Suicide Notes

by Michael Thomas Ford

  When I woke up from the dream, I felt weird. I can’t really explain it. There was this knot in my stomach, the same kind I get when I wake up the morning of a big test I know I haven’t studied enough for. Then I remembered Rankin, and that I was going to have to talk to Cat Poop about what happened, and I knew why the knot was there.

  Day 34

  I’ll never know what Sadie would have thought about my dream. I was going to tell her, but she . . .

  No. Wait. I have to start at the beginning. If I don’t, I’m going to get everything mixed up, because right now it’s all swirling around in my brain. I can catch bits and pieces of it, but trying to see the whole picture at once is really hard. I don’t even know if I want to see it. If I see it, I might fall apart.

  So yesterday morning, after the famous Jeff and Rankin Get Busted incident, I got dressed and walked down the hall to the lounge. (I did not take a shower, which is a little gross, but I don’t exactly have a great track record in that department lately.) Part of me expected everyone to be lined up, waiting to tell me how awful I was before they threw me out. But no one else was up. Instead, Goody was sitting at the desk, reading a file. I wondered if it was mine, and if she knew what had happened.

  “Dr. Katzrupus is waiting for you in his office,” she said, answering that question.

  I walked down the hall to Cat Poop’s door and knocked. He opened it and I walked into his office, not saying anything or even looking at him. I sat down in the chair across from his desk and waited for him to tell me I was leaving.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened last night?” he said.

  “Not really,” I told him. “But I’ll bet a million bucks that you do.”

  He nodded. “Do you have anything to say about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Let me ask you this,” said Cat Poop. “How did it happen?”

  “What do you mean, how did it happen?”

  “How did it happen?” he repeated. “I think it’s a pretty straightforward question.”

  I kind of huffed at him. It was a stupid question, is what it was. I shrugged. “He came into my room, got into my bed, and tried to butt burgle me,” I said.

  Cat Poop pushed his glasses up. “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m sure,” I answered. “Trust me, if some guy tries to stick his junk in you, you know it.”

  “I meant that you’re certain you didn’t encourage Rankin in any way.”

  I had to think about that one. I mean, Rankin’s the one who’s started it every time we’ve done anything. But it’s not like he’s ever forced me to do it, and until last night I’ve never exactly told him not to do what he’s done. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have kept trying. But I didn’t want to tell Cat Poop that. It would just make me look like a victim, and he’d want to talk about it even more.

  “Are you suggesting that I asked for it because I wore my sexy boxers?” I asked instead.

  “I spoke to Rankin this morning,” said the doc. “He said that it was you who talked him into doing it.”

  “What?” I said. “He said I started it?”

  I couldn’t believe that Rankin had lied. Well, yes, I could. Still, I was pissed off. “It was not my idea,” I said, more to myself than to Cat Poop. “He’s the one who came to my room. He’s the one who’s a—”

  I stopped myself from saying it. But I thought it. A fag. Rankin was the fag around here. Not me.

  Cat Poop pushed his glasses up his nose again. I almost told him to knock it off. “Jeff, I have to tell you that this is a serious breach of hospital rules. You could be asked to leave the program.”

  “Finally,” I muttered. “If I’d known that, I would have done it a long time ago.”

  “Unless,” said the doc, “there’s some other reason for your behavior. Something that relates to your overall reason for being here.”

  It took me a minute to understand what he was saying. When I did, I got mad. “Nice,” I said. “You’re trying to get me to talk by threatening to kick me out for something I didn’t do. Where’d they teach you that, shrink torture school?”

  Cat Poop leaned forward. “All I’m asking you is if what you did with Rankin has any connection to why you hurt yourself,” he said.

  “No,” I said instantly. “It has nothing to do with it. I mean, I fooled around with Sadie, too, and that didn’t mean . . .”

  I stopped, realizing that I’d just made a huge mistake.

  “You and Sadie—” Cat Poop started to say. His finger was already halfway to his nose.

  “No,” I interrupted. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “What exactly did you mean?” he asked.

  I searched around in my head for some answer to give him, anything that could erase what I’d already said. But I knew I couldn’t. I’d gone too far.

  “All right,” I said. “Yeah, I fooled around with Sadie. But I couldn’t.” I looked at my hands, which were in my lap. My fingers were wrestling with each other.

  “Couldn’t what?”

  I forced my hands to be still. “Couldn’t, you know, do it,” I mumbled. “And with Rankin it was just fooling around. Nothing serious. It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything. Not like it was with . . .”

  Again I realized too late that I’d slipped up. That made twice in less than five minutes. If I didn’t do damage control, and fast, I was basically going to make sure I was on the next bus out of there. And for some reason, I didn’t want to be on that bus.

  “With whom?” Cat Poop asked.

  “Nobody,” I said. “I was just talking.”

  “With Allie?” he said.

  I could feel his eyes on me. I started to say that, yeah, it was Allie. But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. He was starting to win, and I didn’t want him to win. I wanted to be the winner, even if it meant letting him think I’d come on to Rankin or whatever.

  And that’s when he dropped the bomb. “Jeff,” he said. “I have to tell you something. About Sadie.”

  “I know we shouldn’t have—” I said, trying to head him off. It was bad enough that I was probably going to get kicked out. I didn’t want to be responsible for Sadie having to leave, too. So I just kept talking, hoping it would make him change his mind. “That time it was my idea. I’m the one who went into her room. She didn’t come into mine. And really, it was no big thing, anyway. I was just feeling lonely. You can even ask her.”

  “Jeff, listen,” he said. His voice sounded weird, and suddenly I wanted to be anywhere but in his office. The way he looked reminded me of the way my dad looked the time he had to tell Amanda that her cat got hit by a car.

  “What?” I asked. “Did she leave already? Did you kick her out? Because I’m telling the truth. You can’t just—”

  “Jeff,” Cat Poop interrupted. “Sadie’s dead.”

  I knew he hadn’t just said that. I mean, there was no way he could have said it. “Sadie’s dead?” No. I was sure I’d heard wrong. He’d said “Sadie’s gone.” That’s what he’d said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him. “You mean she left.”

  “Last night,” he said. “You heard the screaming, right?”

  “But that was Martha,” I said. “Moon Face said it was Martha.”

  He nodded. “It was Martha,” he said.

  “She had a bad dream,” I said.

  Cat Poop actually took off his glasses. It was the first time he’s ever done that, and it made him look naked. Naked and tired. Then I realized that he hadn’t shaved. It was like he’d been up all night. He rubbed his eyes for a minute before talking again.

  “Martha went to Sadie’s room,” he said. “I imagine she did have a bad dream and wanted to be comforted. She found Sadie.”

  “Found her what?” I asked him, not understanding.

  He shook his head. “Dead,” he said. Flat. Just like that. “She found Sadie dead.”

  I laughed. I know it sounds weird, but
I did. “You’re kidding,” I said. “You’d better be kidding. Because Sadie is not dead. She’s waiting to have breakfast with me. It’s pancake day.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Cat Poop. “I know this is very difficult for you to hear and accept, particularly under the circumstances. And I wouldn’t have told you now, but—”

  “Under the circumstances?” I said. Then I started laughing again. I don’t know why. It just started pouring out of me, this loud laughter. Like some kind of crazy clown. I don’t think I was even thinking anything. I was just laughing.

  And then it turned into crying. I was crying. Just bawling my eyes out. Then the next thing I know, Cat Poop was beside me. He actually hugged me. And I let him. I let him hug me while I bawled. I still didn’t believe him about Sadie. But I cried anyway. After a while I didn’t even know why I was crying. I didn’t know if it was because of the Rankin thing or the Sadie thing or the Jeff thing. And it didn’t matter. It just felt good.

  I don’t know how long I cried, but it felt like a hundred hours. I think part of me thought that if I just kept crying none of it would be real. Sadie wouldn’t be dead. The stuff with Rankin would never have happened. I wouldn’t be crazy.

  But she is. And it did. And I am.

  Day 35

  So about the whole trying-to-kill-myself thing. I guess there’s no reason not to talk about it now. It’s not like things can get any worse.

  I did it on New Year’s Eve. I had the best idea, too. I wanted to get drunk along with all the people in Times Square, then do it as the ball fell. You know, slip away with the old year into wherever it goes when it’s used up and we throw it away. So maybe it’s a little dramatic, but hey, you’ve got to appreciate the thought.

  And, no, I didn’t actually do it in Times Square. That would just be too weird. I did it at home. In my bedroom. Watching it all on TV.

  The whiskey was a good start. I got the idea from Dylan Thomas. He’s this poet who drank twenty-one straight whiskeys at The White Horse Tavern in New York and then died on the spot from alcohol poisoning. I’ve always wanted to hear the bartender’s side of the story. What was it like watching this guy drink himself out of here? How did it feel handing him number twenty-one and watching his face crumple up before he fell off the stool? And did he already have number twenty-two poured, waiting for that big fat tip, and then have to drink it himself after whoever came took the body away?

  So I drank some whiskey. I don’t see how Dylan Thomas choked down twenty-one glasses of the stuff. I could barely drink three. But that was enough. It made everything seem okay somehow, like killing myself was the best idea I’d ever had. I wasn’t afraid.

  Cutting myself felt so good. It was sweet the way the razor opened up the skin and this red line appeared, like I was pulling a piece of thread out of my wrist. The blood came really slowly, not in some spastic blast like I thought it would. It didn’t even really feel like my arm. It was like I was watching someone else’s arm in a movie. I kept thinking how great the camera angle was and wishing I had some popcorn.

  The people on television were counting down the seconds until the new year. What a bunch of morons they all were, acting excited to have another whole year, but having to get trashed so they wouldn’t think about how they were going to screw it up again like they had all the other years. Everyone was looking up at the top of the building as though Jesus Christ himself had appeared and was tossing out chocolate-covered salvation, like just because some crazy glitter ball was falling on their heads it gave them another chance to be happy. Only I could tell them it never changed, that no matter how many glitter balls fell in New York City, the year would still suck and their lives would still be screwed up and everything would still turn out wrong.

  “Use the razor!” I shouted at the television. “Use the razor!” But none of them did. Just me.

  That’s when I did the other wrist, and that was even better because I knew—knew what it would feel like, knew what would happen. Man, did it feel good, like slicing open the ribbon on a Christmas present you’ve been staring at under the tree for a month and been dying to open. Then it’s finally time to open it, and you just kind of hold your breath while you rip off the paper, hoping that what’s inside will be what you want it to be. And for once, it was.

  Afterward I just lay there watching everyone kiss while I died, thinking how cool it was to be on my bedroom floor bleeding while everyone in America celebrated the end of my life and the idiot hosting the countdown smiled his goofy fake smile on the TV like the Angel of Death doing a toothpaste commercial. There was none of that tunnel-of-light crap either. No angels waiting to lead me over. It was just dark and quiet.

  That’s when I woke up and saw my parents bending over me. At first I thought I was dreaming. My mother still had on all her makeup and her party dress, and there were these great big streaks of purple eye shadow down her cheeks and her lipstick was all smeared and she looked like a freaked-out Grow ’N Style Barbie head my sister had when she was about eight. You know, that life-size plastic head of Barbie where you can put makeup on it and fix its hair with curlers. Amanda and I used to play with it a lot until the day our next-door neighbor, an older kid named Troy, found us doing it and called me a fag. Later on I buried it in the backyard.

  So my mother’s looking down at me saying, “Why, why, why,” over and over again, like some little kid keeps pulling the string that makes her talk. My father isn’t saying anything at all; he’s just looking at me like maybe he’s the one who’s dreaming. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t dead, that I was still on the floor in my room. And all I could do was look at my mother’s mouth opening and closing and wonder if I could make her say something else, like one of those See ’n Say toys where you point the arrow to the picture of the chick and it says, “The chick goes ‘cluck, cluck, cluck.’” And I started to laugh, thinking about it, about her clucking nonstop, and she cried these big purple tears that splashed against my face like rain.

  The next time I opened my eyes I was in this room. The same one I’m in now, staring at the same ceiling I’m staring at right now. Looking at the Devil’s face. It was snowing outside my window and Nurse Goody was sitting in the chair next to my bed, looking at me like I was an exhibit at the Museum of Natural History and she was searching for the little brass plaque that would tell her what I was and when I became extinct.

  So that’s it. That’s the big secret. I tried to kill myself on New Year’s Eve. Just like Sadie did last night. Only she really did it. I don’t know all the details, just the basics. She took a bunch of pills. I don’t know what they were or where she got them. I’d like to think they were Wonder Drug. Then at least she could have gone thinking she was flying.

  Day 36

  My mother started right off with the hugging, like now that she’s started doing it, she can’t stop.

  “We were so sorry to hear that your friend is gone,” she said, patting me on the back.

  At first I thought she meant Rankin, who got sent home because of what happened. I guess Cat Poop decided I was the one telling the truth, because I’m still here. Or maybe they flipped a coin and I won. Or lost. Anyway, he’s gone. I don’t miss him.

  When I thought my mother was talking about him, I felt my heart stop for a second. I really didn’t want to talk about him. Us. Whatever. Anyway, then I realized that she meant Sadie, and my heart started beating again. But then I went from being scared to being angry. I wanted to say, “She’s not just gone, she’s DEAD!” But I knew she was trying to make me feel better, so I just didn’t say anything.

  I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the weekly Family Frolic, what with everything that’s been going on. Thankfully, my parents brought Amanda with them. I was really glad to see her. She was kind of a guarantee that I wouldn’t just lose it. But even she was a little less Amandaish than usual. I think she thought she should be because of Sadie and everything.

  Cat Poop started out by reminding us all that
I only have nine more days here. As if I didn’t know that. Five weeks ago nine days in this place might as well have been a thousand years to me. Now it seems like nothing.

  “The house has really changed since you’ve been in the . . . since you’ve been gone,” my father said. “I can’t wait for you to see it.” He had his hands in his lap, and he kept twirling his thumbs, which is what he does when he doesn’t want to be doing whatever it is he’s doing. I’m sure he wanted out of there as much as I did, and I kind of felt sorry for him. I guess it must be hard knowing your kid tried to kill himself.

  “Right,” said my mother. She was being super chirpy, the way she is when she wants to pretend everything’s fine. “We put new carpeting in your bedroom. It’s a beautiful color. What color would you say it is, Amanda?”

  Amanda looked at her. “Beige,” she said. “It’s beige.”

  “Oh, I think it’s more sand,” my mother said. “Isn’t that what the salesman said it was called: desert sand? Anyway, it looks wonderful with the paint. Amanda, what would you call that shade of blue?”

  “Blue,” said Amanda, looking at me and rolling her eyes. “I’d call it blue.”

  I knew this was my mother’s way of letting me know I won’t have to look at any bloodstains when I go back. It doesn’t really matter if the stains are there or not, though. I’m still going to remember. But it’s nice of her to think of it.

  Then Cat Poop said he’d discussed with my parents the idea of me going to a different school, so that I could have a fresh start. He wanted to know how I felt about that.

  I said it was a lot to think about, and that I’d get back to them on it. I kind of like the idea of going somewhere new. It would give me a chance to start over, to be anybody I want to be. But that’s the thing: I don’t want to be anybody. I want to be me. I don’t know if that would be any easier at a new school or not.