Why I Committed Suicide Read online

  A famous Beatles lyric later adopted by the Manson family was supposed to go here. I think I’m finally learning what “hilter skilter” can actually mean.

  Man! This first stage of love is always such bullshit. All the insecurity and confusion I was trying to avoid has swept over me like the coarse bristles of a witch’s broom. We’re so alike that it’s infuriating. Jenifer’s doing the same damn thing that I was trying to do this summer before I met her; playing the field and having fun. Unfortunately the relationship she just removed herself from must have been even more serious than mine was or at least more dramatic in ways that only girl relationships can be. Her laid-backishness is taken to the point of fanaticism at times and I can see how it is preventing us from being together.

  It has only been one week and I am already up late at night writing these words under the light of a single bulb casting its dirty glow around my dark, cat-pissy room. These are the actions of an inexperienced virgin-boy dammit! Why am I obsessing like this?

  Everyone is predicting the death of Jerry Garcia soon, rumored reports tell of another failed stint in rehabilitation. The scent of motor oil and sun-cooked asphalt fill the air. The weed around town is abundant and the greenest it’s been in years, producing rich thick smoke that fills the air with laughter. Its rich aroma results in the firing of intellectual pistons that merge us both into one person. I am a Gemini you know.

  But there is still a problem. Jenifer thinks she loves another. A fine strapping boy of a man named Kristoff with the mystique and doe eyes to drive women (and some men) mad with want. He looks like that picture of Nick Drake on the inside of his Pink Moon album. I pretend not to care because they have known each other since High School and if I start to resent them, soon I’ll resent myself for falling out of the tree and bouncing so readily onto the trampoline of love again.

  What does a man do in a situation like this? Stalk her of course. Under the almost respectable age-old pretense of creating that chance encounter. There’s a summer of freedom before me that’s still in its virgin state, so I have the time and the feverish desire to watch her do the girlish things that cause me to infatuate. Plus by following her around, I get to see how actually “with him” she really is. I casually show up and run into her at places I would normally never be in anyway. At the time I think I am being cool and non-chalant but I know deep down that I’m only increasing the repulsive fawning puppy dog effect. I guess I will come to terms with the fact that I am just a couple of one-night stands to her sooner or later, but “Da-Nile” isn’t just a river in Egypt.

  I trailed her this evening to one place off Fry Street called the Karma Kafé. It’s one of those trendy coffee places that I always expect to fail but still seem to hang around and make a profit, serving all sorts of granolas and the coffee-addled-Renaissance-fair types that seem to dwell near a college campus at all times. I like this coffee shop because I can ride my hundred-dollar fenced Diamond-Back across the street, on the University campus, and not look like a total stalking doo-fus. The café has big front windows covered with flyers for local bands, but enough of the window is exposed to fuel my hopes of catching a glimpse of her. More often I see the object of her affections walking around and I wonder if he knows his powerful mystique is keeping this beautiful girl’s heart from loving mine. I have made it a point to be there as she inevitably walks home alone because I hope to appear to be the embodiment of chivalry and raw appeal. Corny? Yes, but my heart is hers and I would rather act the fool than lose her forever.

  Does that even make sense?

  How do I describe the intensity of being in love to the macho parade of men that will read and laugh at these semi-private lamentations? I suppose it doesn’t matter, for this journal isn’t about the opinions of others, it is about my damn summer and the crystal clear knowledge that turns out to not be so crystal clear even when you think you’ve finally found the “one” person in your life that will make you complete.

  After being fed romantic movie schlock for years, this is the dream that I have. Traditionally the story should go, awkward boy meets beautiful girl, girl won’t give him the time of day, girl is betrothed, girl is dying of terminal illness etc. etc. ad nausea. Boy takes it upon himself to follow and stalk the young fair maiden and luckily finds himself in a situation to prove his love by saving her from a wild boar, gang members, unsympathetic cruel world etc. I guess that is the emotion going through back of my mind. Or maybe I just want the chance to spend that one last evening in her presence before fate whisks her away. I am sure at this point that I will continue the rest of my days pining for the magic of Jenifer. All the demons of hell have conspired to give me one night of passion and love so wonderful that the rest of my life shall pale in comparison. I am foolishly and romantically in love and not ashamed to go through the throes of that agony if that is my fate, but I will do everything I can short of letting go to keep me from giving in to life without her.

  Jenifer and Kristoff have had their relationship for years. Anything that has made her the beautiful creature she has become is a good thing, but deep down I just know that if Kristoff wasn’t more of a free spirit than Jenifer, she would be with him in a heartbeat. For some reason that hurts me even though it’s his loss. While he is actively and openly pursuing other company, Jenifer and I are becoming close friends on the cool. It’s depressing playing second fiddle to the James Dean persona that every girl falls in love with but I think I’m playing it off rather well by acting like the situation doesn’t bother me. The pressure of honesty will drive her away at this point so I am content to be her friend and occasional fuck buddy. I enjoy the nights we spend together and I’m playing the cards the way they fall. For now.

  It turns out that Jenifer’s not much of a pot smoker because of her hard-core asthma, so I am flattered she consented to do bong-tokes with me on that magical day we met. It means she realized I was trying to pick her up and despite my clumsy attempts, she was attracted to me. I thought I was slick, but Jenifer has cool in her genes.

  Maybe I should start a little earlier and expand the description of my living situation. Moving into the Delta Lodge was one of those ideas that sound a lot better drunk and late at night than it actually turns out to be. My roommate’s name is Ernie Harding and if I haven’t mentioned him already, he happens to be one of the coolest people I know. He got busted in high school with some bitches that had a stolen credit card and ended up taking the whole rap for their little shopping spree. That’s a big deal in the state of Texas and so he is on probation like almost 1/3 of the people in this fucked up state. Does he complain about it? No, he heroically has transformed his life so that he can drink and drop acid with us, he just leaves marijuana out of the equation since that’s the only thing the State’s drug test can really detect. I can respect that, even if I couldn’t live that way myself. I mean pot is the herb of life. It’s in the Bible and everything.

  Ernie used to live right down the hall from me in Bruce Hall where we would drink and do lots of acid together. He pledged the Lodge the semester after I did, he was one of the people that dropped me off in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma for a pledge prank and he was even there for me the night I got alcohol poisoning after doing too many beer bongs. Basically Ernie’s an all around good guy and a good friend whose life seems to consist of beer, sports and fighting over the phone with his long distance relationship girlfriend. I could tell a million stories of our delinquency if I wasn’t so busy writing down the joy and trauma of my current life.

  The problem with the room that Ernie and I share is that I keep getting sick. We’re on the first floor and this house has been partied in non-stop for the past fifty years so it probably has enough radon and asbestos to keep my little crotch swimmers sterile for decades. The guy who lived in our room before us got married and while he was courting his fair lady, he pretty much abandoned his own homestead. I’m sure it was partly because she had air-conditioning and
partly because his fucking cats started to inbreed and take over the place. That’s why there was so much cat shit everywhere when we moved in and there were other things as well. He was one of those people that occasionally dress up like barbarians and Klingons and all that other crap, so he was also extremely sloth-like and accumulated lots of the fast food garbage and miscellaneous crap that people like that subsist on. Throw in an air conditioner without any freon, all the windows permanently nailed then painted shut and you start to get a visual picture of the mess we inherited.

  Ernie and I cleaned the place thoroughly when we moved in. We evicted all the four legged, six toed mutations and shoveled out the presents they left behind. We emptied the room of all its garbage and moldy magazines etc. We scrubbed the walls and floor with bleach and tried in vain to cover up or eradicate the permanent odor I’ve already elaborated on. Hell, I even splurged and bought some cheap outdoor dark forest green latex paint that made me pleasantly dizzy in the non-ventilated area. But no matter how much I tried I still couldn’t get the walls to resemble anything broaching the word “new”.

  The paint thing might have been a mistake because the ceiling is black now and the walls are such a dark hue that all the light in the room gets absorbed so there’s a generally gloomy feeling to the whole business. It’s like living in a cave that still smells like the generations of animals that lived there before you. Nobody will fix and recharge our AC for less than $100, which we don’t have. So the combination of paint fumes, cats hit and heat is overwhelming. Compound that with the fact that we are right next to the front room of the house where all the bands play and the stereo thumps every single night and it all keeps making me get the flu or something.

  Jenifer is such a sweetheart and lemme tell you why. After I pester her and hang around her and obsess in secret over her, she still came over to help me out when I was very, very sick. I was just laying on the mattress in my loft when she popped in to cheer me up. How can I help but fall head over heels in love with a girl that brings me soup and rinses out the dirty washrag I had on my head for the fever? Maybe it’s a delusional Helen Keller syndrome but it really touched me to have her there. I know I kept babbling to her about how nobody has ever gone out of their way to make me soup before, but it was true. Nobody but my mom has done anything like that in years. I tried to convey how good it made me feel to have her there despite the vomit and fever symptoms, but I think I just played it cool.

  Right. Must sleep now.

  Ernie, our friend Jeffery and I all took some acid last night and were hanging around smoking pot while we were waiting to start tripping. I asked Ernie to show me how to do a gravity hit off the joint we were smoking. What is supposed to happen is that you bend your knees and take a giant hit off the joint as you slowly rise up to your full height. Somebody then grabs you around the chest and lifts you off of your feet while you hold your breath. Then what’s supposed to happen is that you lose consciousness from the lack of oxygen and then all sorts of visions come into your brain during the few seconds that dream-world overtakes you.

  Yeah I know, lack of oxygen to the brain, real smart thinking. Well it gets better.

  So I bend my knees and rise up and Ernie grabs me around the chest. For a brief moment I’m looking around and wondering when something is going to happen. Whammo! All of a sudden I am swimming across a vast Oceanic world with no recollection of what I did to get there. The air is crisp and the water is warm and the fish can talk without words. I see kelp and blue green filtered light all around me. Then I guess the blood started returning precious oxygen to my brain because I regained consciousness on our dirty floor, down on my knees, with my face hurting like someone had kicked me in the nose.

  I wake up and Ernie looks all scared. After a minute his moving mouth starts to actually say words I can hear and understand. Apparently during that split second where I looked around wondering what was going to happen I gave the other guys the impression that nothing was going to happen so they relaxed the grip they had on my arms to keep me from falling. That’s when I passed out and did a full face plant right on my kisser. I was mad because my nose was bleeding and felt numb and I was scared because I was starting to trip by then and I knew the amplified awareness my body was in would cause my face to feel all freaky and I would think something had gone horribly wrong with it while I spaced out. I calmed myself down so that I wouldn’t have a bad trip which was hard because even my teeth felt loose and wiggly. Jenifer showed up right afterwards and she couldn’t stop laughing when I told her what happened. I guess it was pretty funny and when she started tripping she laughed even harder at me when the giggles came. Every time I would feel around on my numb nose she would start to laugh again. So I suppose the lesson for the evening was to not let Sam do anymore gravity hits.

  On a better note, the sex coming down off the acid was awesome. We listened to Jane’s Addictions “Ritual” and the Earth moved.

  I don’t think that I will ever be happy with a “nine to five” job. Do those hours even exist anymore? There is just too much stuff that I want to do before I get too old to do it. I don’t know. It might have something to do with the concept of what others (the suits) think qualifies as work. I don’t seem to mind sweating it out at the Flying Tomato for $3.55 an hour, but after two years of being there I have to wonder why I like the chump change they offer. It’s so hard to go out and get another job because it’s so easy to fall into the pattern of familiarity. Plus this is a college town and any available job is already staffed with someone who will gladly take my bananas so they can buy food or pot or whatever. The Flying Tomato is a mom and pop, pizza and beer operation except they are owned by a larger company up in Illinois or somewhere really cold. That’s why there are weird things on the menu like spicy hot cider and soup while it’s still 110 degrees outside. All the other stores are way up North, this one just kind of got lost in the shuffle somewhere along the way. The people who manage it and who pretty much own the place are a married couple named Becky and Ski. Ski stands for something like Sluslarski or Slurparski or something. No one really knows his actual name and so we all just call him Ski. He’s a fat greasy-haired Polish guy and his wife Becky is actually a pretty nice looking lady with a brain on her shoulders and a hard work ethic but a horrible desire to birth as many children as possible. I asked an old employee one time how a bum of a guy like Ski ended up with a lady like Becky and the rumor I heard was that she got her heart broken by a hunky dude and Ski picked her up on the rebound. That kind of made me sad because she seems like she could do better. There are plenty of men in the Dallas area that only want a woman to birth and raise children all day if that was all she wanted. I’ve heard it’s one of the only reasons they let women into SMU.

  The Tomato job is fairly loyal. Once you get on staff and they know you are a good worker you can take all kinds of time off in the summer slow season or whenever you need to. There are not a lot of jobs in this town that can promise you that your job will be intact after you come back from Christmas break. I also work the crappy shifts that nobody wants on Thursday and Saturday nights, which are the main party nights in a college town. I guess almost anyone can get through Friday classes with a hangover or at least sleep in and not damage the ol’ G.P.A. too much. I like those shifts because the Flying Tomato is right in the hubbub of Fry Street with the bars and such. All my friends come by and I get to meet and talk to all the pretty drunk girls and give people free keg beer whenever I feel like it. Most of my friends have figured out that’s where I’ll be and they always come by to visit and score free pizza and beer. Everyone’s happy. The pizza place gets someone who works the crappy shifts and I get to socialize with my friends and drink beer and smoke pot in the walk-in freezer. It’s almost like I get paid to hang out and flirt if I angle it right and it’s a good night. I’ve probably given out more free beer and pizza than anyone else in Texas. My friends from the dorm and the hardcore drinkers from the Del
ta Lodge always come in and I make it my personal mission to send them home staggering. This job is probably the main reason why I know so many people in this town and have so many “friends” that know my name, while usually I have no clue about what their name could be. It’s all good I suppose, the blessings I bestow will come back around at some point.

  So my job’s a pretty great deal, the after-hours clean-up is a bitch and I come home smelling like sweaty pizza grease but all in all I could be doing much worse. I’ve even learned the magic trick to get the dishwasher working. Specifically, where to beat on it so that it works like Fonzie’s jukebox. Summer time is slow time now though. Most people vacate Denton after the spring semester and we cater to the small batch of locals or permanent students.

  Damn it’s hot. I seem to be getting hairier in some strange paradox of nature. I shaved my legs one time in some weird sex game with Melanie and ever since then my body’s rebelled and increased my body hair quotient. Don’t ever believe those scientists that say shaving will not make hair grow back thicker. My Chew-bacca legs are living proof. It’s probably the heat that is making me notice the strange gradual growth of hair on my belly and nipples. It’s actually kind of embarrassing to me. Damn, I mean I thought all this crap was supposed to be taken care of during puberty when life in general is humiliating. At this rate I will be an ape-man by the time I am forty. I guess most girls are used to male body hair though. I even heard a rumor that some girls find it attractive. Probably only girls with mustaches and hairy fathers or with my luck it’s only European women and I’ll be stuck on this continent forever. Maybe girls have so many of their own insecurities that they won’t notice mine? Whatever.

  The swim class that I am taking this summer is going well. I am way too advanced for the beginning swimmer class but I figure it will be an easy “A”. There are people in there that can’t swim at all and I think I could be on the swim team if my observations of the advanced class are anything to go by.