Michael Ford - Suicide Notes

I forced my hands to be still. “Couldn’t, you know, do it,” I mumbled. “And with Rankin it was just fooling around. Nothing serious. It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything. Not like it was with…”

Again I realized too late that I’d slipped up. That made twice in less than five minutes. If I didn’t do damage control, and fast, I was basically going to make sure I was on the next bus out of there. And for some reason, I didn’t want to be on that bus.

“With whom?” Cat Poop asked.

“Nobody,” I said. “I was just talking.”

“With Allie?” he said.

I could feel his eyes on me. I started to say that, yeah, it was Allie. But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. He was starting to win, and I didn’t want him to win. I wanted to be the winner, even if it meant letting him think I’d come on to Rankin or whatever.

And that’s when he dropped the bomb. “Jeff,” he said. “I have to tell you something. About Sadie.”

“I know we shouldn’t have—” I said, trying to head him off. It was bad enough that I was probably going to get kicked out. I didn’t want to be responsible for Sadie having to leave, too. So I just kept talking, hoping it would make him change his mind. “That time it was my idea. I’m the one who went into her room. She didn’t come into mine. And really, it was no big thing, anyway. I was just feeling lonely. You can even ask her.”

“Jeff, listen,” he said. His voice sounded weird, and suddenly I wanted to be anywhere but in his office. The way he looked reminded me of the way my dad looked the time he had to tell Amanda that her cat got hit by a car.

“What?” I asked. “Did she leave already? Did you kick her out? Because I’m telling the truth. You can’t just—”

“Jeff,” Cat Poop interrupted. “Sadie’s dead.”

I knew he hadn’t just said that. I mean, there was no way he could have said it. “ Sadie’s dead ?” No. I was sure I’d heard wrong. He’d said “ Sadie’s gone .” That’s what he’d said.

“What do you mean?” I asked him. “You mean she left .”

“Last night,” he said. “You heard the screaming, right?”

“But that was Martha,” I said. “Moon Face said it was Martha.”

He nodded. “It was Martha,” he said.

“She had a bad dream,” I said.

Cat Poop actually took off his glasses. It was the first time he’s ever done that, and it made him look naked. Naked and tired. Then I realized that he hadn’t shaved. It was like he’d been up all night. He rubbed his eyes for a minute before talking again.

“Martha went to Sadie’s room,” he said. “I imagine she did have a bad dream and wanted to be comforted. She found Sadie.”

“Found her what?” I asked him, not understanding.

He shook his head. “Dead,” he said. Flat. Just like that. “She found Sadie dead.”

I laughed. I know it sounds weird, but I did. “You’re kidding,” I said. “You’d better be kidding. Because Sadie is not dead. She’s waiting to have breakfast with me. It’s pancake day.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cat Poop. “I know this is very difficult for you to hear and accept, particularly under the circumstances. And I wouldn’t have told you now, but—”

“Under the circumstances?” I said. Then I started laughing again. I don’t know why. It just started pouring out of me, this loud laughter. Like some kind of crazy clown. I don’t think I was even thinking anything. I was just laughing.

And then it turned into crying. I was crying. Just bawling my eyes out. Then the next thing I know, Cat Poop was beside me. He actually hugged me. And I let him. I let him hug me while I bawled. I still didn’t believe him about Sadie. But I cried anyway. After a while I didn’t even know why I was crying. I didn’t know if it was because of the Rankin thing or the Sadie thing or the Jeff thing. And it didn’t matter. It just felt good.

I don’t know how long I cried, but it felt like a hundred hours. I think part of me thought that if I just kept crying none of it would be real. Sadie wouldn’t be dead. The stuff with Rankin would never have happened. I wouldn’t be crazy.

But she is. And it did. And I am.

So about the whole trying-to-kill-myself thing. I guess there’s no reason not to talk about it now. It’s not like things can get any worse.

I did it on New Year’s Eve. I had the best idea, too. I wanted to get drunk along with all the people in Times Square, then do it as the ball fell. You know, slip away with the old year into wherever it goes when it’s used up and we throw it away. So maybe it’s a little dramatic, but hey, you’ve got to appreciate the thought.

And, no, I didn’t actually do it in Times Square. That would just be too weird. I did it at home. In my bedroom. Watching it all on TV.

The whiskey was a good start. I got the idea from Dylan Thomas. He’s this poet who drank twenty-one straight whiskeys at The White Horse Tavern in New York and then died on the spot from alcohol poisoning. I’ve always wanted to hear the bartender’s side of the story. What was it like watching this guy drink himself out of here? How did it feel handing him number twenty-one and watching his face crumple up before he fell off the stool? And did he already have number twenty-two poured, waiting for that big fat tip, and then have to drink it himself after whoever came took the body away?

So I drank some whiskey. I don’t see how Dylan Thomas choked down twenty-one glasses of the stuff. I could barely drink three. But that was enough. It made everything seem okay somehow, like killing myself was the best idea I’d ever had. I wasn’t afraid.

Cutting myself felt so good. It was sweet the way the razor opened up the skin and this red line appeared, like I was pulling a piece of thread out of my wrist. The blood came really slowly, not in some spastic blast like I thought it would. It didn’t even really feel like my arm. It was like I was watching someone else’s arm in a movie. I kept thinking how great the camera angle was and wishing I had some popcorn.

The people on television were counting down the seconds until the new year. What a bunch of morons they all were, acting excited to have another whole year, but having to get trashed so they wouldn’t think about how they were going to screw it up again like they had all the other years. Everyone was looking up at the top of the building as though Jesus Christ himself had appeared and was tossing out chocolate-covered salvation, like just because some crazy glitter ball was falling on their heads it gave them another chance to be happy. Only I could tell them it never changed, that no matter how many glitter balls fell in New York City, the year would still suck and their lives would still be screwed up and everything would still turn out wrong.

“Use the razor!” I shouted at the television. “Use the razor!” But none of them did. Just me.

That’s when I did the other wrist, and that was even better because I knew—knew what it would feel like, knew what would happen. Man, did it feel good, like slicing open the ribbon on a Christmas present you’ve been staring at under the tree for a month and been dying to open. Then it’s finally time to open it, and you just kind of hold your breath while you rip off the paper, hoping that what’s inside will be what you want it to be. And for once, it was.

Afterward I just lay there watching everyone kiss while I died, thinking how cool it was to be on my bedroom floor bleeding while everyone in America celebrated the end of my life and the idiot hosting the countdown smiled his goofy fake smile on the TV like the Angel of Death doing a toothpaste commercial. There was none of that tunnel-of-light crap either. No angels waiting to lead me over. It was just dark and quiet.