Why I Killed Myself (Daniel)

 I met Jack at a disco downtown. We were both drunk, I more so than he. The girl of my dreams had just dumped me, telling me she had been seeing (fucking) this other guy for over a month. I was telling this story to my English professor at the bar when Jack walked up. Dr. Kilpatrick, the prof., introduced us.

"Dan here was just relating to me the infidelity of women," Kilpatrick says to Jack.

"No, just Helen," I say. But the prof. is right, at the moment I thought every woman vile and contemptible. That had been my experience, anyway.

"Helen is your lover?" Jack asks. I like that word, "lover." Jack says it so well and I think to myself, if only she were.

"Was," I say. "We had a fight. Or, actually, she told me she has someone else who's her lover."

"Sorry," Jack says. "Want to dance? Might make you feel better."

I'm so weirded out by his asking me to dance, that I say, "Why the fuck not?" 

Dancing was great. Jack was right that it made me not care about Helen. At first I thought people would stare at me or someone I knew would think I was a faggot. But Jack was so cool, he didn't care what anyone thought and I loved the way he danced. It was liberating.

Jack was the smartest person I ever met. Whatever I brought up, Hemingway, Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, the history of Ireland, he knew everything.

"You'd love Dublin," he's telling me. "The pubs are fantastic. People there love to talk with Americans."

We go back to the bar after the dance and Prof. Kilpatrick invites us for a little party at his house. I figure there'll be some weed and free booze. Jack disappears and I begin to wonder if he's left. Dr. K is talking with Beth, a lovely student from the college who's become a fag hag. Maybe I should watch what I say. She likes gay guys. She virtually ignores me when I try to join the conversation. I guess she can tell I'm attracted to her.

"Can I catch a ride with you to the Professor's?" I ask her. She makes up some excuse about having to stop somewhere else first.

"Ride with me," Kilpatrick says. "I'm sure Jack can give you a ride back later."

"Where'd he go?" I ask.

 Kilpatrick shrugs.

At the house on Park Avenue, Jack is already there, sitting on the lush new sofa, chatting with Beth, who got there before us. She's all over him, touching his arm, hanging on his every word. There are a few other people I've never seen before, mostly guys, who I figure are gay.

Jazz is playing on the sound system, "You like Miles Davis?" Dr. K. asks me.

"I love him." I answer truthfully.

After that, we smoke marijuana and I have vodka and tonics. I wind up talking with Jack. I ask him what it's like being gay, having sex with men. I let him seduce me. Maybe I seduce him. I wanted him to myself; I can't deny it. And with everyone at the party wandering all over the house, I follow Jack into an upstairs bedroom. He shuts the door and turns off the light. I can't get out of my clothes fast enough.

"Will you fuck me?" I ask.

"If that's what you want, I will." Jack says.

In the bed, he has some kind of oil or lotion. I lie face down and I let him fuck me. It hurts, but I don't care. I want it to hurt. I think of Helen and how much I always wanted to fuck her the way Jack is fucking me. It was like I was Helen. It wasn't like anything. I could feel Jack's pleasure as he moved faster and pushed as hard as he could into me. I spread my legs as far apart as I could, and did my best to let go. I kind of passed out as he finished inside me.

In the morning I woke with a hangover and an erection. Jack was stretched out naked beside me, lying on his stomach. I thought, he owes me. I wanted to fuck him like he had fucked me. I looked around for the lotion and found it on the bedside table. I needed to piss, so I got up and found the bathroom. It was early, so no one else was awake. But when I returned to the bed, Jack was lying face up and staring at me.

"How do you feel?' He asked.

I hadn't even thought about it. "Sore," I said, realizing I hurt there.

"Sorry," he says. "Want to go out for some breakfast?"

I want to tell him that I want to fuck him, but I can't say it. I just stare at him instead. No hard on, but he looks great. I admire his body, his chest hair and his beard. I can't believe I've had sex with him. Then I begin to feel sick, to be disgusted.

"No, I've got to go. Can you ride me to my car?'

For the next few days I felt sick, physically and mentally. Why had I let some guy do that to me? Was I a queer?  Was I some kind of masochist wanting people to hurt me? I thought about suicide then. I was too fucked up to deal with life. I had no job. Helen was with another guy. I could hardly stand to be by myself.

I lived at my grandmother's house because my parents divorced and lived by themselves separately in little apartments. I was twenty-two and I knew my grandmother wanted me to find work and my own place to live. She didn't pressure me though. There was always enough food for me to eat, and now and then Grandma would cook a meal for us.

As time went on, things were better. I got a part-time job loading Coca-Cola trucks. A friend of mine invited me to a party at his house.

"Lots of chicks," he promised. His house was a few blocks from mine, a huge two story, white, wood frame mansion with twenty-three rooms. Inside it was falling apart. I got to the party late and the front door was locked. I rang the bell a couple of times and was on the verge of leaving. Suddenly, the door opens wide and there is this stark naked girl, a fox, perfect figure, only young, fifteen, I learn later.

"I'm Melanie, who are you?"  she asks. And so began a long night of sex, beer, drugs, and hard rock.

I stayed all night and fucked two of the girls there. I felt fantastic the next morning and was thanking Skip for inviting me over. That was when I saw him-- Jack. He was the last person I expected there.

"Hey, Daniel, this is my brother, Jack," Skip says.

"We've had the pleasure," Jack tells his brother, smiling at me. I think maybe he's mocking me. Does Skip know? Fuck.

I say as little as possible, that I need to get home. Fuck. I walk home not knowing what the Hell to think.

The next few times I saw Jack at nightclubs or around Skip's house or wherever, I just avoided him. If he spoke to me, I said next to nothing. 

One time when he started saying something to me, I said, "Hey, that night was horrible. I don't want to remember it, OK? I don't want to be friends with you."

But I did. I wanted to talk to him.

To find him I started showing up at Dr. Feelgood’s. The third time, there he was, with Beth. When I walked up to them and said hello, they looked at me like I was crazy. They nodded and went on talking like I wasn’t there. Later, Jack was alone and I tried again.

“Hey, I wanted to say I’m sorry about the last time you spoke to me.”

“Don’t worry about it. I understand. Not an easy thing to come to terms with, is it?”

“How do you know Beth?” I asked. 

Jack smiled. “We live together.” Jack told me how they were lovers and had been together a year.  Jack had everything I didn’t, great looks, self-confidence, brains, and a girl who loved him. I couldn’t believe it. 

“You aren’t gay?” I asked.

“Don’t much care for labels and pigeon-holing,” Jack says. “Am I attracted to men? Yes, very much. And women too, sometimes. ‘Life’s a banquet.’”

For the next year or so Jack and I had sex a lot. When I sometimes watched us in the mirror, I thought how much I wanted to be him. He always turned me on, something I never thought possible; but the second we touched, or began to undress, I got excited. I let him fuck me again and I gave him head; but he’d never let me fuck him.

“Guess I’m just a top,” he’d say. He let me use my finger once, and I loved it, wanting him more than ever. 

I still desired girls. I tried to win over Beth. Jack told me about a threesome they had with another guy. But Beth wanted nothing to do with me. I know I’m not very good looking, my lips are too big, I have a small forehead and bad posture. She didn’t even want to talk to me. I think she hated it that Jack liked me so much.

Savannah depressed me and I needed a job bad, a full-time adult job, not loading and unloading trucks. So I joined the Air Force. I knew I had to get away from Jack and be normal again. I had to find my own woman and get my own life. 

Unfortunately, I never fit in. Boot camp was not as bad as I imagined, but I made no real friends. When we were transferred to Biloxi, I got to go into town and I started drinking again. Heavily. The other soldiers seemed to get what they wanted so easily. Local women flocked to them while they looked at me like some freak. One woman said I had big eyes; then she laughed, “Like the big bad wolf,” she said. She let me fondle her; that was it.

The Air Force sent me to Germany. I hated the barracks. The other guys must have thought I was a fag or something. They wanted little to do with me when they went out on leave in Heidleberg. Many of the women in the bars spoke some English, but I couldn’t get into them. They always seemed to be mocking me. 

Then I met Sophie. She was an American from Florida whose father was working as a consultant on the base. I never figured out what exactly he did. Maybe he was CIA. Sophie was plump and loved to drink. She was four years older than me. For a few months,  I was in love with her. I had cool photos of myself in my uniform that I sent to my family back in Savannah. I sent copies to Skip and to Jack. I wanted to send a photo of Sophie, but never did. She hated having her photograph taken. 

Sophie got pregnant.  In the beginning, I was thrilled. We got married. We would have our own child. I’d be a Dad and everyone would love it. Then it struck me, I had no idea how to be a father. I had no real job and I hated being in the Air Force. Sophie had no skills and no job. How would we survive when my tour of duty was up? No way would I re-enlist. I couldn’t sleep nights. Worse, Sophie no longer wanted sex. During the day I couldn’t do the simplest tasks, loading or unloading planes the way I used to load Coca Cola trucks. 

I began to think about insurance. If I died, Sophie and our baby would get a bundle, over 200K. The Air Force would have to take care of them. I told some shrink I was seeing weekly about my thoughts. Crazy, right? So the next thing I know, the Air Force is giving me extended leave and sending me back to Savannah. Alone.

Sophie says, “I should stay here until you get back. Go home and get some rest. I don’t feel up to travel with our baby growing inside me. It’ll give us some space and then we’ll love being together again in a month.”

A month. The shrink has prescribed anti-depressants. They make me so groggy that I don’t even remember the flight from Germany to the U.S. Suddenly, there is Grandma, all teary-eyed and happy to see me. Big hug. I feel my own tears. My grandmother is frail, thin, taller than I am, exuding that smell of powder and Shalimar. I’m thirteen again.

It took about three weeks. I saw some psychologist twice a week and he told me I was fine, that I’d see things clearly after I got some rest and used to the medication. I called Skip a couple of times and he listened to my story and tried to comfort me. Like the shrink he said everything would work out fine. I wanted to see Jack, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him or even go to places I knew he might be. I wasn’t supposed to drink. One time when I snuck a beer, taking my pill with it, I called Skip. After a while, I could hear my speech slurring and I know he heard it too. I could tell by what he said, talking to me like to a child, that I was in a bad way.

One night after dinner, after my grandmother told me how much she loved me, and I went to bed, I thought about Sophie in Germany and how free she would be without me and with that money she’d get. I thought about it for hours and I cried a good bit. For once I wasn’t going to think about what was good for me, but what was good for her and our child. It must have been 4 AM of so. I walked into the side garage where my dead grandfather’s rifle was still held in a rack on the wall. Surely it wasn’t still loaded. I took it down and inspected it the way I learned in boot camp. It was loaded. “Fate,” I said out loud. I sat on the garage floor, turned the gun so that the barrel aimed at my heart, stretched to reach the trigger, and fired.