Michael Ford: Suicide Notes

I shrugged. “The paramedics, I guess.”

Sadie shook her head. “No, they just did the work. Someone else had to save you first. Who called them?”

“My parents,” I said.

“Then that’s who saved you,” said Sadie.

I hadn’t thought about it like that. But she was right. Only was it really saving? Wasn’t it more like butting in? I was thinking about this when Sadie said, “So, why did you do it?”

I shrugged. Even though we’d shared a little moment playing the movie game, I didn’t want to talk too much. Besides, there wasn’t really anything to say.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me. Let’s just watch TV.”

And that’s what we did, with the sound off and not talking. After a while I realized that I was really tired. I said good night to Sadie and went back to my own room.

I’ve been thinking about Sadie, though, and how she maybe tried to drown herself. And here’s what I’m wondering: How come someone always saves the people who try to kill themselves and then makes them tell everyone how sorry they are for ruining their evenings? I keep feeling like everyone wants me to apologize for something. But I’m not going to. I don’t have anything to apologize for. They’re the ones who screwed everything up. Not me.

I didn’t ask to be saved.

When I was in seventh grade I had a pen pal as part of our social studies class. I guess the idea was that if we got to know kids in other parts of the world, we’d see that we’re all the same and none of us would want to bomb each other when we grew up to be the presidents of our countries. Anyway, I got this girl who was part of a Masai tribe in Kenya. I didn’t even know they got mail out there. I wrote her this letter about how I liked to skateboard and paint and listen to Thieving Magpies and Fun While It Lasted. She wrote me back saying her family lived in a mud hut, raised cows, and drank their blood mixed with milk, and that on Sundays they walked fifteen miles to a village to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and E.R. on someone’s TV. That’s how she learned English.

She sent me a picture of herself with her body all covered in red mud, and asked me if everyone in America had swimming pools and blonde hair. I remember thinking the stamps on her letters were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, and I made up a lot of stuff about myself because I thought she was so interesting and I was so boring. I told her my father was a famous explorer and that we went to Broadway plays all the time because my mother was in them. We wrote to each other for almost the whole school year. I forget which of us didn’t answer back first. Probably me. I think I ran out of lies to tell her.

I was thinking about that today during my session with Cat Poop. Because basically he was trying to get me to tell him stuff about myself and I was making up a bunch of lies. I turned it into kind of a game. The Lying Game.

“You’ve been here almost a week,” he said. “How are you feeling about it?”

“Oh,” I said. “I really like it.”

He pushed his glasses up his nose, which I realize now is something he does when he gets either nervous or excited. “You do?” he asked.

I nodded. “Absolutely. It’s totally a four-star place you’ve got here. I’d knock it up to five stars, but the pool is a little cool for my liking and the room service was kind of slow bringing me my club sandwich. Not that I’m complaining. I just thought you should know.”

Cat Poop set his notepad down. “Jeff,” he said. “The only way this is going to work is if you start talking to me.”

“I am talking,” I reminded him. “See my mouth moving and the words coming out? That’s called talking.”

“You’re a smart young man,” he said. “It’s too bad you can’t turn some of that intelligence on yourself.”

I knew what he was getting at. He was using that reverse-psychology thing, trying to get me to do something by saying he didn’t think I could do it. It’s totally Psych 101, and I couldn’t believe he thought I would go for it. So I decided to have some real fun.

“You’re right,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it, which was harder than you might think. “I guess I’m just scared.”

Cat Poop picked up the notebook again. His finger went right for his glasses, and I could tell he thought we were having a breakthrough. “What are you scared of?” he asked me.

I sighed really deeply, like it was totally hard for me to let my feelings out. “Everything,” I told him. “I’m scared of everything.”

That really got him going. His pencil flew across the paper, and he was nodding like crazy. “What are you most afraid of?” he said.

“I guess being alone,” I said. “You know, having no one understand me.”

He looked up. “You think no one understands you?”

“People think they do,” I said, “but they don’t. There’s this whole different me in here, and nobody sees it.” I touched my chest and kind of sighed.

The look on his face was priceless. I wish I’d had a camera. He totally bought the whole thing. He didn’t know I was basically acting out a scene from a made-for-TV movie I’d seen once. Although in fairness to me, I was putting in some of my own stuff. I mean, I didn’t totally rip off The Problem with Nicole .

“Who’s inside you, Jeff?” Cat Poop asked.

I waited a while before I answered him. I wanted him to think I was revealing some big secret that only he knew. Then I leaned forward. “A ballerina,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Cat Poop said. “A what?”

“A ballerina,” I said, a little bit louder. “There’s a ballerina inside of me.”

He sat back in his chair and looked at me. I started talking really fast. “Yeah, see, when I was five or six, my parents took me to see The Nutcracker . It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

I closed my eyes, like I was remembering being at the ballet. I even smiled a little. “The woman playing the Sugar Plum Fairy was wearing this pretty costume,” I said. “I couldn’t stop watching her. I wanted to be her.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Cat Poop. “Later, I told my parents that I wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy. They just laughed. But it’s true. I want to be her.”

I leaned forward again. “She’s trapped inside me,” I said, really softly like maybe she might be listening and would be mad that I was talking about her. “She wants to come out.”

Good old Cat Poop tapped his pencil against the pad. “You’re telling me that you hurt yourself because you want to be a ballerina,” he said. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s all her fault. She made me do it. I’m possessed by the Sugar Plum Fairy.” Just to prove it, I started humming this weird song that was a little like the music they play when the Sugar Plum Fairy dances. I mean, I have seen The Nutcracker . Hasn’t everybody?

Cat Poop didn’t say anything for a long time. When he did say something, he sounded like he was trying really hard not to be angry. “Do you think I’m stupid, Jeff?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You can’t be stupid. You went to school in Canada. I hear they have a way better education system than we do. Why, do you feel stupid?”

“There are people here who want very much to feel better about themselves,” he said, not answering the question. “It’s my job to help them do that. It’s not my job to sit and listen to you make up a ridiculous story because you don’t want to admit that you have a problem.”

I pretended to be shocked. “What do you mean?” I said. “I just told you—the Sugar Plum Fairy has taken over my body. She tried to kill me! You have to do something. Like an exorcism. Or a fairycism.”