Suicide Note 1985

It was a dirty Chicago bound
Greyhound bus.

Winter diesel exhaust
Heavily painted the outside
Sooty black
Making the elegant image
Of a running thin dog
Barely visible.

After boarding
I made my way to the rear
Shuffling down
The midway
Bumping into the sides of the aisle seats
Past the curious gazes
And defiant glares
Brown snow falling from my feet.

The back of the bus.

That is where I felt most comfortable.

Isolated.

Instinct,
Like a magnet
Drew me there.

I did not contemplate the empty seats
Nearer the front.

I grew up at the rear of a bus.

In high school
I would join the ‘cool’ kids
There, in the seats
Just behind the rounded humps
Of the wheel wells
And smoke cigarettes and pot
Windows open,
Even during the cold winter.

Juvenile delinquency
Knows of no seasons.
Winter chill taunts
Common sense and caution
Just as easily as the burn
Of the licentious Summer sun.

I’d kiss pretty young girls
Bubblegum mouths
Until their bus stop came up.
My eyes would follow their soft bodies
As they bounced to the front
And down the three steps
Onto the pavement outside.

They would gather together in a clique
Whispering
Only looking up and smiling
As the bus pulled away
And I’d have dogboy magic
Working away on my insides
All tingly
As the smell of bubblegum
And the picture of a group of long legged girls
Laughing
Faded through the large rear windows.

Our juvenile gang would make plans for the weekend
At the back of the bus
And after the weekend
We would be gathered there again
On Monday morning
To talk all about it
Usually
Ripping into somebody
Deservedly
For their stellar performance
In the theater of the idiotic.

Back on the Greyhound
I chose a seat to the left
On the passenger side
Putting my bag in the overhead.

I dropped down in the seat
Looking out of the filthy window
As the bus pulled out of 210 West Fayette Street
Into the grey slush of Baltimore.

A few blocks rolled by before
I brought my eyes back inside.
I was all too familiar with these streets
And I lost interest.

It was then that I noticed the
Blue Bic pen scribbled
Manically
Across the cranberry vinyl flesh
Of the seat
Directly in front of me.

“IT’S DONE, IT’S OVER, I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!...”

Was the title.

At least those were the first words
Nearest the top of the headrest.

The largest, darkest words
Drawn over repeatedly
Almost tearing through
The thick, fake leather.

I could smell the sanitary blue chemicals
From the
Onboard bathroom
Several steps
Behind me
As I read her letter
Scrawled down the entire length.

The details were chronological
Starting with her earliest memory
Of her mother ‘falling asleep’ in bed
Carelessly letting her infant daughter
Slip out of her arms.

The vodka bottle fell first
Clinking to the bare wooden floor
Followed by her small bundle
Hitting with a dull thud
Followed by crying for what seemed like hours
Until her mother shook her violently
Screaming at the top of her lungs.

She had written
“I could feel myself moving and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“I knew something terrible was happening, I could feel it in my stomach.”

I read about her jagged childhood
Where her mother’s abusive boyfriends
Existed
Where her father did not.

Her home was filled with the flicker and noise
Of a TV
For days at a time
While she, just a young girl
Foraged for food
Drinking cloudy tap water
Out of dirty glasses
While her mom lay passed out
In torn clothes
On a torn sofa
Bruised
Self inflicted and otherwise.

She confessed her own addictions to the vinyl.

They trickled in while other kids played sports
Or went to the library.
They turned on full blast like a faucet
With the onset of puberty.
She hung out with a rough crowd
Self medicating the ugliness away.

But it got worse.

There were details of rapes
Forced sex
Hooking up with
Assholes that weren’t capable of love.

‘Lies’ and ‘stealing’
Were blocked out in heavy dark ink
While
‘I had several abortions by my sweet sixteen’
Was written in script with flowers and hearts
Drawn around it.

There were words written
About being homeless
And cold
Dirty
And tired
About using her body to make money
To buy drugs and survive
Surrounded by dollar signs.

“That’s it. I’m going nowhere. I can’t take it anymore.”

“I’m going to jump off of a bridge and this bus is taking me there.”
She wrote confidently.

“That feeling that I had when I left my fucked up mother’s arms.”
“I knew something terrible was happening.”
“That sums up my twenty years here on this earth. I’m gonna fall for the last time.”

XXoo.

The ride took the better part of a day.

I was a twenty one year old punk
On a road trip to Chicago
Riding at the back
Of a Greyhound bus.

It made stops in Pittsburgh, Akron, Cleveland
Toledo, South Bend
And Gary
Before dropping in Chi-Town.

I could’ve gotten off at any one of those stops.

But I decided
To continue on.

To get know someone
That was my peer
That wasn’t physically there
That very well might be dead.

To see it through to the very end.

The Hawk Wind sunk it’s talons
Deep into me
As I stepped out of the stale warmth
Of the bus
Making me reconsider
My decision
After all.