A Boy Named Suicide
by Steve Finan
The outside.
Father maybe a Johnny Cash fan. Didn't stay to tell. He died. Pills. Wasn't easy being Suicide Colquhoun. Didn't put gravel in my guts. Or spit in my eye. Made people think I'd do it. Only question how. They'd taunt. “Rope, overdose, high window, Suicide boy?”
Pop used painkillers. Typically, made a mess of it. Took a few hundred. Fell asleep. Vomited. Woke. More pills. Sleep again. Found and taken to hospital. Regained consciousness. Moaned, cried, recanted. Died. Multiple organ failure. Four days later. In pain. Long way from having enjoyed himself. Suicide note. Four pages. Self-pitying mumblings.
Idiot.
Mother always said she'd change my name. Never did.
Drunk. Always drama. Reliant on wrong types.
A while, I liked it. Suicide. Emo thing. They thought I chose it. The kids in black. Grew out of that.
Played on my mind. Anyone would. Count the ways. Jump. Shoot. Drown. Drugs. Slash, crash, burned to ash. A track and a train. The cool sensation of asphyxiation.
Came to admire Kiyoko Matsumoto. Japanese. Aged 19. Lesbian. Confused. 1933. Jumped into a volcano. Started a fashion. Miharayama (lava-spewer) got 1294 in two years. Tourist attraction. Watch the jumpers. Boat trips from Tokyo. Some tourists jumped too. Caught the urge. Salute, Kiyoko.
-o-
The inside.
The only way I can beat the strictures of this pressure, the expectation that this troubled boy that grew to be the man who won't talk in anything but those curt sentences was always liable to do that, is to do it. They are waiting for it to happen, those talkative men and women, so they can all tell each other: "It was inevitable". I don't want to do it, I don't want to give them the satisfaction. I so completely and achingly do not want to commit suicide that it is driving me to end my life. Not doing it is curtailing the person I am. The crushing weight of expectation is forcing me over the edge. Scrabble and claw though I might, I am hanging above the magnetic abyss and I must fall. I need that blanket, that welcoming dark, the irresistable release. I am coming, father, I am coming.
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Author's Note
Heard the song the other day after what must be at least a 20-year gap since I last heard it. Then I stumbled across the story of Kiyoko Matsumoto and it seemed like a connection.
I like this. It's got teeth.
Powerful work, Steve.
Don't let the bastards get you down. *
Good one Steve! A compelling trek over the razor sharp volcanic pumice of a dark, psychological landscape. *
I like anything that begins in a pun--the more outrageous the better--and this title is a stellar one. And then to take it seriously--wonderful! Love the piece up to the last paragraph--then it seems too easy, and by easy, I mean predictable. Surprise us, and by us, I mean me.
The last paragraph does surprise me, "I so completely and achingly do not want to commit suicide that it is driving me to end my life. Not doing it is curtailing the person I am." The standard suicide ravings (that sounds heartless) are about self pity, about ending the pain of living.
I see this as a very unique approach. I like it. Thank you.
A Boy named Suicide who is driven to suicide. That's what I mean. But your point is a good one and well taken, Patti.