To
John, My Friend
by
Pete Feigal
I never think about you anymore, but I was going through some
old boxes and found a card you’d sent me for my 19th birthday
back in May of ‘74. The last thing I ever got from you,
the only thing, was like finding a message in a bottle. A plea
for help that nobody found, nobody answered, and is still floating
around even after the castaway is gone. You didn’t leave
a note. We all die, and one way or another, we all have some
hand in our own deaths. Maybe in some ways, everything we write
is a suicide note.
Somebody once told me that when you absolutely decide to kill yourself,
there is a seven minute window of opportunity to shake them out of
it, seven minutes where if the process is interrupted, it takes a
while to reset the “internal mechanism.” So if you can
get to them in that seven minutes, you have a chance to save them.
I didn’t save you. There was no phone call, no knock on the
door, no favorite song on the radio, no second thought of hope or
future to save you. I often find myself measuring out everything
in seven minute increments. It’s not a long time. About as
long as it takes to wash your face and brush your teeth at bedtime.
About as long as it takes to pump your car full of gas. As long as
it takes to listen to "Stairway To Heaven."
The Unit, the
mental hospital where we first met in ‘71 is
gone. They bulldozed it over. It took two decades but The Doc finally
lost his license to practice psychiatry in Minnesota, so he took
his millions and bought his way into another adolescent psych unit
in California where I heard he continued abusing his patients. His
kids. The place is a park now about a block from the Mayo Clinic.
Statues of children dancing hand in hand. Thirty years later to the
week, I did Grand Rounds to the Mayo shrinks, the first consumer
to ever do so. One of the retired doctors from The Unit came to hear
me, to apologize to me after thirty years. He didn’t think
I’d forgotten. He thought that he’d forgotten. I’ll
forgive them all if they don’t forget, and thirty years would
restore even Judas to good company these days. But Jesus died for
our sins.
At a college
party we were all sitting around talking about the movie “The Big Chill” where
old college friends are brought together at the funeral of their
friend, Alex, who had killed himself. We were all trying to figure
out which character in the movie we were most like. They all told
me I was most like Alex.
The police said
that it appeared you had been sitting in the dark for some time
in the basement, then turned on the light and pulled the trigger.
I don’t know how they could know that, but I believe
it. Nobody wants to die in the dark. It took a full day and cost
your mom and dad five thousand dollars for the forensic team to clean
up. Your mom tried to make a joke and said why didn’t you do
it in the garage as they’d just put in new carpet and paneling
in the basement. We’re all still cleaning up the mess.
Why is it that
you’re the one who died, and I feel like the
one left for dead? When I talk in public about suicide I speak politely
and say how I hate the disease, the despair, but don’t hate
the person. I never use the word “commit;”
“People commit sins and crimes, but don’t commit suicide.” But
I do hate. I hate your weakness and your laziness and your impulsiveness. I hate
it that the chaplain told me “God never gives you any more than you can
handle.” And I asked him,” Does that mean that if I were a weaker
person, John would still be alive?” I hate that by doing it, you made suicide
real, a viable option for me. You always hear about crimes without victims. What
about victims without crimes? Who do I blame? Who do I strike at for retribution?
How will I ever really know if it was my fault, or something I did or didn’t
do, something I said or didn’t say? How do I stop grieving for parts of
my life that I lost or never had because of what you did. I hate your selfishness.
When is it enough?
When will it
be over? It only took Ulysses twenty years to get home from the
Trojan War. I’m like those Japanese soldiers still
hiding out on remote Pacific islands, still fighting WWII. When do
I get to go home? When is the war over? I’m at thirty years
and still counting.
]
I never think about you anymore. It doesn’t hurt as bad. I
do feel sorry that you never got to hear Bruce Springsteen, or see
the “Lord Of The Rings” movies, or visit the Redwoods,
or fall in love or have kids or ride a Harley-Davidson through The
West like you always dreamed about. Sometimes I think I’m living
your life, trying to make your dreams a reality, that I’m trying
to somehow let your ghost live vicariously through me. But that isn’t
true. The truth is, if there is any, that I’m living vicariously
through you.
I still have
a relationship with you. A 12 gauge can end a lot of things but
not that. That doesn't die. I still talk to you. I can't believe
a 19 year old kid could teach me so much, and I'm still learning.
About The Will To Live vs. The Will To Not Die. There’s a difference.
I’m 49, old enough to be your father now, crawling death-quick
into middle age, and you'll always be 19. I'm a mess now, you would
laugh. MS and depression and kidney stones. Elizabethians believed
kidney stones were the residue of unshed tears. I wish I could cry
more and care less.
19 is so young,
too young. I still remember where I was when I heard you were dead.
Still remember who I was. In those last few months you seemed to
be doing better. You had a small, constant smile on your face,
a glow around you. We sat in Country Kitchen in the middle of the
night, shoved quarters into the little jukebox at our table and
played ”Born To Be Wild,” twenty eight times in a
row. Thirty years of experience later, I understand you had the grace
of someone who had surrendered, and the smile was the private joke
that you were beyond all pain. On dark nights I've asked: "Please,
God. Give me that smile." But the price is too high, not just
for me, for all of us. So I carry it, and try to find some peace
even in the weight. Learning that the demons come out at night, but
so do the muses. But please, God. No more nights like those. I wanted
to do the same over the years. Take the easy way out. Tried in different
ways to "catch up." I always
felt left behind. I came close more than once. One of my friends
said: “If we started digging your grave every time we thought
you were gonna die, we’d be eating chop suey in China.” But
I'm still here. Jimi Hendrix said: “If I’m free it’s
only because I keep running.”
It’s easy to die, everybody dies. It’s harder to live.
You left me in it, up to my neck. But you’re still my friend
and I miss you. I've searched but can't find any photos and I've
forgetten what you looked like. I never got to say “goodbye.”
And even though
I sometimes don't know why, except that you would want me to, I
will keep getting up every morning, and keep making decisions,
even if they're the wrong ones. I'll keep reaching through the
flames, keep living every day in spite of you, because of you,
for you.
