Mr. Suicide

by Nicole Cushing

  Afterward, there was more desolation. Wind blowing through leafless branches. The sound of critters hopping around you. Woodpeckers at work. The traffic along the main drag quieting as rush hour wound down and the day progressed toward mid-morning. There was even a moment of relief from noise, entirely. Just one moment. You held onto it as long as you could, savored it, because you knew it wasn’t going to last long.

  This was hooky. The only day during your entire high school career that you played hooky. After a stretch of time that might have been one hour or six, you took off your blindfold, removed the peroxide-soaked toilet paper, put your glasses back on, and assessed your vision. Unfortunately, you still saw things. As far as you could tell, there’d been no damage, at all, to your eyesight. For a moment, your eyes felt itchy, but even that didn’t last long. You couldn’t tell what time it was, but you suspected that, by now, your absence from school would be noted.

  Right on cue, text messages started to arrive. First from the school and then, only seconds later, from your mother. You only read enough of them to notice who they were from. You knew that there could be nothing valuable gained from actually reading them.

  You dismissed the messages, but they were soon replaced by new ones. The phone blurped and beeped and buzzed to announce them. You used the ice pick to clear away any lingering snow from the ground. Then you used it to dig. The ground was not frozen. The earth was rich and black and wet. You dug a grave about six inches deep, six inches long, and six inches wide for your cell phone. It kept on protesting, blurping and beeping and buzzing as you buried it.

  You whispered to it. “Don’t go into the grave fighting. Accept it. I’m killing you.”

  It blurped. It beeped. It buzzed.

  You tossed the cold wet earth back on top of it.

  It blurped. It beeped. It buzzed. Even after you’d fully buried it, it blurped and beeped and buzzed. That was the most hilarious thing of all. The fact that, even after it had been committed to the earth, it still insisted you needed to acknowledge its importance. You giggled, then tried to get more rest. But the muffled phone-chirps distracted you from rest. You momentarily considered digging it up, if for no other reason than to remove the battery and rebury it. But you decided, instead, to move on.

  You had to pull your underwear back on. Pull your pants back up. When finished, you stood up and found a muscular man with a blond buzz cut and mustache staring at you. He wore a black leather jacket, gray T-shirt, jeans, and leather boots. He looked much older. Like, maybe in his thirties.

  “I saw that sexy little show you put on,” he said. “Blindfolds. Kinky stuff. You’ve got my interest. ”

  You’d been spotted. You’d been spotted and horribly misunderstood. “It wasn’t what it looked like. What I mean is, I’m not like that.”

  The man grinned. “Of course you aren’t.” He stepped toward you. Extended his hand to shake. Looking closely, you noticed it was slathered with semen. “My name’s Andrew,” he said. “What’s yours?”

  “I have to go now.”

  “You look like a good submissive boy. Come now, come to Daddy and lap up your cum like a good little lad now.” He talked to you like he would a puppy. “Come on now. Come, boy.”

  The bottle of peroxide, some stray strands of toilet paper, the ice pick, and your backpack were all still on the ground where you’d left them. You had a weapon, with the ice pick. You lurched quickly backwards and grabbed it. Brandished it. You didn’t want to kill him. You just wanted to get out of there.

  “So it’s like that, then,” he said.

  “Yeah,” you said. “It’s like that then.” You left everything besides the ice pick behind. You kept it close to your body. Decided it was best wielded as a defensive weapon. Andrew eyed you, warily.

  You felt you were finally safe, but you weren’t. The moment you slipped past him and turned your back to run like hell away from there, he grabbed you.

  “If you’re gonna go ahead and tease my cock like that,” he said, “then turnabout’s fair play. I’m gonna tease yours, too.” He slapped your ass, almost like he was spanking it. Then he reached between your legs and, through your jeans, stroked your still semi-hard cock.

  You felt disgusted at yourself when it responded with a twinge. You felt disgusted at him when you realized the cum that had been on his hands was now on your jeans. You ran. He held on and for a few harrowing seconds it looked like he was going to prevail. Like his muscles and bulk were going to drag you to the ground. You turned around far enough to plant the ice pick in his shoulder. You saw something red pop in the air, like a liquid firecracker. He winced and wailed and cursed.

  You were not the strongest kid in high school. You were no football player or wrestler. But adrenaline infused your muscles with strength and, more importantly, with will. Your assailant fell to his knees. You ran out of the park and—because you hadn’t anyplace else to go—back home.

  As you did so, you realized you should have felt grateful for escaping the ordeal. You should have been thankful you’d had the ice pick with you. But your mind wasn’t focused on gratitude. Instead, it was focused on self-blame. Why, oh, why had you not exerted the same degree of strength, the same amount of will, to use it to pluck out your eyes?

  IV

  Mom slapped you the moment you walked in the door. She must have been waiting there to ambush you. That’s the only way she could’ve been able to pull that off. You didn’t even see it coming. “Bastard! How do you think this makes our family look?!” she screamed. Then she threw one of the knickknacks at you. It missed far to the right.

  You told her you had to use the bathroom. You didn’t want to have this discussion with Andrew’s partially-dried-up cum on the butt and crotch of your jeans. She hadn’t noticed it yet. But in time, she would, and you didn’t want to have that conversation. Mom ran after you, tried to stop you from reaching the bathroom, but you got there half a second before her. Locked the door. She pounded.

  “You can’t run away from me! You can’t run away from your problems, either! Your father’s heartbroken about this. He volunteered to go into work early today, and I had to call him off the line to tell him about this. Do you know what that does to him, when he gets called off the line? Do you?” Her voice cracked midway through that last question.

  You ran the water and took a washcloth to your jeans. Scrubbed them until the stains were off.

  “Do you know what that does to him?” your mother screamed through the door. “Do you know what it does to his position at work when he has to constantly get called off the line?”

  “Then don’t call him off the fucking line!” You were so done with playing her game.

  She growled. She screamed. “What did you say to me?!”

  After you’d made your jeans presentable, you threw the washcloth in the hamper. Wiped your nose on your jacket sleeve. Cleared your throat.

  “I said, don’t call him off the fucking line! Fuckin’ bitch… don’t you get it? The things you call him about, the things you call ‘emergencies’… they aren’t emergencies at all. At all. You need to give Dad a break. You know that’s why he volunteers for all those extra shifts, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about? This discussion isn’t about any of that. This discussion is about…”

  “He works all those extra shifts because he can’t fucking stand you. He. Can’t. Fucking. Stand. You!”

  The next round of screaming made you flinch. Made you sick to your stomach and dizzy. You couldn’t even hear what she was saying. She was screaming and she was ramming her shoulder into the door. It was a cheap door made of cheap wood and mounted on cheap hinges. After she’d rammed it ten times, it came loose. Fell toward you. Nailed you on the head. Disoriented you enough that she had time to plow her way into the bathroom, shove the fallen door to the side, and nail you again with a series of slaps on the face. “Disgrace. You’re a fucking disgrace to this family,” she said, as she wailed on you.

>   You reared back and punched her. Showed no restraint. Let her have it. She’d been needing a good whoopin’ for sixteen years. Your first blows landed on her stomach. And when she was momentarily disabled, bent over, you rammed your knee into her nose. You heard a crack and (for the second time that day) saw a spray of red. You made a sound halfway in between a groan and a laugh. When she stopped fighting back, you stopped, too. Whoopin’ her exhausted you. You slumped onto the toilet.

  “Don’t you ever scream at me again,” you said. “From here on out, things are going to be different. Do you understand me?”

  Blood from your mother’s smashed nose dripped onto her upper lip, and from there onto her teeth. She was confused. Mumbling something. Something soft. Her lower lip quivered like that of a frightened toddler.

  “Louder, bitch. Answer me when I talk to you. I said, did you hear me?”

  A voice answered, but it wasn’t your mother’s. “Y-you’re in t-trouble.”

  It was older-brother-who-never-left-home. He had his cell phone in his hand. “I’ve called the police. They’re coming to stop you from killing Mom.”

  You sighed. You were about to go ahead and hit him, too, for being so fucking stupid. But you figured that wouldn’t look good when the cops arrived. So you took a deep breath and tried to calm your brother down. “Now look… you need to call them back. Tell them that it was all a big mistake. Look, I didn’t kill her.”

  “You were trying to,” he said. “You were trying to kill our mother.”

  “Look, she attacked me. I was just fighting back.”

  He glared at you. “I know you’ve wanted to kill her.”

  And he probably did know that you’d wanted to kill her, because he’d probably wanted to kill her at one point, too, before he’d surrendered to her control.

  “I’ve never wanted to kill her,” you lied. “And don’t you dare tell the cops that I did.”

  Your mother was now coherent, but sounded awkward. Sounded like she had a bad head cold. She had to breathe with her mouth open, because when she tried to breathe through her nose, little bubbles of red-tinged snot formed and popped. “No police,” she said. Then she started weeping, and babbled through the tears. “W-we’re not the kind of family that calls police. We’re not going to be the kind of family where one of our little boys is taken away from home and locked in jail. We’re not.”

  Your brother started pacing the hallway, running his fingers through his hair. He was talking to himself. “If I do as she says, then it could happen again. And what if she dies? What if she dies? What if she dies? What if she dies?”

  You started to clean things up. There were splinters of wood on the ground. You threw the biggest in the trash. You leaned the broken door against the wall outside the bathroom. You washed your hands to get your mother’s blood off of them. You got a fresh wash cloth and started to clean up her face, but she slapped your hand when you tried. “I’m not a baby,” she said.

  “Oh yeah? You’re crying like one.”

  “You little faggot! How dare you, you little faggot. Guess who’s going to be crying as soon as the police leave this house. Guess who’s going to be crying then, faggot?”

  You wanted to belt her again, but couldn’t. Made a fist. Gritted your teeth.

  Then, the knock on the door. Your brother opened it.

  The cop had one of those deep-southern voices, more Nashville than Louisville. Young guy. Not much older than you. “Are you the man who called?” he asked your brother.

  “Yes. They’re in the bathroom. Mom’s hurt.”

  Only because she deserved to hurt, you thought.

  The cop didn’t react much at all, when he walked past the broken door in the hallway. Didn’t react much at all when he saw Mom and you in the bathroom. He must have seen this sort of thing all the fucking time.

  “Okay, you… the mother… I’m going to be taking a statement from you first.” He got a notepad and pen out of his shirt pocket.

  “N-no statements,” she said.

  “I’m afraid that since I’ve been called out here, ma’am, there’s going to have to be a statement.”

  “No charges,” she said.

  He sighed. Put his notepad back in his pocket. “I understand you don’t want any charges filed. But it looks like your nose is broke. I think you’re going to need to go to the hospital. I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “No ambulances,” she said. “And, officer, I’d like for you to leave.”

  “You need medical attention.”

  “I’ll drive her,” your brother said. “I’m so sorry I called. I didn’t mean it, Mom, honest I didn’t. I didn’t want to do something you didn’t want me to, but I was nervous, you know? Pretty nervous, I mean. You know? I can drive her. I have a driver’s license. I run errands for the family, all the time. I can drive her.”

  The cop nodded. “Okay, so if I leave here, I have your assurance you’ll drive her to the hospital.”

  “Urgent care,” Mom said. “No hospitals.”

  The cop sighed again. “Okay, fine. Urgent care.”

  Then he looked at you. “Okay now, sport, let’s you and I take a walk outside and get some things straight.”

  What choice did you have? You went.

  “What’s up with your eyes,” the cop said. “You been smoking pot?”

  “I’m not high. You can drug test me right here and now.”

  “Then why are they all red?”

  You couldn’t tell him about the peroxide, so you told a lie. “There’s pinkeye going around school. I think I might have it.”

  The cop backed up a step, but kept yammering. “You know somethin’, sport, I don’t think I believe you. I think you got all goofy on weed and maybe a hundred other things and started wailing on your mother for no good reason. That’s what I’m thinking: you intimidated her into not pressing charges. Hell, I might-could arrest you anyway, even if she won’t press charges, just to put a little inconvenience in your day. Empty out your pockets.”

  What could you do? You complied. There was nothing in there that would incriminate you.

  “Back pockets, too.”

  You did as you were told.

  “Now your jacket pockets.”

  You obeyed.

  He looked at you. Craned his head. Stared into your eyes. Shook his head. “On what planet do you think it’s acceptable to behave that way? To hit a woman. Not just any woman. Your own fucking mother!”

  You didn’t say anything. You wanted to tell him that she’d started it, but you already knew he wouldn’t believe you. So you didn’t mention it.

  “Now, speak up! I asked a question. Always answer a police officer when he asks you a question.”

  “What was your question?”

  “I’ll repeat myself once, and that’s it. I asked you: on what planet do you think it’s acceptable to behave that way?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  The cop mimicked you. Sashayed his hips and lisped dramatically when he mimicked you. “I don’t know?”

  Oh, fuck, how you wanted to steal that guy’s pistol and unload it in his face.

  “Well,” the cop said, “the reason you probably don’t know is that there is no planet in the universe where it’s acceptable to behave that way. So, then the next question is: why do you behave so unacceptably? And do not tell me you have a chemical imbalance. Jesus Christ, if I hear another teenager say they’re bipolar-schizophrenic this week, I’m going to go bipolar-schizophrenic, myself.”

  You knew that you were being lectured, and that there was no way for you to get out of it. The cop, not so long out of high school himself, was another in the line of bullies you’d faced in your life. You knew that this variety of hazing, like all the other varieties, wouldn’t be done until he said it was done. You knew that, like all bullies, the cop wanted you to go along with it. He wanted you to not even resist. So you just went along with it. You didn’t even resist.

  “There’s no reaso
n for me to behave so unacceptably,” you said.

  “That’s right,” the cop said, “there isn’t. Now, you’re learning. You see… if I wanted to, I could take you into custody right this minute because what you said right there is pretty much a confession. But your mom said that she didn’t want to press charges, and my boss gets all pissy if we give the commonwealth attorney’s office a lot of cases that don’t pan out. But remember that, if I had a bad day and didn’t give a shit what my boss thought, I’d haul you in right now. Do we understand each other?”

  You nodded. “Yeah, I understand you, officer.”

  “Good boy,” he said. “Now, I’m going to get out of here. I better not get called out here again. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, officer.”

  You read the name tag on his shirt. D. Collins. Officer Douchebag Collins, you decided his name was. You didn’t want to run afoul of that guy ever again.

  Later, though (much later) you did. But there’s more stuff to explain before you can talk about that part.

  V

  Because you’d skipped detention and were discovered to have played hooky, the school suspended you. It was a crock. Part of some new so-called zero tolerance policy in regard to truancy. Three days without classes shouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but your mother made them miserable.

  “I can’t take away your laptop,” she confessed, “because the school wants you to do work online while you’re here at home, and you damn well aren’t using mine for that. But I can take away your cell phone. There’s no reason for you to have one, until you go back to school.”

  You didn’t have the courage to tell her that, by now, it was dead. Dead and, literally, buried.