The toilet in the master bathroom flushed—a sure sign in our house that the day had officially begun. Mom was up. I could hear her humming.
Mister T, our cat, was downstairs, wide awake and waiting to be released into the wilds of the backyard in order to begin his daily business of disturbing (and possibly killing) whatever wildlife he can sink his teeth into. Mister T is a real terrorist, but rather than targeting a particular population such as field mice or house wrens, he likes to spread his enmity all around to include everything and everyone in view. We humans are especially subject to his disapproval. Only my mother seems to be exempt from being clawed, chased, hissed at, scratched, and bitten on a regular basis. I suspect that Mister T considers Mom necessary for his survival. When it comes to the rest of us, he either hisses at us in order to get us to understand that we are sitting in his spot or takes a swipe to let us know who is boss.
I’ve read stories on the Internet about how cats are supposed to know when a person is close to death. Apparently household cats have extrasensory powers that tell them to sleep outside the door of the soon-to-be-deceased. Possible? Sure. But no one has been able to prove it. Personally, I think it’s just an urban legend, the result of that weird aura cats give off like swamp gas. In any case, Mister T would not be the right cat to study in order to prove this premise, because on any given day of the week, he could care less whether I am dead or alive. Most mornings he just sits at the back door, occasionally licking his chops, cleaning his paws, and waiting for my mother to open the back door and let him loose upon another unsuspecting day. Like everybody else in the house, Mister T had no idea what I was planning for myself.
I figured that if I actually went through with my plan, I would be spared the torture of having to face another day (i.e., Turk and the kids in the cafeteria). I was counting on this whole charade being over and done with and hoping that some kind of eternal silence would descend like snow falling on Christmas morning. In other words, I was looking forward to being done with this world.
But . . .
What if death wasn’t really the end of everything? I mean no one really knows for sure what happens after you die. I’ve read about the afterlife on the Internet. People who died and then came back to life always say how peaceful their dead bodies appeared to be while they themselves were floating up near the ceiling looking down on the whole deathbed scene. I was looking forward to that kind of peace. In fact, I couldn’t wait. I imagined the dead quiet, the eternal peace, the ceiling, the floating, the end.
But what if I was forced to witness the whole unhappy course of events that followed on the heels of my death? Suppose I had to stand by and watch my mother discover my dead body lying on the bed? That would be awful, and I wasn’t sure that I could handle it.
Imagine that I’m sprawled out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, but seeing nothing. This time instead of just pretending that I’m dead, like I used to do on occasion, I am actually and truly dead. Mom walks into the room, sees me lying there, and freezes. When she realizes what’s going on, she lets out an involuntary scream. But in order not to wake Dad, she quickly catches herself and covers her mouth with both hands. She shuts the door. All the color has drained from my face and my skin has a bluish tint, making me look more than a little ghoulish. The color has drained from Mom’s face too, but she is still alive. She falls down onto the carpet and, while kneeling beside the bed, she takes hold of my shoulders, shakes me, and repeats the words, “Why, why, why?” over and over. My face is cold as stone but I look relaxed, peaceful, and almost happy. My plaid Converse high-tops are lying on the floor beside the bed, their mouths wide open and tongues hanging out. Mom picks up one of the sneakers, looks at it as if it is something that’s fallen from outer space, and then she unexpectedly presses it to her heart. I am forced to watch her as she starts to sob uncontrollably. I don’t say anything. I can’t. I’m up near the ceiling, dead. And besides, what would I say? “It’s going to be all right. Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll do better next time.” No. I just have to float there and endure her heartache until the pain becomes too much and I am forced to fly off to God knows where.
This was the kind of thinking that could sometimes discourage me from going through with my plan. But then I would tell myself, “It’s a good thing that your mind is made up. Now all you need are the means to do it.”
Twelve
Most mornings while waiting for the school bus, I sit on the front stoop of our house and daydream. Because my present is usually too horrible to think about, I spend a lot of the time imagining various futures for myself, all of them fantastic and amazing.
I was someone leading an extreme and glamorous life somewhere in the tropics.
I was famous and everyone wanted to be photographed in my presence.
I had a three-picture deal with a major movie studio.
Lady Gaga and I were best friends; we were a team, touring the world together. I designed her outfits and pyrotechnical displays; she bought me a car.
The thought of these various career opportunities kept me very busy in my mind; they passed the time. But that spring, as my popularity diminished to the point that even I didn’t want to hang out with myself, I realized Mexico wasn’t going to cut it and I began to imagine what it would be like if I died an early death.
I practiced for my funeral. For long stretches I would lie on my bed in my best and only suit. I lit candles and incense. I looked great, peaceful. And I imagined people coming up to my coffin, one by one and paying their last respects. Many of them cried. People I hardly knew said things like: I should’ve seen it coming. We had no idea. I could’ve been nicer to him. Who knew that he was suffering? He was always such a cheerful child. Anyway, the funeral thing just made me feel better about the whole situation, and I began to consider it as a real option.
I began to delete certain pictures of myself from my phone and from my computer. I wanted only the ones that I considered flattering to remain after I was gone. I organized my poems and made a file of the ones that I especially liked, the ones that best expressed my life journey. My play, Nevermore the Wind, which had been announced as part of the Spring Dramathon, was printed, copied, and bound. The dedication read: To anyone who has ever heard the wind.
I deleted the movie of Pinky that I had on my camera. It wasn’t a secret. At the time, I told him I was recording it so that we could review it later and work on his dance steps, but he had already quit the show by the time I had it fully edited. In the movie, he looked so handsome, slightly sweaty, and totally into the task at hand. Sometimes as a form of personal torture I would sit in my room and view it over and over. Even though his dancing sucked and he had no stage presence, he was a bright beacon of hope up on that stage; he knew how to laugh at himself and that made people smile. To me, he represented all kinds of possibilities that I could not have articulated at the time. Still can’t.
When you’re young, people tell you that you’ll get over stuff; they say it as though what you’re feeling isn’t really real or it’s just practice for what comes later on in life. But what we have now is all that matters. The love we feel today is what we know of love; good or bad, it’s what we’ve got to work with. People don’t recognize that sometimes a feeling is so intense it makes you just want to lay down and die rather than go on feeling it. I’m not saying that that’s a good thing; I’m just saying that it happens. And I know because it happened to me.
Anyway, I missed the bus that morning. I guess I was concentrating so hard on the future that I missed what was happening right then and there. Both Zac and Katie saw me running after the bus, but rather than make the driver stop for me, they just laughed at me as they drove off.
I was late for school and had to go to the office. Usually Mrs. Rodriguez gives you a note and then she makes some kind of mark under your name in The Book of Lateness. Also all first-period teachers h
ave perfected a scowl suitable for latecomers, but that’s about all that happens. No big deal. Life goes on. But that day, Mrs. Rodriguez came out from behind her barricade and told me that Principal Davis wanted to see me right away in her office.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Trevor,” Principal Davis said as soon as she hung up the phone. “I really am. And we are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of it and find out who is responsible.”
I felt a little crazy because I had no idea what she was talking about, and the more she kept on assuring me that everything was going to be all right, the more I was starting to freak. I felt like I was in that Franz Kafka short story, the one we read in English class about the guy who wakes up and discovers he’s been changed into a bug, but doesn’t realize it until it’s too late.
“Do you know anything about how this might’ve happened?” she asked me.
I did not. And by that point I was so alarmed by what it might turn out to be that I just shook my head and left it at that.
“Would you like to call your parents?”
Again, I shook my head, this time more vigorously. Mom and Dad have told me again and again that I am not to call them at work unless it is a real emergency. And since I didn’t know the nature of the problem, I technically couldn’t consider it as such. And what’s more, I really didn’t want to know.
“I have to go home,” I told Principal Davis.
“Of course, of course,” she replied, nodding her head and giving me a look of serious concern. “Shall I have someone drive you?”
“No, thanks. The walk will be good for me. The fresh air and all.”
My plan was to make a quick stop at my locker, ditch my gym clothes and pick up a few things that I might need just in case I never came back to school. The hallways were deserted and I could almost feel the walls and floors breathing a sigh of relief. In about five minutes the place would be heaving with the jostle of a thousand teenagers, each of whom had very specific fears and hopes and loves and disappointments; it was a volatile mix and I was happy to be relieved of it, even if it was just for one day. I was sure that the cause for Principal Davis’s concern would be revealed soon enough, and that I wasn’t going to like it. In any case, it could wait.
As I turned the corner, I could see Mr. Hooper at the far end of the hallway, standing by my locker with his back to me. He was wearing his usual janitor uniform: khaki shirt with his name embroidered in script above the pocket, khaki pants with keys dangling from his belt, dust-colored work boots, and a wool hat featuring our school colors and team mascot. As I got closer I could see the collection of paint cans, rags, and brushes that he had lined up on the floor beside him. He was so into his work that he didn’t notice my approach. In fact, I stood right beside him for what seemed like about a year. I had plenty of time to read, over and over, the letters that had been deliberately scratched into my locker.
F.
A.
G.
G.
O.
T.
“Oh,” said Mr. Hooper, startled by my presence. “This your locker, huh?”
At that moment, the bell rang, doors flew open, and the hall began to fill with the teaming masses. All I knew was that I had to get out of there before anyone saw me. I took off down the hall, my eyes fixed on the emergency exit door and the world beyond.
Thirteen
Dear Mom and Dad,
I don’t want you to think I haven’t given this a lot of thought, because I have. I tried to cure myself, but nothing worked. Don’t think it’s your fault. It’s not. It just happens. I’m different and there is nothing in this world that’s going to make that change. Please give all my Lady Gaga DVDs and posters to Katie Quinn who happens to love Lady G. as much as I do. And please, if it’s possible, play “Born This Way” at my funeral. It says everything. It’s the title song from her second album and it’s my absolute fave. And don’t cry too much. It would’ve been a skillion times worse if I had lived.
Your loving son,
Trevor
Fourteen
Fifteen
The people at the hospital informed me that a person cannot commit suicide by taking too many aspirin. But they pretty much guaranteed me that I wouldn’t have a headache for like another year.
I think they were kidding.
Mom and Dad were by my bedside when I woke up, and I could tell by the state of their faces that they’d been crying. They kept saying how sorry they were for everything. And even though I kept assuring them that it wasn’t their fault, they couldn’t take it in. They seemed very determined to make up for it somehow or at least to make it right. It was kind of sweet to watch them in action. Dad canceled all his business trips for the next month. He said that he was going to stay home and teach me to play football.
“Really, Dad,” I told him. “Go to work. I hate football. Seriously.”
“Well, then, something,” he said, looking at me with the saddest set of eyes I’ve ever seen on a man.
Mom kept blaming herself for missing the cues. She said things like, “I should’ve known.” Or “Why didn’t I see it coming?” I tried to comfort her by reminding her that she had a lot on her plate. She told me, “That’s no excuse. You’re my kid, and I’m going to do better from now on. And we’re going to see a therapist. Together. All three of us.”
Great. Football and therapy.
Suicide turned out to be not the greatest idea in terms of my future options. I was suddenly looking at a life in which I was trapped, grounded, and suspect. But I guess it was way better than the life of quiet desperation that I’d been quietly and desperately living. We are all in it together now. And of course I am alive.
Zac came walking into my hospital room with eyes downcast and hands clasped together in altar boy fashion. He looked like a guy who was being forced to view the open coffin at his best friend’s funeral—not crying, but wanting to. The minute he looked up and saw me lying in the hospital bed, he broke down sobbing into my bed sheet. He said that if I ever tried anything like that again he’d kill me with his bare hands. Then he insisted that I give him the names of every kid in school who was ever mean to me because he was going to totally kick their asses.
Sweet.
Fortunately Katie had gone to visit her aunt and she wasn’t expected back until after the weekend. We all agreed that it would be better if she didn’t know about “my little episode” (as Mom called it). If Katie found out that she had missed an opportunity to save my life or nurse me back to health, she’d be bitterly disappointed. And also Katie didn’t really understand the concept of keeping a secret. I mean she understood that a secret is confidential; it’s just that the number of people in whom she had confidence was very large. The news would have spread throughout the school and for the remainder of my high school years I’d be a famous head case—a situation I could definitely do without.
Thankfully, my stay at the hospital was brief. But while I was there I had an opportunity to meet a nurse named Jack. Jack was super nice. Actually, Jack was a candy striper, which is almost like a nurse, only younger. Jack was full of all kinds of interesting information. For example, he told me that he believed people who committed suicide just had to come back and live a whole lifetime all over again.
“Good to know,” I told him, as he plumped my pillow. “Because the thought of growing up again with my parents makes me totally depressed. Once around the block with them is plenty.”
He laughed and said that it didn’t work that way. “You wouldn’t necessarily come back into the same family and all.”
“Right,” I replied. “But knowing my luck, I would.”
He gave me some advice, which I didn’t mind taking because once upon a time he himself had been through something just like I had. He suggested that I might want to find someone I can talk on a re
gular basis about my problems.
“Y’mean, like a shrink?” I asked, thinking that maybe he considered me a lunatic.
“Or like a friend,” he replied. “Someone you can trust.” When he said that, the gravity of the situation hit me. What if I’d actually died? When I thought about how I might have never met Jack, or how sad my parents would’ve been without me, or how Zac and Katie might have lost a friend forever, I turned my face to the wall and started to cry. Jack didn’t seem surprised, he even had a tissue box handy.
“What do I do now?” I asked him between sobs. He lightly touched my shoulder and then quietly reminded me that I didn’t have to do anything today other than breathe. He said that starting tomorrow I might want to consider living my life one day at a time. No big decisions. Just for a while. Stay in the moment. As much as I can. Appreciate what’s right in front of me. I looked at him and told him that I’d give it a try.
He made me promise that I would never do anything like kill myself, and if I ever thought about doing harm to myself I was to call him right away. He scribbled his cell phone number on the back of the tissue box and handed it to me.
“I promise,” I thought, clutching the box to me. I didn’t say it out loud, but maybe it wasn’t necessary. Jack looked to me like a friend, someone I would be able to trust someday, someone I might call.
The next day, just as I was leaving the hospital with Mom and Dad, Zac showed up and stopped us in the hallway. His eyes were wild with excitement, the way they get when he discovers a new constellation through the lens of his high-powered telescope, like he’s taken in too much light. Anyway, he wanted to know what I was doing on Saturday. I thought he was going to give me information about some totally deadbeat support group for gay, suicidal teenagers, so I told him that I was all set.
Trevor Page 4
