Short Story: Love and a .38

The entire barrel of the snub-nosed .38 Special fits snugly into my mouth and I instinctively lick the cold metal as my teeth clack shut around it. This was supposed to be easy, I remind myself. But it's not. Thinking about killing yourself turns out to be a great deal easier than actually doing it. All kinds of thoughts creep into your mind; doubts about what would happen if something had to go wrong. I picture myself in a wheelchair, fifteen years from now; unable to do anything but let my vegetated body be pushed around by frustrated family and friends.

I shudder at the thought.

Some say that you have to do it at a 30-degree angle. Other 'experts' suggest placing a coin in your water-filled mouth. 'The compression,' they say in a helpful tone-of-voice, 'will ensure that the back of your head explodes; leaving no margin for error.'

I'm sure they mean well.

A while ago, I had a friend whose dad died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He merely pressed the gun against his temple and let 'er rip. Seems effective enough. Then again, he used a .44 Magnum with hollow points. The .38 Special that had been locked away in my father's safe only houses normal rounds. I doubt the outcome would be quite the same, so for now a 'Surely Temple' is out of the question.

I remove the gun from my mouth and lay it flat in the palm of my hand. It weighs heavier than it looks, although not as heavy as the decision to go through with it. When you're in school and your girlfriend tells you that she's eight weeks pregnant, it's hard to know what reaction she might be looking for. Is she probing for a smile followed by warm words of comfort? Perhaps she's hoping for a glimmer of fear that reflects the fear she feels in her own gut? How should one react when his entire world crumbles before his very eyes?

For a few days after she broke the news I avoided her completely. While teachers taught in distant mumbles, I scribbled furiously; working through all possible options available to me. At seventeen, your life hasn't yet begun. When your girlfriend tells you she's pregnant, all your hopes and dreams for a bright future shatter into a million pieces. Fragments of your life-to-be occupy your thoughts; images of sitting at home with an old-before-her-age wife with curlers in her hair and a cigarette dangling from her lower lip etch themselves into your mind. Your friends are out partying, getting drunk and laid while you are up to your elbows in baby poo.

Just swell.

I scribbled and scribbled, but every answer pointed in the same direction; every solution with the same conclusion: suicide. I scribbled some more, but at the end, my options ran as dry as the ink in the pen that I had scribbled all my notes with. There was no getting around it. I now knew what had to be done. The only question that remained was how to do it.

I considered taking a plunge from the roof of the Trent Towers some thirty-six floors up. The city below looked like a miniature play-town, alive with little moving props and pieces that gave it that realistic feel. I could soar down there like Superman; faster than a speeding bullet by the time my body smashed into the miniature '82 Ford Cortina thirty-six stories below. I was still staring at the miniature buildings in the distance when a sudden gust of wind made me lose my balance, and had I not managed to grab onto the railing on time, I would have been dead less than ten seconds later. It's funny how one clings to life even on the verge of trying to get rid of it. They say that it's only after it is too late—at the point of no return—that one realizes death is not the answer. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

After the rooftop incident, I dreamed up other ways of doing it. There was the classic slash-your-wrists option: Remember kids, it's down the road; not across the street. Too melodramatic for my liking, thank you. Then there was the option of overdosing on sleeping pills while lying in a tub of warm water. It would be a nice casual slumber and you wouldn't even notice as you slipped under. Or would you? I just couldn't take a chance on something like that. Drowning is not much fun if you're actually aware of it; water filling your lungs with each fish-like gulp of breath you take. Only, it wouldn't be air that you'd be breathing. And there would be nothing that you could do about it as life slowly and painfully seeped away; the sleeping pills would make sure of that.

Jumping in front of an oncoming bus? Too painful to even think about, let alone go through with it. Toaster in the bath? Too 1950's. Hang myself? Too depressing. No. It would have to be the gun. Quick and simple. If executed properly, I should be dead even before the gun hits the floor. I can imagine a split second of intense searing pain before everything goes black and numb and I can't think, feel, or care any longer. Perhaps—if there's an afterlife—I would look down at my lifeless body with a certain sense of amusement as a crimson stain surrounds my head like a halo in one of those renaissance paintings. The Sleeping Saint, I would call this particular work of art.

I wonder if the room would spin as my spirit dislodges itself from my body. I wonder if I would have time to say goodbye to this pathetic world before I depart to the next. I wonder if I should leave a note; a letter of sorts to explain to those I leave behind why I've decided to do this. I guess that they'll figure it out sooner or later. Perhaps when they find my notes and Monique begins to show. Perhaps then they'll be able to piece it together. For all I know Monique will tell my parents at the funeral. I don't think that I'd stick around for that though. There's nothing that I can say on a simple note that will make them understand the pressure; the enormous strain that I have on my shoulders. Everyone is a self-proclaimed philosophical guru; everyone's problems are greater than yours.

With more effort than I thought it would take, I pull back the hammer and it locks into place with a soft click. I have one shot; one chance to make it count. Failing at suicide is failing at failing. Kids will mock you as concerned parents and teachers try to answer your so-called 'cry for help.'

My life shattered with two simple words. I had so many goals for my future, so many hopes and dreams; and all of them down the drain with two words: I'm pregnant. I should have known better; all those condom ads on the radio and television; all those rather safe than sorry campaigns. Perhaps my death would serve some meaning after all. Perhaps they could use the press pictures as a grim alternative to condom ads. I can only stifle a chuckle at my own joke.

This is it. Joke's over.

I'm pregnant.

Ground zero.

Are. . . are you sure?

It was fun while it lasted.

Yes.

I take a few deep breaths. My hands are shaking; my palms sweating. This shouldn't be so damn hard.

I close my eyes.

I exhale deeply and stick the barrel of the gun back into my mouth and manage one final ung! as I squeeze the trigger.

It takes me until the fourth period to build up enough courage to speak to Andrew. My hands are still shaking and my ears still ringing. There's a pepper-like smell of gunpowder still lingering in my nostrils and it feels like there's a puff of smoke swirling in my mouth. It doesn't matter how much air I blow out or how much water I drink, there's always that smoky cloud swimming over my tongue and slithering between my teeth.

'I shot myself yesterday,' I tell him.

Andrew looks up at me and I can't blame him for the confused look on his face. 'You did what?'

I shush him. 'Not so loud,' I say and look around the corner of the gym to see if there's anyone lurking around. We shouldn't be here. On the second floor of our school building, in Mr. Steward's classroom, there's an empty space where I should be sitting right now; listening to him explain the concept of diffusion or whatever.

'You shot yourself?' he asks barely above a whisper. He pulls a Chesterfield from his shirt pocket and lights it. He inhales deeply and then exhales a plume of smoke. 'What do you mean?'

There's a glint of winter in the early autumn breeze and in the distance you can hear the muffled voice of a teacher shouting at one of the pupils about homework not done. 'I took my father's gun from his safe, stuck it into my mouth, and pulled the trigger,' I tell him.

He takes another drag and then looks at me with a you're kidding, right? expression on his face. 'You shot yourself?' he asks, as if he might have heard wrong the second time. 'With a real gun?'

I nod. 'Thirty-eight Special,' I say rather proudly, much to my own surprise.

'You serious?'

'Yup.'

'Holy hell,' he says and then pauses. 'Wait. If you shot yourself, shouldn't you be dead or something?'

I roll back my head and laugh so loud and suddenly that Andrew gives a little jerk. 'You would think so, right?'

Andrew looks confused as he takes a long drag from the cigarette and then offers it to me. I decline. I'm still smoking inside, and as long as there's that swirl of smoke in my mouth, I wouldn't be able to touch a cigarette. He blows the smoke almost deliberately in my direction and I turn away in disgust. 'So, what happened?' he asks. 'Why are you still here? Where's the wound?'

I shrug. 'Dunno,' I answer truthfully. 'There was a hell of a loud bang, but nothing came out. Nearly peed in my pants there, I tell you. I took the gun back to the safe and locked it up for good.' I slump down against the wall. 'I've never had such a fright in my entire life and don't ever want it again.'

For a long moment Andrew just looks at me without saying a word. 'So why'd you do it?' he finally asks.

Because I'm a coward! ' I don't know if I should tell you, man,' I say instead. 'I really messed up, big time.'

Andrew sits down next to me and takes a last, long drag from the cigarette. He flicks it away as he puffs out little misshapen circles. 'You wouldn't have told me about the gun if you weren't prepared to tell me everything,' he says. 'So cut the foreplay and just tell me already.'

Foreplay. I can't recall if Monique and I ever really bothered with that. It was her first time and also mine. I guess that even if we did bother with foreplay that neither of us would have known that it was indeed that which we were doing. In our minds, we were merely making out in her mom's apartment when we got carried away. We ended up under blankets because she didn't want me to see her body; don't ask me why. Of everything that happened, I can only remember two things about the entire incident that day. The first was how incredibly hot it was under a blanket on a warm summer afternoon. Her hair clung to her face in isolated sweat-soaked strands and it felt like our entire bodies were drenched. The second thing that I can remember was how quickly it was over. She seemed relieved, yet incredibly sad at the same time. Relieved that she had finally gone through with it; she could finally talk along with her friends. Sad, most probably, because it wasn't all what she thought it would be. I think that the movies pretty much screwed it up for every normal guy out there; making the world believe that a normal love-making scene should last hours upon hours while the couple tried every position imaginable. In real life, it didn't work like that; at least, not as far as my once-off experience had taught me. It sure wasn't worth all the hype that the guys were making about it in the locker rooms. That much I know now.

'Helloooo,' Andrew says and waves his hand in front of my face. 'You still with us, bud?'

I shake my head to clear the memories from it. 'Yeah,' I say. 'Where were we?'

'You were going to tell me why you tried to blow your brains out.'

I flinch at the mental image of my brain-stained wall. 'It's about Monique,' I say. He should be able to fill in the blanks. He doesn't.

'Yeah? What about her?'

I sigh and rake my fingers through my hair. 'I . . . she's pregnant.'

'Sonofabitch,' he says and produces another cigarette from his shirt pocket. He lights it, takes a deep drag and then blows it all out again. 'Monique?' he asks. 'You mean you and her . . . the two of you . . .?'

I nod. 'Yup.'

'Sonofabitch!'

I laugh. It feels good to laugh again. I haven't done so since Monique had spoken those two deadly words to me that day. All of a sudden it feels like everything is going to be okay, as if it's not the end of the world and that taking your life is indeed not the answer to any problem. And so I won't. I will stand by Monique and see this thing through. Together we will work things out. My father would be proud, I guess, not because I impregnated a girl, but because I'm taking responsibility for my actions. I would always run to him with my problems and he would always let me get out of it myself. 'You made your bed,' he would say, 'and now you must sleep in it.' He's always been a face the consequences of your actions kind of guy. I guess it's his way of teaching me about life. Sometimes it makes sense, but more often than not, it just sucks. Getting out of a fix is never much fun; especially when trying to do so on your own; alone with no one to hold your hand. In my eyes, a father should reach down into the cesspit and pull his son out of the muck, even if the son jumped in on purpose. But what do I know? I don't even know what foreplay is; let alone how a father should raise a son.

'So you're getting an abortion or what?' Andrew's voice pulls me back to the here and now.

Abortion. I didn't even consider that as an option, and for a brief moment I wonder if it's because I'm moral or stupid. 'I don't know yet,' I tell him. 'I guess that I will have to talk it out with Monique to find out how she feels about the whole thing, and what she thinks we should do.'

Andrew nods and taps the butt of the cigarette with his thumb to shake the ash from the tip. 'I still can't believe you shagged her,' he says.

'I still can't believe I shot myself,' I say. 'I need a fresh pair of shorts just thinking about it.'

He laughs. We both laugh. For a moment we're just kids again. There is no pregnancy scare, no consequences to our actions; just plain, simple fun. We're young and the world is our oyster. When we're done laughing his face becomes serious and we're instantly transported back to the real world; the world of problems and disappointment. 'When are you going to talk to her?' he asks.

I rub the back of my head. The headache is killing me. 'After school,' I answer him. 'I'll go to her place and the two of us can sit down and work it out.'

'Rather you than me, bud,' he says and flicks the cigarette butt through the air. 'Rather you than me.'

I watch the second hand of the clock hanging from Monique's wall tick around second-by-second as I wait for her to bring the coffee and sandwiches. They say that anticipation of death is worse than death itself. Based on yesterday's experience, I tend to agree with that notion. The wait is enough to drive any sane man out of his mind.

Tick, tick, tick.

Monique and I haven't spoken a word about the pregnancy since I had arrived a little over ten minutes ago. She merely marched me to her room and asked me to wait while she fixed us something to eat and drink. I hear Monique's mother yelling in the kitchen while I watch the second hand on the clock go around ten more times and I can only sit and wonder why I didn't just pull the trigger again and again as many times as was required to get this over and done with.

'I'm sorry you had to hear that,' Monique says as she enters the room with a tray in her hands. 'She can be such a cow sometimes.'

'It's okay,' I say with a quiver in my voice. 'There's very little that you can tell me about delinquent parents.'

She shoots me a look but doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. I can be such an idiot sometimes. After she puts the tray down, she takes a plate with sandwiches and one of the coffee mugs and hands them both to me. 'Here,' she says. 'I hope it's okay.'

I take it from her and nod.

Monique turns on the stereo, and in the background Kurt Cobain strings his lyrics like a wounded guitar. The irony is killing me. 'So, did you tell them yet?' she asks and bites into her sandwich.

I don't have to. I already know what my father would say. If you can stick it in, you can stick it out; see it through to the end. He always had a way with words. My well-meaning mother would cry about her little baby boy that messed up his life and her ideal dreams of what was supposed to be his perfect future. She always wanted me to become a dentist (own practice, big house, submissive wife, and 2.4 children), and soon enough had convinced herself that this had been my dream too. I look at my sandwich: ham, cheese, and tomato. Although it looks flaccid, it tastes quite refreshing. In fact, it's the best damn sandwich I've had in years. 'Didn't have time yet,' I say and sink my teeth back into the soft bread.

'It's been over a week,' she reminds me.

'I-did-not-have-time-yet, okay?'

She doesn't respond, but merely takes another bite and washes it down with a gulp of coffee.

'Did you tell your mother yet?' I ask.

She shakes her head. 'Didn't have time yet,' she says flippantly. 'Wanted to tell her today, but she's been moody and crying all morning. I don't think right now is the best time to tell her.'

'What's she upset about?'

Monique shrugs.

I allow a moment of silence while I formulate the next part of our conversation in my mind. 'So what are we gonna do?' I ask. I've already made up my mind that the abortion route might just be the best way to go. Since no one else knows about the pregnancy yet, it appears to be the perfect solution to the problem. Afterward, Monique and I can shake hands and each go our separate ways. Still, I ask her because I want to see how she thinks; what options she's considered and down which roads she simply would not tread.

'I don't know,' she says and a sob escapes from her mouth. A single tear trickles down her cheek and my stomach twists into a knot. 'I don't . . .'

I take her in my arms and hold her for a moment. 'It's gonna be okay,' I say while gently rubbing my hand down the back of her head. 'It's gonna be fine.'

More sobs flow from her mouth and with it come the waterworks, the streams of tears that slide down the side of my neck and leave a wet patch on my shoulder. When she's done crying she looks up at me expectantly, as if I'm the one with the answer to all of this; as if a mere snap of my fingers would undo all our problems. It makes me sick to think that I couldn't even successfully kill myself, let alone make all our problems disappear. I suck at everything, even suicide.

'What are we going to do?' she asks my question right back at me.

This is it. Ground zero. Speak up now or forever hold your peace. I don't want to mention the abortion outright, so I lay it on gently. 'We have a few options,' I lie. In my mind there's one option. Now I only need to get her to see it that way and we'll be fine.

She sits upright, suddenly, like a dog that just heard someone snooping around outside. 'Really?' she asks and washes the question down with some more coffee. 'Like what?'

'Well,' I begin. There's no turning back now. I take a sip of my own coffee to delay the inevitable, if only by another second or two. 'We could drop out of school, get married, have kids, and let that be that. We could make the most of a bad situation.' I figured I'd begin with the most obvious option first and get it out of the way. We'll work our way down the list and then play pin-the-tail to see which one we'll be going with.

She frowns and waves the suggestion off like an annoying mosquito. 'What else?' she asks.

'You could carry the baby full term and we can have someone adopt it.'

Less of a frown this time, but still not entirely what she wants to hear.

'There is one other option,' I say and re-position myself on her bed. This is it. Might as well go for gold. 'We could always terminate the . . . the . . . we could have an abortion or something . . .'

She looks at me as if I had physically struck her with a fist, although in her eyes I can see what appears to be a glimmer of hope; the realization that there might be light at the end of this tunnel after all. Who knows? I wonder if we will look back at this situation twenty years from now and laugh about it; about how simplistic the seemingly overwhelming problems we now face would look years down the line. They say that hindsight is 20/20. One always looks at past mistakes with crystal clear clarity. I guess I will have to wait and see about that. 'Are you serious?' she asks. All of a sudden that glimmer; that sparkle that I interpreted as hope is gone and in its place is a dark and cold gaze that makes my blood turn to ice. It's hard to determine what answer she's looking for by just the sound of her voice, but that freezing stare removes all doubt.

'It's just an option,' I say with a coarse croak in my voice. I hate sounding so pathetic to myself. Be a man, damnit! 'Look, I just want what's best for everyone; for you, me, and our parents.'

'And the baby?' she asks and I instinctively know that I've crossed the line; that invisible unspoken barrier that people lay down at the beginning of each conversation. 'How is having an abortion the best choice for everyone if the baby ends up dead?'

'I . . . I was just . . .'

'It's my baby and my responsibility,' she says and the implied singularity is not lost on me. 'If taking the baby's life is an option, then I would have to take my own as well.'

If she only knew about last night, she would not be making that statement so boldly. I guess she has a point though. We would have to see this thing through to the end; like it or not. We screwed up, and now we'll have to live with the consequences. 'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I was stupid to mention it. And it wasn't even my idea to begin with.'

She looks up and studies me with an intense silence for a long time.

Tick, tick, tick.

'You told someone?' she finally asks in a hiss-like whisper. 'You actually went behind my back and told someone?'
I shake my head. She's making this sound worse than it actually is. This entire discussion played off differently in my mind. It was a lot better; way more simplistic. 'You know very well that Andrew and I share everything,' I say in my defense. 'If you can't turn to your best friend in your hour of need, who can you turn to?'

'Wait,' she says and puts down her mug. 'Who did you speak to?'

'Andrew.'

'Andrew Sanders?'

'Yes.'

She frowns and looks confused with a hint of irritation in her facial features. 'Where?'

'At school.'

Geez lady. What's with all the questions?

'That's impossible,' she says.

'Why?'
She looks at me like a mother would look at her child that scraped a knee and takes my hand in her own. I wonder if that's her maternal instincts kicking in. 'Because he's been dead for almost two years,' she says. 'You know that.'

'What . . .?'

'The car accident,' she reminds me. 'He was killed. His father lived. Don't you remember?'

The image of the car pinned under the sixteen-wheeler flashes through my mind. This headache is killing me.

'His father never got over it. He blamed himself and took his own life only weeks later.' The tone of her voice is sincere, as if trying to guide me through memories that I've blocked out. 'Do you remember? He shot himself.'

.44 hollow points. I remember! He shot himself because he believed that he was responsible for Andrew's death. Then it hits me and I rip my hand out of hers.

'It's okay,' she says in that motherly tone and reaches out to touch my cheek. It's then that I see the marks on her wrists. She went down the road; two grooves sliced in parallel on each wrist. She probably bled out in minutes. My mouth burns and my hand instinctively reach for the wet spot at the back of my head. When I hold it up to my face, I look at my blood-soaked palm in bewilderment. 'It'll be fine.'

I can hear Monique's mother wailing in the kitchen.

She's been moody and crying all morning.

'What the . . .?' I ask. The words escape my mouth in small puffs of smoke. The pungent stench of sulfur stings my nose. It's only then that the realization finally sets in. The gun did go off last night. The bullet did come out. I've made my bed and now I'm about to sleep in it. My dad's going to be so pissed at me! In the distance I hear his voice one last time as the proverbial white light engulfs me.

'Turn it off,' Edward Livingstone said. 'Let us sign the forms and then switch it off.'

'No,' Cathy pleaded and tightened her grip on her son's hospital gown. 'Can't we just give it another day?' she cried. 'Just one more . . .'

Edward shook his head. 'You heard what the doctor said, Cath. There's no way that he will ever come out of this thing, and even if he does, he will have permanent brain damage. He'll be a in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Is that what you want?' he asked. 'And we're not even talking about the medical expenses. We will be bankrupt soon enough and to top it off, he will probably never realize who we are.'

'But at least he would be alive,' she said, barely audible over her sobs.

'To do what, Catherine? For your own convenience? He will never be able to walk again; never be able to talk; to play with his friends; to eat food without the use of an IV tube. Is that any way to live? Is that how you would want to live?'

Cathy didn't answer. She merely wrapped her arms around her son and sobbed into his pillow, her face next to his. 'I can't lose him, Edward. I can't . . .'

Edward took her in his arms and pulled her tightly against him. 'It's okay,' he whispered. 'Everything's going to be fine.' He had to be strong where she couldn't be. He had to be her rock now. Someone had to make a decision about their son's fate and he wanted the responsibility to fall on him rather than his wife. He wouldn't want the burden to rest on her shoulders. He would allow them to pull the plug and live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. That was the responsibility of a father; the life-long consequence in exchange for a moment of adolescent passion. He will deal with it. He made his bed, and now he'll sleep in it.