Suicide Notes

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.