Suicide and Keg Stands - Chapter 1 - October 29, 2007

When Lynn walked into the bar her eyes were rimmed red and she sort of slumped onto the stool next to me. The bartender was leaning back in his chair reading the paper and he looked up so I held up a finger for one more.

"Jason killed himself." She said in a voice that didn't want to say it.

I considered that for a moment because I didn't have anything to say. It sat between us while the bartender brought her a beer.

"Who?"

"This guy."

"Oh."

"We were sleeping together. It wasn't anything."

"Right."

"He hung himself." She paused. "In his bedroom." I paused taking a sip of my beer. I tried to catch the bartender's eye, hoping he'd interrupt us again but he had unfolded the paper and gone back to reading, ignoring us. The silence stretched out and I dragged my fingernails down the side of the pint glass, looking for purchase. I was starting to panic a little. Not because death is a tragedy - I'm still up in the air on that - but because I didn't know Jason and I didn't give a damn about his problems.

Lynn was someone who understood the need for distance. That's why we worked as friends. She had the kind of effortless beauty that drives guys wild. She never wore make-up, preferring to keep it simple in jeans and a tee-shirt. She's half-Asian with long black hair that hangs somewhere to the middle of her back and skin that always seemed to keep a perfect tan. And these deep brown eyes that hint at a sadness just below the surface. Everyone got caught up in that sadness.

"You've never tried to sleep with me," she said to me about a year after we'd met. We were sitting on the stoop in front of her apartment, drinking beers. She rested her chin on her knees and hugged her legs to her. The night before this guy Lynn had been seeing found out he wasn't the only one in her rotation through the week and reacted badly. Drunk and screaming, he put a half full wine bottle through the sliding glass door of her apartment. When the cops showed up he was still standing there, shoulders slumped, crying his eyes out. From what I heard, they didn't have to put cuffs on him. One of the cops just put his hand on the kids shoulder and led him to the car. He slipped into the back seat without protest. The violence and the hopelessness of it is the kind of thing will make you take stock of your life.

"Should I?" I asked.

"Most guys do."

"How do you know I'm not?" I teased her.

"Most guys right now would be freaking out, threatening to 'kick that dude's ass.' Trying to show me how big and tough they are. You're just sitting here, drinking a beer with me. You're not trying to tell me how I should feel."

"And that's about sex?"

"It's about control. They want me to coo and bat my eyes and be all impressed that they're willing to commit felony assault for me. They want me to fit into some fantasy of they've got in their head. They don't care that it's not who I am, it's who they want me to be."

"I'll try to be more controlling in the future."

"Shut up," she said with a laugh. "Just don't change on me."

It was easy not trying to change her. That sadness in her eyes was a con. An accident of genetics. She was no more looking to be saved than I was and we both knew it. So it made no sense that she came to me and not someone else. There was a line of guys who couldn't wait to play white knight.

"How do you hang yourself in a bedroom?" She said after the moment had stretched on for an uncomfortable length of time. I didn't want to tell her that it's easy. Tie some rope or a belt or even a necktie to a doorknob. Then get down on your knees. Loop the rope around your neck and lean forward. With your feet between your butt and the door, and leaning at the right angle, you can hang yourself surprisingly fast. I didn't want to tell Lynn that if he's smart enough to be in college, he's smart enough to hang himself in a bedroom.

"I can understand pills, or a gun or a car 'accident,'" she said, the quotes evident in her voice. "But hanging? Where do you tie the rope?" I didn't want to ask her if it was really a suicide. If he was a freak in bed. Did he like belts? Being choked? She'd know but there was no good way of raising the subject.

A few years ago in Japan there was a rash of accidental deaths. Kids figured out that if they cut off their air supply during masturbation and could time their orgasm with the black edges of their consciousness that they'd cum harder than they ever had before. This can be affectionately called 'risk behavior.' Muscles in full spasm, dick pumping onto the carpet, eyes rolling around in their sockets, not all of those kids were able to get free before they blacked out. And once they were limp against that rope, their brain starved for oxygen, they simply expired. Imagine the horror of Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka finding their son like that.

For those years the suicide statistics among Japanese teenagers spiked. Accidental death sounds better than suicide until you have to explain the accident. Parents had the unhappy task of cleaning up their sons and redressing them so that autoerotic asphyxiation wouldn't wind up on the death certificate. It was a bitter thing to have to deal with. Especially in a culture as concerned with family honor as Japan. Her friend was dead and I was thinking about a Japanese predilection to auto erotic asphyxiation.

"There's a memorial tonight." She said, looking away from me. The bartender sat reading the paper and the rest of the bar was empty. It was early on a Friday afternoon. "Would you come with me?" She finished. Her voice was shaking a little and those brown eyes found mine.

There are moments in life when things can go one way or the other. These moments, you don't recognize except in hindsight. They just happen and by the time you've realized it, it's too late to change anything. I should have told her no. I should have paid my tab and walked out.

I had a friend who'd killed herself. Put a gun in her mouth and blew the back of her head all over an imported, hand woven, 18th century rug from India. Ruined a piano, one of those baby grand affairs. There's no way to get blood out of imported teak coffee tables or lampshades. Whatever artwork is hanging on the walls is getting thrown out and the walls have to be stripped and repainted. They had to bring in a someone to clean up the blood, it's not the type of thing you can scrub up with bleach. I didn't go to her memorial service or to her funeral. Everyone told me how tragic it was but I didn't feel anything for a long time. I didn't know if giving up was really a tragedy. It's not something I talk about.

I didn't go then and I should have said no now, but I didn't. There's something about a girl in distress and god help me I must be sick but there's nothing sexier than a girl who needs my help. Maybe I've never gotten past the taste of failure in the back of my throat.

"Yeah," I said after a moment.

---

Suicide and Keg Stands Index | Chapter 2

Posted by Ben Corman at 8:00 AM

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Comments

Top-notch. Keep it up.

Posted by: anonymous at October 30, 2007 05:11 PM

Amazing writing. I've read it before- did you write "Creativity Dies?" Maybe I'm just being a moron, but if you did. PLEASE let us see your Hawaii stories. I loved reading your blog and honestly it's the best writing I've ever seen.

Posted by: Kevin at October 30, 2007 08:01 PM

Hey Kevin,

Yeah, I did indeed write creativity dies. Hawaii will be the next novel I serialize after Suicide and Keg Stands is done.

-Ben

Posted by: Ben Corman at October 30, 2007 11:26 PM

The man knows how to edit like no one else, and clearly he is a great writer as well. Great work!

Posted by: Rob Dobrenski at October 31, 2007 08:17 AM

Great, I can't wait to read them again. I'll be the first one to buy your novel when it comes out.

-Kevin

Posted by: Kevin at October 31, 2007 08:59 AM

Good story, I still like your originals

Posted by: Anonymous at October 31, 2007 10:31 PM

Damn, Ben. It was really good before, but it's great now! My only constructive criticism was that the sentence beginning "Her friend was dead..." was a bit startling in its placement at the end of the paragraph re: Japanese autoerotic asphyxiation. Maybe the startle-effect was your intention, but perhaps it could just start a new paragraph? Of course, I could be full of crap. It happens.

Anyway, it's been inspiring watching you grow as a writer. Congrats on going live. You are truly going to make this work. And I'm with Kevin: can't wait to see what you do with Hawaii.

Posted by: Tracey at November 2, 2007 10:42 AM

First let me say that I like what you're doing with this. It looks like you're rewriting with alot more detail, more dialogue, and more of an internal monologue than the original. But what kind of bothers me is that the protagonist seems different. In the original, he talks about how he is thankful to be able to wonder with her about the logistics of hanging one's self. In the rewrite, he kind of smugly says to himself that it's very simple if you know what you're doing. It seems to me that this alienates him from Lynn, rather than making him identify with her like in the original. Also in the original, the main character alludes to a similar fun-loving view on life that they both share, which is absent in this version. But maybe you're intentionally restructuring the characters to give them more depth, and if that's the case then I respect it.

Posted by: jimi at November 11, 2007 01:54 AM

Hey Jimi,

I tried not to change the narrator of the story too much but I did have to change certain things in order to get the kind of depth and character arc I was looking for. I liked how he was written the first time but the character didn't really work for a longer piece.

Posted by: Ben Corman at November 11, 2007 11:43 AM

"The silence stretched out and I dragged my fingernails down the side of the pint glass, looking for purchase."

I really liked that line. It didn't stand out at all; just subtly fit the mood.

Posted by: Ironman at January 17, 2008 11:42 AM