Down in the Zero

I followed her down a corridor, around a right–hand turn, all the way to the end of the building. She stepped aside, making a graceful sweeping gesture with her hand. A man stepped from behind an antique desk to greet me, holding out his hand. I shook it— his grip was firm and dry. 'Have a seat,' he said, nodding toward a mahogany rocking chair canted at an angle in front of the desk. We sat down simultaneously and watched each other for a minute.

He was tall, slender, with a neat haircut of tight golden brown curls. His skin was almost the same color, eyes a pale blue. His features were fine, sharp–cut, a cross between handsome and exotic.

'Trying to figure it out?' he asked with a smile, showing perfect white teeth, leaning forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped.

'Genetics is too complicated a subject for me,' I said.

Another smile. 'I'll help you out,' he said. 'My mother was half Norwegian, half British. My dad was Samoan. They met during World War Two, on the island.'

'Looks like the meeting was successful.'

'They surely thought so. They celebrated their fortieth anniversary last year. What about you?'

'Me?'

'Well, Burke, that's an English name, isn't it? Or Irish? But your features are more…Mediterranean. Perhaps you have some Latin blood?'

'I don't know.'

'You were never curious?'

'There's never been anyone to ask,' I told him.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.'

'It's okay— I didn't come here to search for my roots.'

'I understand.' Therapist–speak, acknowledging aggression, mollifying it when it surfaces.

I let him stay uncomfortable for a minute, using the opportunity to look around the office. It was something out of the last century, all heavy dark furniture and paneling. The ultra–modern clock was the only discordant note, a duplicate of the one in Cherry's bedroom.

'Your message was a little unclear,' he finally said. 'If you'll tell me how…'

'I guess I'm a little unclear myself, Doctor. Mrs. Cambridge…you know her?'

'Yes. Quite well. She's been a patron of the hospital for years, serves on the board as well.'

'Well, she was concerned about the suicides. Some of them were peers of her son. I'm not sure what I could do— this isn't exactly my usual line of work. But I thought, the least I could do was get an expert opinion.'

'I see. About suicide, then?'

'About youth suicide in particular. What would make them do it? How come they seem to do it in clusters? Like that.'

He leaned back in his chair, flicking one hand against the white turtleneck he wore under a camel's hair sport coat. 'Tell me what your take on it is,' he said. 'It might be more helpful if I tried to fill in the blanks.'

'Seems to me it's real hard being a kid. Not a baby, like a teenager, young adult, whatever. Hormones, peer pressure, uncertainty about the future, all kinds of messages about the environment, war, religion, society…tough to process. Kids are impatient, that's part of being one. They work hard at being cool, but they feel things real strong. And they don't get it… that death is forever.'

'What do you mean?'

'It's like…they can experiment with dying. See if they like it. Try it on the way they do clothes. Kids don't see the future real well…mostly because they don't look. It's all right now for them.'

'That's true enough. But most suicides have their root in depression.'

'Lots of people get depressed.'

'There are different forms of depression, Mr. Burke. Reactive depression … like being sad over some personal tragedy…cancer, flunking out of school, a death in the family. And there's a depression of the spirit too. A profound sadness, very deep. But some youth suicide is anomic.'

'Anomic?'

'Simply put, it means having no special reason to live. Anomic suicides don't feel the same sense of loss the others do. It's more like an emptiness at the core. You see it a lot in borderline personality disorder…a sense of a void within yourself.'

'Don't some of them just want to check out of the hotel?'

'I'm not sure I understand you.'

'Life can be intolerable, all by itself. It's not so much that there's a better place, just that this one's no good. You see it in prison, sometimes.'

'You worked in a prison?'

'I was in one. More than one.'

'Oh. Did you ever think about suicide?'

'Not then. Not for those reasons. But there's a…Zero, you know what I mean? A deep black hole you can dive into. Where people all go when they die.'