The Suicide Club

by Rhys Thomas

  I was laughing my head off. Not out loud, of course; outside I was just smiling to myself. I hollered a right into an arcade and there, not forty feet away, and coming my way, was Craig Bartlett-Taylor. I instantly jumped into a shop so that he wouldn’t see me. I don’t know why I did that. In reality I should have escaped, but the world is never like reality, is it? Bartlett-Taylor came straight into the shop, lolloping along like a fucking moron. I’m sorry I just said that but I’m still wound up by that Californian Girl, just thinking about her.

  ‘Hey, Craig,’ I called from across the aisle. My arms were in the air.

  He was wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt so the bandages on his arms were perfectly visible. ‘That’s a great look for your slash marks, you crazy bastard,’ I said loudly. I felt instantly sick. This wasn’t me. I was almost shaking because of the Californian Girl and I had just taken my anger out on Craig. I had been worried about him all weekend and thinking that I wanted to do something to help and then when I finally saw him I said something like that because I can’t control myself.

  A couple of people looked at me and I felt awful because I was being like a typical teenager. He sauntered over to me and stopped. His eyes looked all empty, like he was on drugs. He probably was; to, you know, curb his madness. He wasn’t laughing at my joke. I didn’t realize that a suicidal mood is not tinged with irony. There is no room for jokes with something like that.

  ‘Jesus, Craig, I’m sorry for saying that.’ I put my hand on his upper arm. ‘How are you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Um, should you be . . . you know . . . out and about . . . on your own, I mean?’

  ‘My parents are queuing for food over there.’ He gave the barest of gestures with his free arm.

  My heart went out to him. He was really upset. I could feel his energy coming into me and it was just terrible.

  ‘So. What now?’

  ‘I have to go back to school.’ The way he was talking was really scary. It was like he wasn’t actually speaking to me at all. It was more like he was just going through the motions of a conversation without meaning it.

  I knew full well that if he went back to school he would get torn apart. I could see his parents over at the food place. His dad was wearing a wool sweater with a shirt and tie and his mother was wearing a long dress and a blouse with baggy arms – they were so old it was sickeningly depressing. They both wore glasses and I thought that I was going to cry. I pictured the old man removing his spectacles, taking a freshly pressed handkerchief from his pocket and cleaning the flecks of dust off the lenses. I couldn’t even start to imagine what it must have been like in the evenings for Craig. He must have sat in their living room with patterned carpet and crappy TV watching something indescribably terrible.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘One of the American kids is having a party on Halloween in the cricket pavilion. Do you want to go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on, it’ll be great. You can stay with me all night, I won’t leave your side.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Don’t say yes or no now. I’ve got your number. I’ll give you a call closer to the time. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ he said. It was bizarre, like he didn’t seem to be having any sort of emotional response to me at all. This suicide thing runs deep, I tell you.

  We walked out of the shop together and I took him back over to his parents.

  ‘There you are,’ said his dad. ‘And you’ve brought a friend.’ He smiled massively at me.

  ‘Hello,’ I answered politely, my heart splintering.

  His voice was quite nasal, like his nose was full of hair. But he was such a kindly soul. I tried to gauge how he was feeling towards his son. This poor man; he’d worked his whole life, had just retired and now his son put him through this. He should have been enjoying his twilight years but his child was stopping it. I could see him hoisting his legs up over the side of his bed at night, having laid his slippers neatly side by side. He’d take hold of his wife’s hand and whisper in her ear, ‘It’ll be OK, my darling.’ He would notice a tear glistening at the corner of her eye, which she would wipe clear with a handkerchief. Then he would tighten his grip on her other hand and give her a peck on the cheek. ‘He’s a good kid really.’

  6

  AND SO THINGS went on. After that night I guess you could say we became Freddy’s circle of friends. I sometimes wonder exactly what happens when a kid arrives at a new school. Is the group that they latch on to just a coincidence? Or is there an inbuilt ability that allows us to seek out our own?

  It was strange because before Freddy came along we didn’t have such a rigidly formed gang. It was almost like that night in the folly looking out over the school lake had set us apart. It was as though we loved Freddy and wanted to keep him to ourselves, our own little secret that we didn’t want to share with anybody.

  It became clear quite quickly that Freddy was good at schoolwork. In much the same way as me he was able to understand things he was told straight off the bat, not like some of the other kids, who used to struggle. But there was far more to him than academia. He was funny, but not like a clown, nice, but not overly nice, serious when he wanted to be, and stupid when he wanted to be.

  Two weeks had passed and it was the night of the Halloween party. History class had just ended and as we filed out I pushed ahead of a few kids because I wanted to talk to Craig. I caught up with him and grabbed hold of his arm.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ he sighed when he saw me, though his facial expression didn’t change.

  ‘That party’s tonight. I can call for you at about seven.’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘What? Not going? What are you talking about?’

  I really wanted him to go. The past two weeks must have been awful for Craig. Everybody was talking about him and some of the more teenagerish kids had said some disgraceful things. If you ask me, he should never have been allowed back to school – not with all those teenagers. We can be nasty creatures when provoked. And a suicide attempt counts as provocation. But not for me. My heart went out to him and I was sure I could feel a bond burning to life between us. The golden rope that would join us was translucent at the moment and I needed it to solidify. Which meant making some sort of connection with Craig.

  ‘I don’t want to go. But thanks for asking, it’s really kind of you,’ he said. His voice was flat; there was no meaning behind his words. Even his eyes were still glazed. This boy was a mess.

  ‘I’m coming over to your house at seven o’clock, right? I’m not going to make you go to the party, but I just want you to know that I really want to go. And if you don’t go, I don’t go. And I wouldn’t think that you were that selfish.’ I was treading on eggshells.

  Craig just looked at the floor when I said this. Still no connection.

  ‘Rich!’ somebody called from behind. It was Freddy. His hair was flopping in front of his face but not like a goth.

  ‘Freddy, will you tell Craig that he has to come to this party tonight?’

  Freddy looked at Craig with quite realistic seriousness.

  ‘Do you want to go?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You do what you want.’ He took a step closer to Craig. ‘Are you OK?’

  I really hoped that Freddy wouldn’t swan in and make the connection that I had been working towards. That would have been unbearable – it was me who was the most concerned. Genuinely.

  But he didn’t. Craig just shrugged.

  All of a sudden one of the kids in the year above noticed Craig. An American kid, which was the worst part.

  ‘Hey, Craig. Craig!’ Craig looked up. ‘Way to try and kill yourself, man.’ And then he started laughing. One of his friends actually high-fived him. Which I thought was just plain ridiculous. We high-fived ironically but the American kids did it for real because Americans can be like that sometimes.

&n
bsp; I felt disgusted at the remark. I took a step towards them, when something happened that I didn’t expect.

  Freddy got involved.

  ‘Hey,’ he called.

  The corridor was jam-packed and the American kid, who was a big boy, didn’t hear Freddy.

  ‘Hey,’ he called again. ‘Fuck-face.’

  This time the American stopped. I swear I saw his ears twitch. He turned back to Freddy. He didn’t look angry or anything – I think he was more shocked.

  ‘Take that back,’ said Freddy. I was right on his shoulder.

  ‘Take what back?’

  ‘Take it back or I’m going to smack your fucking head in.’ The way he said it was chilling. In that moment I saw something genuinely menacing in his face, that same balled-up anger that I had. We didn’t normally let it show but when it occasionally bubbled over into the real world it was unsettling. Something in the darker places of me was glad to see this aspect of him. Knowing that Freddy had this side to him meant one thing – he really was like me. I knew it had been there all along, just knew it.

  The American looked at Freddy in disbelief. My heart was thumping – it was going to happen, I could tell. It was all going to go crazy.

  The American kid took a step through the crowd of kids towards us. We were like rocks in a river sticking out above the surface, looking at each other.

  ‘Craig’s really upset and you think it’s OK to make things worse by saying stuff like that to him just so you can get a laugh.’ I couldn’t tell if he was being ironic. I think he might have been serious.

  I hate the feeling of knowing that comes just before a fight – an apocalypse at the window.

  The American kid took another two steps forward and was practically on us. I was thinking about making the first move. My plan was to lift my arm up high so that any momentum I could get up wouldn’t be blocked by the crowd.

  ‘Listen,’ said the American kid. There was a weird look in his eye that didn’t suit the situation somehow. I then realized that he wasn’t talking to me or Freddy, he was looking past us. He was talking to Craig. ‘I didn’t mean anything, man,’ he said. ‘I was only kidding around, right?’

  I looked at Craig. He just shrugged. He really did do a lot of shrugging.

  I noticed that a couple of attractive girls that I had never seen before were looking at us all. They were in awe of us. Of Freddy anyway.

  Freddy and the American kid made eye contact and you know what? You know what happened? They made a bond between them. It burned up crisp and clear right in front of me – a rope of gold came up out of nowhere.

  Suddenly things went back to normal and it was all over. Just like that.

  I smacked Craig on the shoulder.

  ‘I’m still calling for you at seven.’

  When I got home from school my mother was hanging up some bats that she had made out of paper.

  ‘You’re home early,’ I said, like one of those sons whose parents can’t believe how lucky they are to have such a delightful, grounded child.

  ‘I love Halloween,’ she said.

  ‘I know. What could be better than a celebration centred entirely around evil?’

  ‘Thank you for the insight, Richard.’

  I made my way up the stairs.

  ‘We’ll be eating at seven tonight,’ she called.

  ‘Not me. I’m going out.’ And I locked my bedroom door.

  There was still no sign of my MCR album in the post. Play have a policy whereby they won’t look into missing parcels until they’ve been missing for fourteen days. And their time was up. I was surprised, to be honest – this had never happened to me before. Usually the stuff I ordered came straight away.

  I logged on and, before writing them an email, checked the order status on their website. I was surprised to see that my order now read: Temporarily out of stock. Your order will be dispatched as soon as it arrives.

  I’m pretty patient and I was prepared to wait – they hadn’t let me down before. I knew deep down that the CD would turn up in the end.

  After that I checked my emails. Nothing. And nobody was on MSN either. Strange. I showered and when I got back to my computer there was still nobody online. I was a bit annoyed because I wanted to make plans for meeting up with everyone for the party in the pavilion.

  At half six I left my house.

  I love Halloween. We celebrate it in my town because the Americans absolutely lap it up. There’re always tons of little kids running around dressed up as monsters and stuff and all the older American kids get drunk and go to the graveyard to scare themselves.

  As I made my way over to Craig’s house there were literally hundreds of kids dressed up in fancy-dress costumes. The best one I saw was a kid of about seven who was dressed all in black (as if black clothes somehow constitute Halloween clothing) and his only piece of actual costume was a Frankenstein mask. It cracked me up. He walked splay-footed with a big bucketful of sweets that he had been given, all three feet of him, like the lord of the manor. Hilarious.

  I got over to Craig’s house and knocked the door just as a pile of little kids came tinkling up the path.

  ‘Trick or treat,’ they called to me.

  I turned round. ‘Don’t mess with me, kids,’ I said. A gust of wind blew up the path. ‘I . . . am the devil.’

  The door opened. It was Craig’s father and he was dressed up like Count Dracula. My heart melted for this old guy. He just seemed to love life so much. So much that he must have taken his son’s share, I thought. He had dyed his hair jet black and his wife must have put white make-up on him because he looked gaunt. He gave the kids some sweets (everybody has a big bowl of sweets in their house on Halloween for the kids) and ushered me in.

  ‘I must say,’ he said. ‘My wife and I really appreciate your efforts.’

  I had rung Craig a few times over the last fortnight – that’s what he meant by ‘efforts’. I noticed that he was looking at the way I was dressed. I had on a red hoody, light-blue jeans, and my Converses. I looked like an older version of Elliott out of ET, a look I often try to emulate.

  As he led me upstairs I couldn’t help but conjure a Worst Case Scenario for him losing his footing and falling down the steps to his death. I don’t mean for them to be as extreme as they are but there’s this thing in my head that always makes my thoughts run away. The more I try to hem them in the wilder they get, and so I usually just let them go, just wait for them to pass before getting back to normal.

  Craig’s house was typical of old people. All old and creaky and quiet. His room was at the far end of a long corridor. I suddenly remembered the house from when I was a kid and started feeling a little bit guilty that I hadn’t been there for so many years.

  Craig’s father used to be high up in the Army. He still worked now once in a while over at the airbase as a consultant or something. I think he was something to do with weapons. Meh. (That’s a noise for indifference.)

  He knocked on the door and pushed it open.

  ‘Craig, love,’ he said, which sounded weird. ‘Your friend is here to see you.’

  I smiled at the old man.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll bring you some tea,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t drink tea,’ I lied, for no reason. No reason whatsoever.

  ‘Really? How odd.’ He looked genuinely confused. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ he said and shut the door behind him.

  Craig was lying spreadeagled on his bed, staring at the ceiling of his room. He didn’t even have any music on or anything. I was still trying to get to grips with the fact that he was totally fucked up.

  His room was really bare. There was a desk with a new PC on it, a bookshelf with about five books that clearly hadn’t been moved in years, an old radio sat on top of the bookshelf, and a lamp that was switched off. There was also a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and some of his clothes were scattered on the floor. On the wall was one poster – a dog-eared photo of a colourful par
rot. And that was it. Apart from, in the corner of the room, a stack of National Geographic magazines on the floor. One of them, I noticed, was actually on a small bedside table. On the cover was a photograph of a green lizard with a red stripe running up its back. It was a very unteenagerish bedroom. I think it was then, when I saw how weird his room was, that I realized just how far gone Craig really was. He must have come home from school every night, trudged up to his room and lain on his bed flipping through the National Geographics. I felt sick with the thought of how boring it must have been. He didn’t have any friends and so never would have gone out.

  Up until his suicide attempt two weeks ago, you would not really have known that he was such a mess. He tried to mix in with us all but never really got anywhere. He was always too nice; there was something not quite right with him. A lot of kids were really horrible to him, and I may have been one of them from time to time.

  When I went through my difficult patch I once told him that his parents would be dead before he was twenty because they had him too late and he was probably genetically retarded. I now felt the worst guilt ever for having said something so evil but I can hardly make a time machine and go back, can I? And even if I could, I would probably choose to go back to dinosaur times instead.

  Inside he had been drowning but outside he was just slightly weird. Now though, since his ‘attempt’, he was nothing, not even the ‘nice boy’ that he had perfected for society. He was a Shell of a Man. I guess this was the real him. He must have hated trying to be normal when all he really wanted to do was lie on his bed and read his magazines. Every now and again there’s a pocket of tragedy in the world so sad that it’s not even funny.

  ‘Come on, you,’ I said. ‘We’re late.’

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said.

  ‘Yes you are.’ I went over to the bed, grabbed his wrist, and started to yank him off the sheets.

  ‘Hey,’ he called. And then my heart started singing like a bird because . . . he was laughing. Craig Bartlett-Taylor was laughing.

  I caught his joy and pulled even harder at his arm.