Suicide Notes

what he did? Again, not really something I felt like discussing, but it wasn’t
up to me.
Apparently Cat Poop had talked to my parents before I came in, because
the three of them seemed to have some kind of plan for getting me to talk
about what happened. First, Cat Poop told my parents how well things had
been going with me. Then he asked my parents to tell me how they’d felt
when they found me that night.
My mother immediately turned on the waterworks. She said she’d come
upstairs and seen blood all over the floor. She said at first she’d thought I
was playing a practical joke on her, and she’d laughed even though she
thought it was a mean thing to do. When I didn’t respond, she apparently
totally freaked out, because my father heard her screaming and ran up to see
what was wrong.
I’m not saying she was lying or anything, but I do want to point out that
she’s always said that if she hadn’t become a lawyer, she would have been
an actress. Seriously. A couple of years ago she even performed in this
completely tragic community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. She
was actually pretty good, which is why I wouldn’t put it past her to make
things sound more awful than they really were. I mean, finding your kid
almost dead is bound to ruin your night, I get that. But it’s like she was
trying to make me feel even worse about it.
My father didn’t cry, but he said that seeing me on the floor like that
was the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to him. Then he described
how he’d made these tourniquets using some torn-up sheets from my bed
and held me until the paramedics got there. He said he kept telling me how
much he loved me, over and over, in case hearing it helped me stay alive.

---

That got to me way more than my mother crying. My dad never says
sappy stuff to us. He’s the kind of guy who can sit through a movie that has
everyone else bawling like babies and all he’ll say is, “Can you believe how
big Julia Roberts’s mouth is?” I’m serious. Nothing gets to him. He’s like
one of those cowboys in an old western.
Listening to my parents talk about that night, I thought about the time
Sadie asked me who had saved me. She was right that it was my mom and
dad and not the paramedics. If my mother hadn’t come up to see me, and if
my dad hadn’t known what to do, I really would have died. Three weeks
ago, that’s what I thought I wanted. Now things seem different. Not totally
different, but different enough that I guess I’m glad they did what they did.
But I wasn’t about to tell them that.
Then Cat Poop asked me how I felt about what my parents had said.
What are you supposed to say to something like that? Gee, I’m really sorry
I freaked you out, and thanks for making sure it didn’t work out? It just
sounds so stupid, like the big moment in one of those cheesy made-for-TV
movies where the kid who ran away from home and became a hooker does
a giant boo-hoo after her mother fights off her pimp with an umbrella to get
her off the street. I couldn’t say those things, even if I was thankful for what
they did. And I was. I mean I am. Thankful. Sort of. On good days.
What I did say was that I was sorry for making them worry. That
seemed like a good compromise, right in between the stony,
uncommunicative teen-ager and the cry-till-your-nose-runs breakdown I
could have gone with. I said I was sorry that they were afraid for me and
reassured them that everything was okay now.
I should have left out that last part about everything being okay now,
because that’s one of those statements the doc jumps on like a cat on a
mouse.
Sure enough, he said, “What’s different about how you are today from
how you were that night?”
Oh, man. He pushed me right into that one. Here we were back at the
big Why? I was supposed to show how much I’d learned about myself, and
they were supposed to get some answer to explain it all. But like I keep
saying, there is no big reason.
I had to say something, though, so I said, “I guess I’ve learned that no
matter how bad things get, there are always people who love you.”

---

I won’t blame you if you stop to go throw up right about now. I know I
would. But it sounds pretty good, right? If you were my parents, you’d buy
it. And they did. I felt a little bad when I saw the look on my mother’s face.
She seemed really relieved, like she’d been worried all along that the reason
I tried to off myself was because I thought she didn’t love me. But that was
never it. I know she and my father love me. This was never about them.
I think Cat Poop knew I was handing them a big pile of crap and calling
it a present, because he pushed me even further and said, “How would you
handle things differently now, Jeff?”
What I wanted to say was, “I’d lock my door.” I was getting tired of
having to make everyone feel better. I’m sorry I freaked everyone out. I’m
sorry my parents are sad about it. But it’s over. Can we all move on?
I thought for a minute or two until I wasn’t quite so steamed, then I said,
“I’d talk to somebody.” I didn’t say who. I just said I would talk to
somebody. That way they could each think I meant them.
It was the right answer, I guess, because Cat Poop finished with the third
degree and moved on to some other stuff. It wasn’t anything exciting, so I
won’t go into it. Basically, he talked to us about better ways to
communicate. Blah. Blah. Blah.
I was really thrilled when it was all over and my parents went home. I
was even more thrilled to go back to my room. Let me tell you, writing a
report on Lord of the Flies, which is what I was doing for my English class
assignment, is way better than spending an hour with the doc and my
parents. Given a choice between discussing the symbolism of a pig head on
a stick and discussing my feelings, I’ll take the pig head every time.

---

Day 23
Something totally weird just happened. I’m not even sure I want to write
about it, but if I don’t I’m afraid it will just stay in my head, and I don’t
want it in there.
It’s about three in the morning. I woke up a while ago and had to pee, so
I walked down to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The guys’ bathroom
here is like the ones at school: sinks and toilets and showers all in one big
room. When I walked in, I heard one of the showers running. That was kind
of strange, because people mostly shower in the morning, and we’re really
not supposed to be running around at night except if we have to, you know,
go.
Still, it wasn’t really a big deal. I mean, we’re all in here because we’re
a little bit off in the first place, so someone deciding to shower in the middle
of the night is pretty tame on the scale of things. So I started to pee, and
that’s when I heard it. And by it I mean this groaning sound.
I made myself stop peeing—which is really, really hard to do when you
have to go, by the way—and listened, thinking that maybe I’d just heard
noises in the pipes or something. But there it was again, definitely human,
and definitely coming from the shower. Now, besides me the only guy here
is Rankin, so I knew it had to be him, unless one of the night attendants had
suddenly decided to practice some personal hygiene. And judging from the
noise, Rankin wasn’t feeling too well.
I wasn’t sure if I should ask if he was okay or just leave him alone. Then
the groaning got a little louder. My bladder was about to pop, so I finished
peeing and walked toward the shower. I didn’t want to scare Rankin, so I
didn’t say anything. If you’re taking a shower in the middle of the night and
not feeling too well, the last thing you need is someone pulling a Psycho
and yanking the curtain open.
The thing about those curtains is, they don’t really cover the opening to
the shower totally. There are gaps on either side, almost like the steam from
the showers has made the curtains shrink. It’s not like you’re flashing the

---

whole world when you take a shower, but you can definitely see around
them.
What I saw through the crack was definitely Rankin. Too much of him,
actually. I didn’t mean to, but what I saw was his hand moving back and
forth somewhere around his waist, if you know what I mean. Even with all
that steam, it was pretty obvious what was going on. Suddenly the groaning
made sense.
I wanted to turn around and get out of there, but I couldn’t. I was afraid
if I did anything, he’d hear me and think I was spying on him. Even my
heart beating sounded like a drum banging away inside my chest. I just
stood there, watching him but trying not to, and thinking of any way to get
out of the bathroom.
It isn’t like I’ve never seen a guy with a hard-on before. Sometimes a
guy in gym class will get one in the showers, and everyone points and
makes fun of him and calls him a fag, but we all know it’s just what
happens to guys. We can’t help it. It’s like that thing is just there and it does
whatever it wants. It totally is out of our control.
And it’s not like I’ve never jacked off. I’m fifteen years old. Of course I
do it. Any guy who says he doesn’t is lying. That would be like having the
coolest video game ever and never playing it. No one’s that stupid.
But I’ve never seen someone else doing it. It’s one of those things you
don’t really think about other people doing, probably because if you did,
every time someone shook your hand you’d be thinking about what else it
had been holding on to. You just don’t go there.
Only now I was there, live and in person. Not two feet away from me,
Rankin was going at it like he was all alone in his bedroom with the door
locked and the stereo on so no one would hear him. I could hear him getting
more and more excited, and I knew what was going to happen. I could