"We're going to have a huge party here graduation weekend." Ryan said when I opened the door.
"I don't want a huge party." I said but he had already turned back to his phone call.
"Last night was a lot of fun, but we can do better." He said after he hung up. "I didn't realize it but a lot of people from last year are going to be in town for graduation and we," he paused for effect, "are hosting the party."
"Oh."
"It's going to be awesome." His eyes were shining.
"Right"
"I'm thinking of making it my send off too. Make it a party for both of us kicking off all the new shit in our lives."
"New shit?"
"Yeah. I'm moving, switching careers. I'm getting a fresh start."
"What are you going to do?"
"Fuck it. Who cares, right? Just something new. I've been talking to a recruiter in Seattle."
"A recruiter?"
"Army. He's telling me I could spend like two years in Germany or Japan. That would be pretty sick right?"
"What happened to Arizona?"
"I assume it's still there."
"I mean the real estate job."
"This is going to way better. Plus you're graduating, we have to celebrate."
I started going to classes again. I'd missed two weeks of the quarter and I wasn't sure if I had missed midterms or not. I still wasn't sure if I was going to graduate but I knew that if I failed a whole quarter, my financial aid would be fucked.
I walked into class a few minutes late. There were only fifteen of us and when I slid into a chair everyone was already there and no one looked at me. I stared at the top of my coffee cup hoping that the professor wasn't going to ask where I'd been for most of the quarter. I didn't recognize him and I didn't remember the professor for this class being skinny and Asian. He was half way through a story about his best friend.
See, his friend booked this trip to Australia. Ever since he'd been a boy he'd wanted to go, probably because his father had a few issues of National Geographic lying around when he was a kid. It probably looked so foreign and exotic with aborigines standing there in the foreground in tattered leather holding wooden weapons like something out of a comic book. That bright yellow border like a window into another life. It was one of those dreams that had never died. He'd held it through college and into his career as a professor, sort of in the back of his mind. This was going to be one of those defining moments in his life. When he finally landed in the outback and went bouncing across the rough and broken surface in a jeep or whatever rugged thing is done in Australia. This was going to be the kind of thing he would tell his grandkids about.
And because fate has a sick sense of humor he finally had the money. His marriage had fallen apart and when the house sold his share was more than enough for that trip. While his ex had used her half as a down payment on a new house and a new life, his half languished in the bank.
To hear this guy at the front of the class tell it, everyone could see the decline in him. The late night phone calls. The emotional outbursts. The drinking. He had missed classes and he was late with his research. After a year and change they started talking about an intervention. They even spoke to a councilor who specialized in such things but before they could pull it together, he drank himself into a blackout and he spent three days in the drunk tank drying out.
Amazingly, it seemed like the wake up call he needed. The first thing he did when he got home from jail was book six months in Australia. The school gladly gave him the time, afraid that he'd show up to class drunk or somehow embarrass the institution.
About a week ago he called his ex. He told her he had driven out to the beach to clear his head and that he just wanted to talk to her for a moment. She asked him how he was doing, if he was ready for the trip. He was going to leave right after finals. "I was going to cover his classes for the summer" said the skinny Asian at the front of the room. Anyway she asks and he says -- and this is really the best part -- he says "Yeah, I'm just ready to be away from here," and puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. The last thing she heard was the bang as he shot himself.
I could see the tears in this guy's eyes and it looked like he might start crying at any moment.
"We didn't see it coming." He said. "We really thought he was putting his life back together." The girl on my left was already crying, a thin pathetic sound and it looked like half the class might join her. "You all knew the best part of him. The part that loved teaching." I didn't realize that I was white knuckling the coffee cup and it was spilling all over my hand and onto the table, running into my lap. The one on my left opened her mouth to say something and I knew that if she started talking I was going to throw up or hit her. I got up, mumbling something about the coffee and ran to the bathroom down the hall. The last thing I heard before the door shut was the guy saying "... and if any of you would like to come to the funeral ..." I couldn't stop throwing up into the sink.
There was no way I could walk back into class. The rest of the hour was going to be an emotional gang rape as fifteen people poured their personal pain out onto the table so they could all stand around and admire it. Fifty minutes of sweaty palms, murmured understanding and respectful silence. Lots of hugs. All to a sound track of 'this class meant so much to me'. I hadn't been to more than three classes. They didn't want me there anymore than I wanted to be there. And it seemed crass to ask if he'd been keeping attendance records before he decided to ruin his ex-wife's morning.
I didn't really want to go to the bar at eleven in the morning but I didn't really want to go home and standing in a bathroom for the rest of the day wasn't an option. When I walked into the bar's soothing darkness I stood blinking, trying to get my eyes to adjust. That familiar smell was comforting. I didn't recognize the bartender and even though I had my ID, I could tell he didn't want to give the shaking and sweating thing in front of him a drink. He asked if I was ok but I didn't know what to tell him. How to explain the sick inevitability of it. How could he not see the suicide coming? I want to tell the bartender that there's no other way the story could end. That the moment she walked out of his life there was nothing left. That once the life is torn out of something, nothing can grow there again. Empty and hollow, it walks around like a lie covered in skin. Instead I told him I was fine and could I get that goddamn drink already? By the third one my hands no longer shook. By then I calmed down enough that I didn't want to put a gun in my own face and pull the trigger.
I tried Lynn's place but there was no one there. I walked to Marie's and she's not there but I can come in if I want and do I want a drink and how am I doing and am I graduating and the words are like a physical thing coming out of Marie's roommate, which is how I still think of her.
I took her offer for a drink and we sat in a silence that filled the room. I think I was making her nervous and when she asked me how I was doing for the third or forth time, I tried to tell her about my professor. Every time I opened my mouth the bottle in my hand shook.
"Want one?" She asked, popping a white pill into her mouth.
"I don't know."
"It makes things easier." She said and laughed either high or crazy. This is what it had come to, heart to heart confessionals with Marie's roommate over adderall shots chased with beer.
"Gotta fake it to make it?" I asked and took one, letting it sit on my tongue before swallowing it.
"Gotta fake it to make it." She repeated. Her eyes unnaturally wide.
By the time Marie came home we had the stereo on too loud, the TV was muted and Marie's roommate was finger painting on the wall while I rolled a joint. In between shots of vodka Marie took the scene in stride.
"You've got to fake it to make it." I told her, my voice an enthusiastic slur.
"What do you mean?"
"I feel great. I really do." I said and she just laughed at me and took another shot.
In the morning I woke up in Marie's bed. She was looking at me.
"How are you feeling?" She asked.
"My professor shot himself in the face. I'm not really sure how I'm feeling." I told her.
---
Chapter 13 | Suicide and Keg Stands Index | Chapter 15
Posted by Ben Corman at 10:35 AM