Mr. Suicide

by Nicole Cushing

  But the shots made you so tired, so out of it, that your memory of Our Lady of the Courtroom became foggier and foggier. You started to doubt yourself. You started to wonder if she’d been a dream.

  Then one day, Public Defender Ken showed up at the nuthouse to confer with you on legal strategy. He confirmed Our Lady of the Courtroom hadn’t been a dream.

  He usually sat across the table from you but this time he sat right next to you. Looked into your eyes for several seconds before starting to speak to you in that annoying surfer voice. “Bro—I’ve been contacted by a young woman named Cressida Petridis. That name ring a bell?”

  You nodded.

  Public Defender Ken slapped his plastic arm over your shoulder. “Well… I don’t know how to say this because… yikes, dude, this is intense… she says that she’s pregnant and you’re the dahd. I mean, is that even possible? Did you do the deed with her?”

  You nodded.

  “Woah… Intense!” Public Defender Ken said. “Give me a fist bump, bro!”

  You let out a stupid, sedated laugh. “A what?” you groaned. Of course, you knew what a fist bump was, but you were incredulous. You hadn’t expected to receive an invitation to fist bump from your public defender, even if he was a Ken doll.

  Public Defender Ken took your plastic hand and raised it in the air with his. “Now make a fist.”

  You humored him.

  Then he made a fist and bumped his fist against yours. “Respect, bro. Respect. This is the first good news for your case in a long time. A jury’s gonna have to have mighty big cojones to sentence a new father to death. Especially when the new mother is disabled and seems like she’s on our side. If you ever become well enough to stand trial, I’d like for her to testify. Dude, if she sheds tears on the stand on your behalf, then all the bitches in the jury will totes be on your side! She’ll tell a different story about you than the one the media is telling. She can tell them that you were loving and sensitive. Just confused, that’s all. Sick. But loving. Not an irredeemable psycho, but a confused kid who should have gotten mental health treatment years before. And who, despite being mentally ill, was once capable of great kindness towards a disabled girl. Fell in love with her. And therefore, doesn’t deserve to die.”

  From the shadows under the table, you heard a giggle. Then another giggle. Then a snarky insult: “Flesh thing. Flesh thing! Oh yes, how kind you were to her, bucko. How loving. Oh yes, your motives were so noble. Not at all squishy-gushy! I wonder if her mother would want to testify, too? Talk about those scars and bruises she saw.”

  You poked your head under the table. “Where were you when I was surrounded by cops?” you sleepily asked the Great Dark Mouth.

  “Beg pardon, bro?” the oblivious Ken doll asked. “Who are you talking to? Is there a midget under the table?” He let out a series of nervous giggles. Then a worried look besmirched his handsome, tan face. “Aw, man… For a while there, when I first started talking to you… You seemed a little less… ill.”

  How could he have arrived at that conclusion? You’d barely said a word to him before talking to the Great Dark Mouth under the table. Maybe that was the point. To the Ken doll, sanity equaled sedated silence.

  “Looks like that pesky psychosis is starting to return, bro. I’m gonna get ready to head out so you can get some more medication.”

  “No more medication,” you mumbled drowsily.

  “If you want any chance of ever seeing that kid of yours, even if it’s just in a prison visiting area, then I suggest you go ahead and take it. They aren’t going to let someone who’s actively psychotic around a rug rat.”

  Your plastic attorney had told you many things during your consultations. Things you thought were, for the most part, unhelpful to the point of being ridiculous. He’d told you to sit straight in court instead of slouching, for example. He’d said that would make a better impression with the jury. He’d said you should get your hair cut before court. He wanted you to look like a fuckin’ preppie in an orange jumpsuit. You disregarded all of that advice.

  But, for some reason you couldn’t quite put your finger on, this new advice hit home. You didn’t want to take more medicine, of course. Was it even possible to dope you up more than you’d already been doped up? That’s not the part of the advice that seemed helpful. No, it was the other part: “They aren’t going to let someone who’s actively psychotic around a rug rat.” You had to start paying attention to how crazy you came across because if you seemed too crazy, they’d never let you see your kid.

  You looked Public Defender Ken in the eyes. “I’ll act normal,” you said, with conviction. It felt odd, to aspire to normality. It was an aspiration you hadn’t had since you were eight or nine.

  Public Defender Ken fist-bumped you again. “Respect, bro, respect. Oh, and you might want to write Ms. Petridis and find out if she’s willing to testify on your behalf.” He then went to his plastic briefcase and retrieved a rubbery piece of paper. “And here’s a consent form for a paternity test. Could you do me a solid and sign and date it at the bottom? This way we can get the ball rolling on this part of your defense.” He handed you a pen.

  From the shadows under the table, the voice: “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, bucko? Why do you even care if the kid’s yours or not? We’re gonna fix things, real soon, so you can get out of here and cross over The Border Crossing. I’ve been busy speaking to thousands of others, since I last spoke to you. But, trust me: you’ll be un-born. As a natural consequence, any child of yours will be, too. All of this. Doesn’t. Fucking. Matter.”

  From next to you, a dull, molded plastic stare. Then the surfer voice. “Well, what are you waiting on, bro?”

  You ran your plastic hand through your yarn/hair. You wanted to think this through, assemble a thorough list of pros and cons. Make the decision on a logical basis. But you were too tired for that so you made the decision on a basis that was far more dubious: the Great Dark Mouth was insubstantial—a voice with no physical presence. Public Defender Ken, on the other hand, was a physical entity fashioned in a crude facsimile of a fellow-member of your species. There was something in the fabric of your DNA—a sort of social mammal reflex—that made you feel more accountable to this effigy than to a mere disembodied voice (no matter how “grand” He’d been described as, no matter how often He’d been described as a “king”).

  Your signature on the form was twisted by your fatigue. An ugly, gnarled mess. Misshapen. But it served its purpose.

  The Great Dark Mouth went on a predictable rant, after you signed it. You can’t recall all that was said. You stumbled away from the conference room. Stumbled into your bed. Fell asleep on its plastic mattress.

  XIX

  You’d lingered so long at Step Two that even your dreams became infected with Plastic-Vision.

  You were back in the vast desert, in the middle of the circle of towering, rotting flesh obelisks held together by a mortar of blood and shit. There were still four suns. You were still bathed in shadows.

  But it was all plastic.

  Moreover, a catastrophe had occurred. Cartoony fire consumed the base of each obelisk, spewing black-cotton plumes of smoke into the air. You coughed. Put your fingers under your glasses to rub your googly eyes. But you didn’t fear for your safety. In the shadows, in the dark, you felt protected. You knew you were dreaming. You knew you were there with the Mouth, and you were being educated. No physical harm could come to you. You were there to observe.

  The pieces of plastic flesh at the bottom of each pillar shriveled in the fire, fell in on themselves, bubbled and stretched and melted and adhered to one another in a new, even-more-monstrous anatomy. An eternal coitus. Phallic intestines and waiting cavities, thrusting hands and labia-like wounds, all of them fused together by the fire’s heat.

  Then the bases of the pillars blackened. Began to disintegrate. Turned to ash. There was a thudding and swooshing sound as the bases of all the obelisks collapsed.

 
; But the obelisks didn’t fall. They merely shortened. It was as though each obelisk was a monumental cigarette facing burning-tip-down into the sand. They kept burning and shortening, burning and shortening.

  And at the top of each obelisk, there was a crying and mewing as the sexual process bore fruit. Litters of tiny, plastic baby doll hands skittered, spider-like, out of filthy, decaying plastic mouths and birth canals and anuses and wounds. Tiny plastic baby doll tongues slithered out like worms. Tiny plastic baby doll hearts rolled out. And then the cycle continued as they began to copulate with one another, thus insuring the continued existence of the pillars.

  Then the Great Dark Mouth spoke. “You were disturbed when you saw your reflection in jail, bucko. Think of this as another disturbing reflection. Another reminder of who and what you are. You copulated. And I’ll tell you that which your lawyer is curious to know; that which you already know in the marrow of your bones: you inseminated. I can sense when the burden of new life grows like a barnacle on the universe. I can see in the darkness of the womb. The child in Cressida’s belly bears your likeness.

  “You committed yourself to continuing the hideous chain, making sure the tower is never consumed. You played a part in creating a being who will one day be nothing but a corpse. But before it becomes a corpse, it will be a thing possessed by the fear it will become a corpse. It will cry in its hospice bed for fear of the end and the pain that comes with the end. For fear that it’ll have to leave everyone. But before it cries in its hospice bed, it will cry in its crib. It will wail for fear of starvation. Fear will be the only constant in its life. Love comes and goes. Only fear abides.

  “This is what you did, when you thrust your flesh-thing in the cripple’s cunt! You devolved to the most depraved beast.

  “But there’s hope, bucko. Tomorrow, you will meet another of my disciples. One who does my will in the flesh-world. You will know him when you see him. He will arrange for your escape. From the hospital. From life. He will take you to the retrieve a new passport. He’s been instructed to assist you rob your mother’s grave, if necessary. He’ll then transport you to the new location of The Border Crossing. There, your existence will be erased like the error it was. All consequences of your existence will be erased. Your foul misdeed of procreation will be erased.

  “Now wake up and perform the magick. Go get another passport. Proceed along the Three-Fold Path. Then, and only then, will you be ready for un-birth. So… go! Wake!”

  And then you felt the sweet breeze of oblivion blow through you. It whipped up the fire, speeding along the disintegration of each base. The plastic pieces at the top of the obelisks quickened the rate of their rutting to keep up.

  XX

  You didn’t know what time it was when you woke up. Judging by the commotion at the nurse’s station you thought it might be around shift change. Close to seven in the morning. They didn’t let you have a room with a window or a clock, so you couldn’t be sure. If you wanted to know for sure, you’d have to walk out to the nurse’s station. A clock had been mounted on the wall there. But you just didn’t have the energy.

  It wasn’t that the dream paralyzed you with fear. It had frightening images, but its cumulative effect wasn’t one of fright.

  No, its cumulative effect was to trigger a deluge of self-disgust. You hadn’t been able to resist the awesomely-fuckable-deformity of Cressida Petridis. And that’s what paralyzed you: the knowledge of just how easily you’d succumbed to her wiles. You hadn’t given any thought to the possibility of her becoming pregnant. Neither of you had. But that was the consequence.

  You knew how much you’d hated life, pretty much since you were ten. And yet, you’d taken no precautions against creating another life who would be expected to go through the same misery. Who knows—maybe even worse misery.

  What sort of mother would Cressida prove to be? Hell, for that matter, would your offspring have to go around on crutches, too? You never found out why she’d had to use them. Was it an accommodation she’d needed to cope with a genetic condition or with injuries from an accident? What would happen when other kids found out you were its father? News cameras had been around to film you each time you’d entered and left the courthouse. You’d acquired a certain amount of notoriety (how much, you weren’t certain, but enough). Would your child be teased because of your escapades? Would they interfere with your child’s ability to find a comfortable place on the ladder? Would there be other jocks who would place other bags of rotting sandwiches and sour milk on other chairs? Would your child have other lost friendships? Other failed attempts at connection with fellow-students and teachers alike?

  Would its surviving grandparents (on either side) raise it? You found that prospect particularly sickening. Or, maybe instead of raising it they’d pressure Cressida to give the child up for adoption? Would you even be consulted, if that was the case?

  Did you even care?

  Did you want your child to have a place on the ladder?

  What did you want for your child?

  If such a situation had been presented to you as a hypothetical, a year ago, the answer would have been simple: sweet, numb oblivion. Abortion, if not un-birth by way of the Mouth. But there was nothing hypothetical about it now. There was a being in Cressida’s belly. Against all odds, Cressida had looked happy with a being in her belly. If you took the help that the Mouth promised would arrive today; if you walked into the Black Room at The Border Crossing, passport in hand, then your existence and all its consequences would be undone. You’d be un-born. In the process, your child would be un-conceived.

  Is that what you wanted?

  Logic seemed to suggest that, yes, that’s exactly what you wanted.

  But logic, in this situation, was a farce. You were a plastic doll with yarn for hair. You giggled softly to yourself when you thought about how all of this must look. A doll attempting to rationally analyze pros and cons, as though there was something important and meaningful going on up in its plastic noggin. As though it was a real boy.

  There was an arrogance and sense of entitlement inseparable from that train of thought.

  You were an unreal entity. Just a doll. What business did you have analyzing things? Logic wasn’t your birthright.

  ***

  The Mouth’s minion showed up much later that day. Toward the end of the afternoon. Through the filter of Plastic-Vision, he looked like an evil wizard action figure holding a plastic briefcase. He was introduced to you as Dr. Hatton, a licensed psychologist who was there to give you court-ordered personality tests. But as soon as you saw the black animals emblazoned on his blue hat and robes, you knew that wasn’t the true reason for his appearance. The snake, the spider, the horse, the crow: you’d seen them before, at The Border Crossing. These were, in some way, associated with the Mouth. His totems. His avatars.

  The wizard-shrink took you to a private consulting room. Put his plastic briefcase to the side. “I really am a psychologist,” he said in a voice sounding like Gargamel’s. “That’s why they let me in here. The Mouth summoned me shortly after you were captured. It has taken me some time to become hired by the hospital. That’s the cause of the delay. Of course, as soon as they find out that I’ve assisted with your escape, we’ll both be fugitives. And that’s going to complicate matters. It’s an unfortunate thing, that they made you scrub your mother’s blood off your hand after they collected a sample for evidence. Now we’re going to have to collect a new passport. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’m happy to serve the Mouth.

  “I used to just be an ordinary psychologist, you know. Preaching the value of life to clients who knew better. Spouting any shred of nonsense to keep them from killing themselves. You see, I wanted to prevent suicides because my brother-in-law had committed suicide. I saw how it impacted my sister. But then I received the Revelation of the Mouth. I saw there was another way. A way to end existence without upsetting anyone else. A Path to un-birth.

  “That’s when I became a do
uble agent, so to speak. Undercover behind enemy lines, you might say. I operate in the flesh world, doing things that the Mouth Himself is too ethereal to do. I have a key to the unit. Just follow me and do what I say.”

  Like everyone else in the world, you’ve resisted doing things that people said you should do. You were feeling the pressure now. Accountability. The Mouth in the flesh, so to speak, through His representative. And yet, it was all too much. The wizard get-up, the Gargamel voice. Plastic this and plastic that. Digging people up, taking bits of their flesh. Going to The Border Crossing.

  So much work. Too much work, given that you were no longer certain it was what you wanted. Cressida had showed up in court, after all. Had called your name. She’d wanted to talk to you. Maybe she would try to see you there at the hospital, after you were cleared for visitors. Maybe one day you would see your baby. Maybe it wouldn’t have the same problems you’d had.

  It was hard, so hard, to confide all of this in the Ambassador of the Mouth. But you did it. It may have been the most courageous thing you’ve ever done. Or the most foolish.

  “So… all these months of preparation,” the wizard-shrink-Ambassador said, “for nothing. Do you realize the gift that you’re talking about throwing away? Do you realize how much some of us would give to be deemed fascinating enough for consumption? To be Chosen? That fucking cripple and the fucking baby in her womb are enough to make you renounce Him?”

  “It’s a lot of things,” you admitted. “It’s Cressida, sure. It’s the baby. It was kind of fucked up, but Cressida looked happy—really, honestly happy in the courtroom. Happy to be there and see me. Maybe even happy to be pregnant with my kid. And, if you think about it, who else is going to get her pregnant? All the other boys called her names. They don’t see what I see in her. So this might be her only chance to be a mom. And I think she actually enjoys all the attention the trial has brought to me. I think she likes the drama. I think it, in a weird way, makes her feel normal—a part of things. I don’t think she ever had that feeling before.