The Politics of Suicide.

Making the way back to the highway out of Barbourville, the Blue Ridge Mountains were behind me. The sun was dead ahead, making me wish I hadn’t left my shades on the driver’s seat and then sat on them. When I think of all the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I could have eaten with the money I’ve spent on replacement sunglasses on this trip, my mouth waters.

The drive north through Kentucky was uneventful. I passed billboards for the As Seen On TV outlet that read, "FLOBIES! FLOBIES! FLOBIES!" I didn’t stop. The only sign that really got me excited was the one that read, "Cincinnati 120 Miles". I made it before the sun dipped past the skyline.

As I drove into Lexington snippets of my own writing flashed through my head, about what a clusterfuck Lexington traffic is. That Sunday, what with the Bristol NASCAR race and late summer Ohio River fishing traffic, was no exception. Still, it was nice to see some slightly-familiar landmarks - the Northern Kentucky water tower, the double-decker bridge across the river, the cheerfully patriotic sign declaring, "OHIO WELCOMES YOU!"

"I hope Ohio welcomes me," I said aloud. "It’s my new home."

I drove straight into the grid of downtown streets, knowing each one. "Right on Second, left on Vine, turn at the fountain, and there’s my parking garage!" I secretly wished that Maryland Brian was along for the ride with me, if only so I could amaze him with my newfound sense of direction.
"Aren’t you the same girl that got lost in her own town on the way to Target, like, five months ago?!" he would shout.
"Uh-huh!" I would nod emphatically, making sure not to hit anyone as I turned into the garage.

I parked in what I’ve come to call "My Spot" in the Vine Street Garage, just to the left and down the ramp. Then it was up the elevator to the lobby of the Commerce Building, waving to the young security guard. "Hey, I haven’t seen ya in awhile!" he said.
"I know, I’ve been out of town! Good to see you again!" Walking up the street, I had the same thought I did months ago. "I fit here."

I passed the juice bar, but didn’t see my irate Iranian friend. Next to it was the Skyline Chili where I had gotten sick on the Cincy staple. I passed the suit store that displayed the pimp-tastic cotton candy pink suit, hat, vest and shoes in the window. I passed Madonna’s, where I had become fully indoctrinated as "One Of The Guys" by schooling Kurt in front of Kevin. I came upon McFadden’s and there she was, my sweet little April talking on the phone. As I came through the door, she whispered, "I’ll have to call you back," before jumping off her stool. We hugged and shrieked like little girls, getting dirty looks from the tough guys at the bar.
"It’s dead tonight," she said. "But it’s cool. Hey, when I get out of here do you wanna go over to Kentucky and hang out with Matthew?" Matthew is her boyfriend, literally her other half.
"Sure, I still need to meet him, to make sure I approve."
"Cool, I’ll drive."

I regaled her with tales of the goat races, of the Badlands, Arkansas, armadillos, whittling - anything to keep from asking her the questions I didn’t want to ask. Namely, "what happened with your dad?"

Finally, in the car on the way to Kentucky, I couldn’t hold it anymore. "What happened?’
"Well," she started, "he was under a lot of stress. He was being investigated by his company for illegal use of funds...."
She continued on and I listened, awestruck and horrified, as she recounted the way his head had morphed from the force of the bullet, how she had wanted to touch him but stopped herself. "His ears were too close together, like they’d been pushed around his head. He looked so thin. Since then I haven’t been able to watch movies with gore, I freak out really bad. It was right in the front yard. My brother built a cross that’s there now, I can show you when we go home."
"That would be great."

An interesting phenomenon is the aftermath of suicide. The family is reeling, with so many questions that will remain unanswered. You want to comfort, but have no frame of reference. You resist the urge to regurgitate the usual funeral quips - "He’s in a better place." "At least now he’s not in any physical pain." "At least he led a full, happy life." With suicide, that’s impossible. You can’t reaffirm the fact that the person wasn’t taken too young. You can’t reassure someone that their loved one was called by God. You can only listen. You can never, ever hope to answer those questions. And no matter how hard you wish, "I’m so sorry" isn’t one of them.

Still, I listened. I listened all the way over the bridge, in the McDonald’s as we pooled our pitiful funds to buy some Dollar Menu fries, and in the parking lot of the bar. "The good thing is he put in his will that the house would be paid off and all of our debts would be taken care of if he died, suicide or otherwise," April said as she parked the car. "Because for the months leading up to his death we were afraid we were going to lose the house and Brandon." Brandon, at age 9, is the family’s third foster child, and the only one who hadn’t been officially adopted yet.

April continued. "When we go back to my place, you’ll notice a lot of my stuff is gone from my room. My parents basically told all of us, keep only what you can pack in a box, because we’re going to lose the house. I think my dad figured dying was the only way to make sure we were taken care of. I really hate saying it, but I’m starting to understand his reasons. And I’m starting to see the good in it. Of course I’d rather have him here, but I understand why his thought process led him to do what he did."

April’s statements prove that the politics of grieving are a Catch-22 in themselves. In another conversation with her since then, she mentioned going to a support group for people who have lost family members to death, suicide or otherwise. "When I finally met another woman who was there because of suicide, I was like, ‘Yay! Someone else!’, even though that sounds really bad," she said. "I feel awful for saying that, but it was a small comfort, y’know?"
I do know. Not firsthand, but it’s easy to see where saying, "There have actually been a few positive things as a result of my father shooting himself in the head," can make one sound insensitive and advocational, when in reality it’s merely a comparison and possibly even a tiny shred of comfort for the people left behind, a way to make sense of it all.

April and I walked into the bar, laying the subject to rest for the time being and ready to have fun with Matthew. To see the two of them together is living proof that opposites attract - he’s the blond, clean-cut, All-American law student with old money, and she’s a tiny Indian punkstress with a wild side a mile long. By all conventional stereotypes, he should be the popular jock teasing her mercilessly for being a gothic lesbian, but there they sit, completely enamored of each other.
"You two are so cute, go to Hell," I teased between kamikaze shots.

Matthew’s goal is to become a state judge, then senator. Personally, I hope he and April get married and then he runs for president. That girl would make such a bitchin’ First Lady.

Matthew coached me on what to expect if I do go to law school. "If you like reading and hate sunlight, then law school is for you!" he said. "I adore it! It’s stressful, but I love reading. I sit in a dark corner of a basement all day with nothing but stacks of case files and I love it."
"That sounds..... um.....pretty shitty!" I said. "Does it have to be in a basement? Could I, like, sit in the sun and read?"
"I guess. But that stuff is pretty hard to sift through sometimes. You have to focus. Distraction’s not really an option if you want to do well."
"Dammit!" Honestly, I think I’d love law school until I saw something shiny. And that would be the end of Jessica’s law school career.
(Seriously, I’m thinking of putting out a 4-song EP and calling it "Future Law School Dropout".)

April and I left not long after that, making our way back to Cincinnati in the rain. It continued raining for five days. That night we went right to sleep, waking up late the next morning and puttering around for about, oh, all damn day. We ate cereal, then wrote a song. We made beaded earrings and bracelets with some kits of her sister’s. I made a blue set for Lisa, Earl’s girlfriend, as a thank-you gift for letting me move in. April showed me pictures of her father. In all of them, he was smiling. She played a CD for me that he had recorded on a little 4-track, about 6 months before he died. He was a very good guitar player and his voice reminded me of Neil Young.

"He and I were the two big music nuts in the house," she said. "He would always play awesome covers. One day I told him he should start writing his own songs, and he kind of shrugged it off. But right before he died, he showed me these handwritten sheets. They were songs. He recorded both of them, but didn’t label it. One was about my mom, I knew that right away. And the other was about me. It doesn’t come right out and say it, but I knew. And I still haven’t told my sisters, because they’d probably be upset, but I know it’s about me. He and I were the closest. Anyway, when all of our family was sitting around, figuring out what to do for the funeral, someone said we should play music, but they couldn’t agree on what. I said, ‘Why don’t you play that song he wrote for Mom?’ No one knew what I was talking about - he hadn’t even told my mother. I got the CD and played it for them. And then we played it again at the funeral. My aunt even made a poster of the lyrics, in calligraphy, to put next to the casket."
She showed me the poster, the scribbled sheets, the collages of pictures that had hung in the funeral home. Rick on a boat. Rick in the backyard, building a fence. Rick pulling a wagon full of costumed children through the backyard on Halloween. Rick in Disneyworld. He looked so vibrant and happy, as though he had never had a bad day in his life.

After looking at pictures, we took a walk in the front yard, to a small wooden cross stuck deep in the soft earth. It read simply, "FATHER".
"Josh made that, right after Dad died. We put it here, where he fell. A few days after he died, a huge hawk started coming around, just sitting in that tree up there for hours. We all noticed it. It was freaky, but comforting - being Native American, we always thought my father's spirit animal was an eagle, but I guess it was a hawk."

Eventually April and I got dressed, then went out for pancakes. We walked around downtown Cincinnati, stopping at a wig store for new looks. She helped me realize a long-time dream - actually being able to zip up a dress I haven’t fit into since my college graduation! (Who cares if I couldn’t breathe, at least I was wearing it again.) I told her all about Iarca The Romanian Adulterist and she almost ran off the road, laughing. We went back to her house after taking Brandon to football practice and had a Will Ferrell marathon, watching "Elf" and "Anchorman" back to back.

A funny thing happened in the morning, when she and I initially went down to the kitchen for breakfast. An out-of-place-looking young man with dark features was standing at the sink, pouring a glass of juice. April didn’t immediately introduce us, so I just stood there trying to figure out where he fit in the family portrait. After a few minutes, April said, "Oh, Jess, this is our German exchange student, Jan."
"Nice to meet you!" I said.

He nodded shyly, then asked "Where you from?"
"Um, all over. I’ve lived lots of places." I told him about the trip, and about how I’d met April. "I’m just back visiting now, but that first time I came over we made cheesecakes and stayed up - hey, April, how late were we up that night we made the cheesecakes?"
"Oh, god, I don’t know," she said, appearing in the doorway of the walk-in pantry with a box of Cheerios in hand. "Four, maybe? Five?"
"Yeah," I said, turning back to Jan. "It was pretty random. But it was awesome!"
"That is very cool," he said, still shy.

Later on, April went down to the kitchen for sodas and came back up with Jan at her heels. I heard her outside the door saying, "Hold on, okay? Just hold on a sec. I don’t know if she wants to talk, hold on. Stay right there." She opened the door, saying, "Jan had some questions for you, is that okay?"
I was sitting on the bed with my laptop open. "Oh my gosh, of course!" I said. "Come on in! Ask away!"

He came in the room and sat on the floor at my feet, looking at me very seriously. He spoke as though reciting a list he had been memorizing for days. "I just want to know what made you want to do this what you eat where you sleep how did you get the money why are you doing it is it hard what is the best part where have you been how long have you been doing it what kind of car you drive is it very expensive what does your family think of this and where do you want to go next?"
"Um, wow!" I took a breath before answering.