at the guy for a minute, and then she said, “What makes you think I’d ever want someone like you to ask me out.” Then she turned to her sister and said, “So, now that I look like this, I’m okay? I’m not a freak because I look like you do? Well, you can go fuck yourself.” Only of course they bleeped out the good part because it’s daytime TV, and we all know that no one in America swears.

The guy she’d talked back to just stared at her like she’d kicked him in the balls, and her sister was crying her eyes out. The girl looked at them both and said, “What a bunch of losers.” Then she walked off the set. The host started smiling again, and they cut to a commercial for pork, the other white meat.

It was great. Bone and I were dying. Then Bone said, “Jesus Christ, people still think what you look like is who you are.”

I looked at the tattoos up and down his arms. I’d seen them before—you can’t miss them—but I’d never really looked at them. When I did, I saw that between the flaming skulls and hearts were the characters from Alice in Wonderland . He has the Red Queen and the Dormouse on one arm and the Mad Hatter and March Hare on the other one. One forearm has that picture of Alice with her neck all stretched out from eating the magic mushroom.

“Is that who you are?” I asked Bone, pointing to Alice.

He laughed. “No,” he said, “This is who I am.” He lifted his shirt, and on his back was the White Rabbit, wearing his waistcoat and looking at his watch. It was just like the illustration from the book. Only standing next to him, back-to-back, was another White Rabbit wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and boots and smoking a cigar.

“That’s me,” said Bone. “Always running. Always late. I had it put on my back because no one can see it unless I show it to them. The ones on the outside are for people to stare at. But I keep the one I really love hidden.”

“Why two of them?” I asked him.

“Yin and Yang,” he said. “Dark and light. One’s the good rabbit and one’s the naughty rabbit.”

“Which one is which?” I asked.

He laughed again. “Both,” he said. “It’s kind of a bipolar thing. Like me.” Then he got up and left before I could ask him anything else, just like the Rabbit does to Alice.

I sat there for a while thinking about the Goth girl. Actually, I was thinking about the opposite of her—how people think that if you look “normal,” then you are.

One time Allie and I skipped school and went to see this foreign film called Los Diablos , where these villagers found a glowing blue ball and peeled pieces off of it to see what was inside. Only the ball was really radioactive, and they all died from the poison. I think that’s what happens when you look too deep inside for the truth. The poison comes out, and you die, even though you have beautiful glowing pieces of blue truth in your fingers.

And anyway, the truth isn’t all that great. I mean, what’s the truth? Planes falling out of the sky. Buses blowing up and ripping little kids into millions of pieces. Twelve-year-olds raping people and then shooting them in the head so they can’t tell. I can’t watch the news anymore or look at the papers. It’s like whoever sits up there in Heaven has this big bag of really crappy stuff, and once or twice a day she or he reaches in and sprinkles a little bit of it over the world and it makes everything go crazy, like fairy dust that’s past its expiration date.

I woke up this morning to a snowstorm. A full-blown blizzard. It’s so white outside my window it looks like the hospital is flying through the clouds. It’s beautiful. The snow just keeps coming and coming. Those crazy naked trees I can see from my room look like they’re juggling cotton balls.

Goody and the other day nurse couldn’t get in because the roads aren’t plowed, so Nurse Moon and the rest of the night shift had to stay on, and they were not happy about it. They just wanted to go home and get some sleep. Cat Poop couldn’t make it in either, so basically we all had the day off. We were making the staff crazy because we were so hyped-up about the snow.

It was Sadie’s idea to go outside. Juliet said something about how the snow looked perfect for making snowmen, and the next thing you know, Sadie was asking if we could all go out in it for a while.

At first Nurse Moon said no. But then the other night nurse (Nurse McCutcheon, who always looks like she’s forgotten something but can’t remember what it is) said she would supervise us. Then Moon said it was okay, as long as two attendants went with us and we all stayed in a group.

I haven’t been outside since I came here. We can’t even open the windows more than a couple of inches. So I was excited about getting away from the stuffy rooms for a while. Only then I remembered that I didn’t have any outside clothes with me. My parents had brought me some jeans and shirts and stuff, but no boots or coat or anything. I mean it’s not like we go on nature hikes or anything. No one else had any either.

It turns out the hospital had some. I don’t know if they were left over from other patients or what, and I didn’t want to ask. I mean, if they were, why did they leave them behind? That’s the kind of question that really doesn’t have any good answer.

Anyway, we bundled up in the coats and scarves and mittens and stuff. Not everything fit us exactly right, but it was good enough. My only gripe is that the coat they found for me was bright yellow. Like some dog had peed in snow. But hey, it’s not like I was shopping at Macy’s.

Once we were dressed, we filed downstairs. We had to go through two sets of locked doors, and it felt like we were prisoners being transferred from one jail to another. But finally we made it out into the big square formed by the four wings of the hospital. As soon as we were in the yard, Sadie scooped up a bunch of snow, made a snowball, and threw it at Juliet. It hit her in the back of the head, exploding into a million flakes. Juliet made her own snowball and threw it back at Sadie. Only she missed and hit one of the attendants.

That was all it took. Within seconds it was a full-on snowball war. There were no teams or anything; it was everyone for themselves. We didn’t have anything to hide behind, so basically we just kept making snowballs and throwing them at whoever was closest.

I thought for sure Nurse McCuthcheon would make us stop, but she just got out of the way and watched, with a little smile on her face. I made a mental note to be nicer to her from now on. Not that I’ve given her any trouble, but you know what I mean. I could be less of a pain sometimes.

I pegged one of the attendants in the back, and while I was laughing at him, I got hit in the side of the face myself. I turned to see who had thrown the snowball, and I saw Martha smiling from ear to ear.

After we were all worn out from the snowball fight, Juliet started making that snowman she’d been talking about. She made a small ball of snow and then pushed it across the yard, making it bigger. Sadie and I helped her, making smaller balls for the middle and head of the snowman. Martha stood watching us but not joining in.

I went over to her and said, “You want to see an angel?”

She looked up at me with those big eyes and nodded. I walked over to a part of the yard we hadn’t trampled on yet and lay on my back in the clean snow. I moved my arms and legs up and down in a jumping-jack motion, then stood up, leaving an imprint.