The Suicide Year

by Lena Prodan

  It reminded me that God Is.

  It always surprised me that deep down, I truly believed in God. Not Jesus. God with no other Gods before him.

  I was an Old Testament believer. Not judgment and retribution, but the part where everyone had a personal relationship with God. Then the New Testament was invented and Jesus was put between us and God, and then the priests got into the act, and suddenly every time we needed God, he was on another line, but one of his self-appointed acolytes would be glad to help themselves to our souls. Sometimes, I wondered if God missed us as much as we missed him. Out in the woods though, there were no priests, and I always circumvented the Jesus thing. It was a spirit to spirit connection. God was in the soil, he was in the plants, he was in the sky, and I worshipped him with an open heart. It was raw, but it was holy.

  It was a shame, really, that he chose to betray me when I needed him most. We could have been so close.

  I adjusted my pack and continued down the trail.

  * * * *

  While we ate dinner, everyone huddled around the campfire and turned their backs to the woods. Twilight seemed to rise from under thick bushes and creep to the treetops.

  Our tents were in a semicircle around a stone fire pit. Like a miniature Stonehenge, boulders with flattened tops were placed in an outer ring for us to sit on.

  Even though I'd left space for Eric to sit beside me, he squatted on a low boulder near the other kids. Sean was surrounded by the girls. Watching them was like seeing a nature show on TV—flirting rituals of the high school girl in the wild. Flick, a lock of long blonde hair would go over the shoulder. Whisper. Giggle. Inane, breathless question. I was so glad Amanda wasn't like that.

  As the girls flirted, Sean glanced at Eric or me, showed us a hapless smile, and ignored them. They ate up his contempt. After a while, though, watching them make fools of themselves over him got old. My butt got cold and sore, so I took my plate over to the wash tubs.

  Surprisingly, Sean followed me.

  "Having fun?” I asked.

  He glanced back at the pack. “They're okay."

  "I meant hiking."

  "Sure you did. Jealous?"

  I flicked water at him from the tub. “Dream on."

  He grinned and flicked more back. We escalated from drops to waves to tsunamis. He scooped up a handful of suds and chased me past the tents. I was laughing so hard that he easily pinned me against a tree outside the clearing, but I held his hands at the wrists so that he couldn't smear the foam across my face. His skin puckered under my thumbs and fingers.

  We bumped together, his chest against mine, his groin pinning me down. All I could see were his eyes, and how suddenly his smile changed into a completely different expression. I stopped squirming; he didn't.

  The suds were forgotten. He fought himself more than my hold, twisting and grinding against me, his chest rising with each rattling inhale. I held him tight, our arms spread, and let him go, go, go.

  "That's enough!” The chaplain's wife screeched when she saw him humping against my thigh. “Get back over here, immediately."

  The girls, who questioned me endlessly about Sean on the drive out, watched me with squint-eyed Baptist indignation as we went back to the picnic table. I could almost hear their thoughts. How dare I jump from my assigned role as fat gal-pal to a threat without even being pretty? They leaned close to whisper their outrage.

  "Shit.” Sean stared down at the front of his jeans and then pressed against the picnic table.

  "No one can tell,” I lied for him, lied because the color spreading across his face made my chest ache. Guys weren't proud of their hard-ons? I put my hand on his arm. “Really. It's getting dark. No one can see."

  The look he gave me made me wince. He wanted to believe, wanted me to save his dignity, and I was probably the last person in the world he wanted to have to trust.

  "Shooting star!” I called out and pointed to the sky.

  Everyone looked up, even Sean.

  That was all I could think of.

  * * * *

  Sleeping in the big tent that night with the other girls and the chaplain's wife wasn't my idea of fun. It was like being stuck on an island with a bunch of starving cannibals. They smiled to my face, but as soon as my back was turned, they ate me alive.

  "What's with her hair?"

  Underneath their flannel shirts, they wore pastel concert tees from bands like Air Supply and the Commodores. My shirts were black. The Ramones and Kinks didn't do pink, and neither did I.

  The girls set their sleeping bags close so that they could gossip. There was a definite line between my bag and theirs even though we were crammed into the tight space. The chaplain's wife set her bag across the tent's entrance.

  In unison, the girls glanced over their shoulders at me. “Slut.” It came out in a stage whisper that the chaplain's wife chose to ignore, or they had her tacit approval.

  "That must be how she got him."

  "I thought she was a dyke."

  Their words were like tiny paper cuts, stinging, but not fatal.

  Would they have been kinder if I told them that it wasn't really like that? Sean and I rarely got along.

  A couple hours later, the girls drifted off to sleep, or at least they stopped whispering. The blonde one was half out of her bedroll, one arm lifted over her head. If I hadn't known what she was like when awake, I would have been mesmerized.

  Trying to sleep was useless. All I could think about was how many times I'd viciously attacked Sean to hide how much I wanted him to pay attention to me. Conscience was God's way of saying, “I expected more from you. I gave you a heart, I gave you empathy. Use it."

  I had to be outside so that I could bargain with God for my sleep.

  "Where are you going?” The chaplain's wife asked. She spooked me. I thought she was asleep too.

  "Bathroom."

  "Take a flashlight, wear shoes, and don't be long."

  "I won't linger in the latrines,” I assured her.

  She settled back into her sleeping bag.

  Instead of peeing, I sat by the campfire. I raked the glowing lumps of wood closer together and added two big logs. The scent of burning wood was fitting incense for the woods, God's true temple. By morning, the logs would be gutted, their insides holding just enough heat to cook breakfast.

  I stretched out my legs and stared up at the sky. Stars. Everywhere, stars. Other people saw pictures in them, constellations. Copernicus, my hero, saw equations. I saw connection—to people on the other side of the world, to people who died a thousand years ago, and to people who wouldn't be born for a thousand more years all saw the same stars I did. I wondered if Amanda ever looked at the stars.

  When I was on vacation in Chicago with my parents, there was a Pre-Copernican orrery in the museum. A gleaming sun sat in the center, surrounded by brass rings of increasing size that represented the orbits of the planets. When the cogs and wheels inside the orrery turned, the planets moved along their circular orbits. It was complicated. Back then, they thought they knew everything, but Copernicus proved them wrong. The truth was much simpler, and obvious, but I guess everything was obvious once you had the right answer.

  Even though it was wrong, I wanted touch the orrery because it was so beautiful. The guard yelled at me when I got too close though. I wondered what would have happened if my fingertips would have brushed it.

  In the woods, the stars above me were still beyond my touch, but I could gaze at them and feel the same awe.

  Here's my promise, I told God. I can't apologize to Sean for the past, it would be too humiliating, but in the future, I swear I will be nicer to him.

  I didn't need to hear God's voice in my head. His spirit was there. I could feel his energy, not tame, not majestic, but wild and edging on dangerous. Night wind stung my cheeks, and I felt chastened, but forgiven.

  There was one contraband cigarette in my pocket. Miraculously, it survived the day unbroken. I held it to the low blue flame
s at the base of the logs and lit it.

  The wood crackled and burning embers rode thermals high above the fire before winking out. Pine needles curled away from the heat, turned black, and then were ash. Smoke billowed low to the ground.

  The two-man tent Sean and Eric shared was pushed back from the others. I heard a low moan. Sound was tricky in the woods, but I hoped it came from them. I listened with all my concentration for a long time, but there were no other sounds except quiet snoring.

  Lucky guys. I pictured Sean sprawled out, thin arms and legs taking more than his share of the tent. Eric too, unable to restrain his boy energy, expanding into Sean's space, until their bodies flowed together and there was no more Sean, or Eric, but only a creature called “them” that wrapped and tangled and touched in the dark, and in their sweaty boy dreams.

  * * * *

  Sean and I were on KP duty the following morning. While the others shivered around the dying fire, we went to the picnic tables to set up the wash basins.

  "We always get stuck with this,” Sean grumbled.

  "I noticed that too."

  He glanced at the chaplain. “What would happen if we just didn't do it?"

  "Maybe we wouldn't get to go on the big trip. Come on, it's not that bad."

  He added soap to the middle basin. “This would be a lot more fun if we didn't have all these stupid rules."

  "Sure. Let's talk about fun when you wake up in the middle of the night with a black bear tearing through your food in search of marshmallows,” I reminded him.

  I went to the campfire and lifted the heavy pot of boiling water. After a couple staggering steps, I had to set it down. Sean sauntered over and lifted it for me. He nodded and then looked away. That was as much thanks as I'd get for distracting everyone the night before, but we were both too embarrassed to bring it up again anyway.

  He struggled across the camp with the pot. We had to lift it together to fill the wash tubs.

  "God, this hot water feels good,” I said as I worked up the suds. “First time my hands have been warm since last night."

  Sean put his hands into the water with mine, gingerly at first, and then submerging them all the way. He smiled. “Yeah. Feels good."

  Eric stomped over and shoved his flatware into the soapy water. The tines of his fork stabbed the back of my hand. He dumped one of the big carving knives into the water. It sank under the suds. “Maybe you'll get lucky and you'll slice your wrists on that,” he told me.

  "It's not as simple as you might think, asshole,” I told him.

  "How hard can it be? Knife, wrist. You have everything you need."

  "What crawled up your butt?” Sean asked him.

  I hated Eric then. He had no idea how much ritual was involved. He made suicide sound cheap and meaningless. He had no right to mock a spiritual act. “You're being so helpful, Eric. So let me ask, which arm do you think I should do first? The weak one or the dominant one?” I pushed my sleeves back and showed him my forearms. He stepped back, his smirk fading. “And when I go to do the second arm, how do I keep a firm hold on the knife when blood is everywhere and the handle is slick and my hand is going numb? The worst part though—what if I don't cut deep enough and I survive? Would you be as helpful then? Would you take up the knife and finish the job for me?"

  "Jesus.” Sean looked like he was going to be sick. “You've really thought about this."

  "Of course I have.” What had I ever done to make Sean think I wasn't serious?

  "You think too much about death,” he said.

  "You could be right. Maybe I should stop analyzing every little step and just do it.” But there was still the pain issue. Slicing my wrists would probably work, but ouch!

  "No! I mean you shouldn't think about it at all."

  "Why not? What do you think, Eric, should I just...” I fished the knife out of the water and pointed the tip of the blade to my wrist.

  Eric knocked the tip away but left the knife in my hand. “She's not serious. She's all talk, no action,” he told Sean.

  "Go away,” Sean whispered. “Jerk."

  Eric flinched. Then his face changed, as if a curtain pulled across his eyes.

  "Just leave us alone,” Sean told him.

  Eric stomped off to the campfire.

  Sean peeled my fingers off the handle and set the knife on the far side of his tub. “I'll never get used to you two. Never,” he muttered.

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  Chapter 10

  Thanksgiving week, one of Pop's aunts from the old country died. South Georgia should have been a straight shot down I-75, but since Mom's family lived sort of on the way to the funeral, we detoured through the Smoky Mountains into Northern Georgia for an overnight visit.

  Pop gripped the steering wheel as the draft of passing trucks buffeted our tiny Toyota on the highway winding through the southern Appalachians. The dog stood on my lap when I put my hand out the window and let it ride currents. Mom slapped her map down and told me to cut it out.

  The damn dog didn't sit once the entire drive. Instead, she ran from window to window across the back seat, her thick toenails digging into the flesh of my thighs.

  With the windows shut tight, the air inside the car seemed to get heavier with each mile. I downed another Actifed with warm Coke to help my lungs. Breathing didn't come easier and the bitter pill put an urgent edge on my nausea.

  By the time we crossed into Georgia, bile burned the back of my throat. The twisting, dipping mountain roads didn't help. Even though I had my trusty bucket clenched between my knees, I wasn't allowed to vomit in the car, so I held it back.

  As it got harder to keep it down, I leaned far out the window and checked for cars coming the opposite direction. I kind of hoped one would drive so close on the narrow road that it could sheer off my head in passing. Nice and quick. The turns and hills kept oncoming traffic hidden until the last moment though. White lines blurred underneath me. My stomach let go. When I was done, I collapsed back against the seat.

  Pop's dark eyes glared at me from the rear view mirror. “If any of that got on my car, you're washing it off."

  Exhausted, I nodded. Even though the stink was in my nose, I felt much better. I should have puked on Tennessee.

  The dog leapt over the front seat. She panted by the air vents on the dashboard. When nothing came out, she cast glances at me, probably wondering what she'd ever done to deserve living with us.

  Mom's family lived on the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains, where thick woods and steep granite hills made farming near impossible. Once, their small town thrived on wealthy travelers headed for Tallulah Gorge. The water and tourists dried up when the government dammed the river back in 1910, and the region had yet to recover.

  As we drove over the bridge near the gorge, I wondered what it was like to grow up in one place. Imagine having history with people that went back more than a few months. Imagine knowing the hills and woods as well as the cracks in the sidewalk downtown. Longing for it hurt, and it was an ache I always felt there.

  We turned off State Route 441 onto the bumpy driveway to my Grandparent's house. Gravel crunched under the tires. Pop grunted every time a rock pinged against the undercarriage. The car hove into deep ruts as we passed tall, thin pines.

  Like most of the houses in the hills, Grandma's was made of river stone and dark brown wood. Stone pillars lifted the house several feet off the ground to adjust for the slope. Hemlocks crowded close to the house, sweeping big branches over the low roof.

  Aunt Rosalind stood on the covered front porch. She fiddled with the top button of her sweater set, as if it bugged her but she didn't dare tear it away. More than once, I had wished I was her daughter. Her husband was a Southern Baptist preacher, though. I was sure I'd never survive the scrutiny a preacher's kid had to endure, although they usually turned out to be regular devils.

  Aunt Rosalind always had soft smiles for me. Even though I rarely saw her, she remembered that gre
en was my favorite color and that I hated ice cream—things Mom didn't know. Most of all, I liked the way Aunt Rosalind trusted me. When my parents tried to keep her problems with chronic depression a secret, she was the one who took me for a walk and explained.

  "Secrets end up doing more harm than the truth,” she told me as we stood under the crabapple tree. “That's why God forbids us to lie.” She'd pushed the bangs out of my eyes and gave me one of those sad smiles.

  Pop wasn't happy to see her though. “I thought I made it clear we didn't want to see your sister,” he said to Mom.

  "They haven't seen any of us in three years. Of course the entire family turned out."

  "Next time, remind your mother that we don't approve of drug addicts."

  Mom slapped her map against her thighs. “My parents can invite anyone they want into their own house."

  Skin peeled from the back of my legs when I climbed out of the car.

  Behind Aunt Rosalind, I could see through the screen door into the house. If I'd been up on the porch, I could have seen straight through to the back porch. All four sides of the house had doors directly across from each other. The breezeway was open to invite air to circulate through the house, an elegant technological solution—cheap, simple, and efficient.

  Pop grabbed suitcases and stomped up the stairs to the porch. I followed, walking carefully on a thick layer of slippery magnolia leaves. The dog made a dash for the woods.

  Before I could follow him into the house, Pop said, “Go fetch that dog.” That translated to, “Get lost.” Fine by me.

  "Your cousins can help you,” Aunt Rosalind called out from the porch.

  "Thanks, but I'm fine on my own."

  "Don't get lost, honey,” she said.

  I waved to her as I set off past a decaying shed that leaned under the weight of rampant morning glories. The vine was still green, as if it refused to believe it was almost winter. The chicken coop that sat beside the shed was even more tenuous, as if a strong wind could collapse it into pile of rotting wood and rusty nails.

  Since I was in no hurry to get back to my grandparent's house, I took the trail down to the crick where there was a small waterfall. The state route curved past at the top of the ridge and I could hear cars whooshing past while I waded in the chilly knee-high water. Some cars hadn't been so lucky making the turn. Rusting bumpers and smaller parts littered the steep hillside leading down to the shaded pool. I carefully stalked between the ferns in my bare feet, more afraid of hidden metal shrapnel than the ringworm the adults constantly warned me about.