(no subject)
Title: Nota Bene
Type: Gen
Genre: ANGST
Characters: Kevin, David
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, drugs and alcohol, sex talk, prelude to character death.
Word Count: 1,988
Summary: It's a suicide note. What.
Disclaimer: Mine, except a few obvious pop culture references. Don't do drugs and don't kill yourself. Both are bad ideas.
Kevin:
Forgive my atrocious handwriting. I’m writing this out for you because, of everyone in this huge, obnoxious-ass family, you’re the only one that ever gave a shit about me and you deserve better than a typed out note full of lies and a farcical little textbook example of adolescent suicide. If you read the other note, then you’ll know it’s all mendacities. Very clever ones, if I may be so bold, but you’re smarter than they are, so you probably gathered that.
Anyway. You know I love Burroughs best of all his contemporaries, but I think Kerouac really said this best: “Isn't it true that you start your life as a sweet child, believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome, grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life.” (On the Road; I’m too damn lazy to look up the page for a proper citation, but this isn’t a paper, it’s a suicide note; you’re not grading me on how MLA kosher it is and, even if you were, you’d forgive me for this because we understand each other without their fucking rules.)
And it’s depressing because it’s true, and you know where I’m coming from with this. We both started thinking that they loved us unconditionally, but, as I’ve come to realize, “love” is only ever conditional, except from you. My parents love me if I’m perfect; the rest of the family loves me if my parents say they should. Pete loved me when our parents didn’t know, and, as soon as they found out, he went to that straight out of But I’m A Cheerleader ex-gay summer camp. His parents didn’t even make him; they tried to talk him out of it… and they’re Evangelicals. Fucking Evangelicals, Kevin! They’re supposed to be the crazy anti-gays, and here they were, telling their gay son not to go to ex-gay summer camp while the Catholic boy gets earful after earful about what a disgrace and a shame and… whatever this all is.
I seriously don’t know how I’m still writing this. I just took the biggest fucking hit of heroin I have ever seen in my life and I’m kind of nodding off but not really, and I’m probably going to put the gun to my head, miss, clue everyone into what I’ve been doing up here, and get my scrawny, drug-addled, gay ass dragged to rehab and therapy and all that ineffective bullshit. It won’t work. We both know it won’t work. They’ve wanted to put me in therapy since I was shoved out of my nice, comfortable closet, but they won’t do it because they hold onto the archaic notions that only crazy people need therapy and that no son of theirs could ever be crazy. They need that apparent, and entirely farcical, perfection; they thrive on it. And it’s iffy to think about it (don’t you love my technical terminology? “Iffy?”), especially with regards to whether it could’ve saved me or not, but it would’ve been a nice gesture, don’t you think? “We might not always love you, David, but we care about your mental health.” Might’ve kept me from getting into heroin, at any rate.
It’s really true, then, what they say sometimes. When you’re addicted to heroin, you’re fully aware of it and, regardless of how you handle it, you always know that you need more. I don’t mean to belittle your drug of choice, and you’re certainly not an addict, though I can’t say that you don’t have addictive tendencies, but I know people who can’t function on a basic level if they don’t have pot, and they’re so completely unaware of the hold that the green lady has on them. Don’t get me wrong, she’s fun to fool around with, but I have seen no sorrier sight than some shit-head who’s so obviously addicted to his weed, going on about how much of a problem he doesn’t have. Maybe the fact that more productive famous people (Kurt and Courtney, Burroughs, Bela Lugosi, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, John Lennon, David Bowie, Miles Davis, River Phoenix, Christian Slater, et al)… maybe sharing my choice poison with them has made me into a pretentious, elitist drug snot, but that’s neither here nor there, really.
You know, it’s sinister. I know, I say that about fucking everything anymore (and it’s Ginsberg, who’s great and all, but lacks the emotional depth of Burroughs; his problem was that, as much as fifties society thought he wasn’t, he was stable, just pissed off and witty and whatnot. He had issues, but none of them were really that serious, comparatively speaking. Burroughs… he was tough.) but it’s true. It really is. Everything is sinister anymore. I just wish I knew what I’ve been doing so wrong, or so right, that I’ve been able to pull this off for so long. It’s been five years I’ve been thinking of killing myself, and eighteen that probably should never have happened. I mean… sure, birth control and abortions are out because they’re Catholic, but the only message I’ve gotten from them was that I was a mistake. Kids weren’t something that was supposed to happen to them, but, once they had one, they were hooked, just like me and heroin. And that’s why I have a ton of brats to be a role model for - needless to say, I’ve failed miserably - and it’s why the expectations are so high - they don’t know what to expect, so why not expect the best?
They’re either going to have a suit fitted posthumously or bury me in something that’s too big for me. I don’t have an appetite when I’m high, and I’m nauseous and diarrheic when I’m coming down, so I couldn’t eat even if I wanted to, and you’re not an idiot, so I’m sure you’ve noticed that nothing I own fits me. I look anorexic and it’s disgusting, but you’re the only one who’s noticed and I can still get laid.
I want to be confessional here because I refuse to die without telling someone these secrets; I don’t want to take anything to the grave. One time, about nine months after Pete left me and eight months into heroin, I sucked a guy off for drugs. That’s really the first indication that you have a problem, but I knew before then. I have been jacked off, sucked off, and penetrated; I have sucked off. It’s really indicative of all my relationships really: I take more than I give, I’m pathetic when I try to give, I’m passive… I’m a social parasite. It’s vicious and harsh, but it’s true. I leech and I leech, and I take and then take some more, but I can’t give anything back anymore. I tried to give back to Pete and got hurt, and I give to you, I think, but it’s all the wrong stuff.
I almost slit my wrists in my ninth grade October; I wasn’t really out then, but I’m one of the most obvious fags I know, and the football team agreed. It was part of some sick initiation for the JV team and the freshmen were merciless towards me. I mean… I’d gone to school with them forever, and we were never best friends but we put up with each other, and, suddenly, I wasn’t “David,” I was “fag” and “sissy.” They did everything they could think of to me - stole my clothes after gym, beat me up (clumsiness stories are stereotyped because they work), they broke my favorite CD, they tried to cut my hair. The last one’s the biggest one, as you well know. I’m really protective of my hair and what it symbolizes; the only reason I willingly cut it now was because it’d be a mess at the mortuary and they’d just have to cut it anyway. The only reasons I didn’t die then were you and fear.
Fear is obvious, I think, but I need to explain the former, don’t I? Well, I’ll try, but it’s a highly illogical, hard to explain thing. You were twelve or thirteen, I think, at the time and, already, you’d been through more than you ever needed to go through. I mean… yeah, we lead very cushy lives, but… your parents didn’t care when you needed them the most. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even Pete and least of all you. Maybe you kept it hidden from everyone else, I knew you were getting high before you told me and, in a way, I think I saw a bit of myself in you. Different circumstances, certainly, but… I lost what I was going to say on that, but I couldn’t bear the thought of you - the only person in this family who never showed me any ill will, ever - being young and alone. You were there for me in the most effective way a twelve-year-old kid could be… you tried to get me, which was and still is more than I can say for everyone else.
You’re the only person who understands, Kevin, and I don’t want you to beat yourself up for this; it was bound to happen eventually. The fact of the matter is that you love me more than you should. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the fact that anyone gives a shit, and you’re the one person who I really want to care (your opinion is the one that matters most, you’ve noticed), but I’m going to drag you down. I am a horrible person.
Since this is probably the most selfish thing I could ever do, I’m trying to hold off on any other transgressions - Catholic educational carry-overs. I blame them and how they use the same strategy as nicotine, but encounter far less stupid, which leads to more roadblocks. But I need one last moment to be selfish. I gave them a list of things to do, stuff to give to people (enjoy the vinyl; you’re the only person I trust with it), but I expect half of it won’t get carried out because of legality. Comparatively speaking, the job I’m going to give you is most likely harder, but that’s why I’m giving it to you.
What I want is for people to know some kind of truth, about me, the situation… about everything. It doesn’t even have to be my truth or about me, as long as it’s some kind of truth. And I want you to be the one telling it. Keep writing poetry. I know you hate your stuff, but I’ll say it one last time: to me, you’re brilliant. Keep writing and telling truths; tell the stories that people instinctively don’t want to hear. Don’t cry, don’t mourn for too long, don’t be emo and cut yourself: get in everyone’s collective, pathetic little face and show them raw, visceral reality. That is the best way you can remember me.
And know always that, whether you do that or not, you’ll be misunderstood as long as you live, like I would be if I planned on staying alive; visionaries and Jeremiahs always are. We’re cut from the same cloth and stitched up by the same tailor, but you’re a masterpiece, in the classical sense of the word; I’m more of a journeyman’s effort. You’re too good for this world, Kevin, and that will scare everyone who knows you.
Now… I’m running out of things to write and I have a date with my mom’s pistol, the ultimate feminist symbol of male dominance leading to destruction: it’s long, hard, undeniably phallic… and it kills people.
I love you. I love you more than anything or anyone else in this world or any other. Remember that too.
- David
Type: Gen
Genre: ANGST
Characters: Kevin, David
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, drugs and alcohol, sex talk, prelude to character death.
Word Count: 1,988
Summary: It's a suicide note. What.
Disclaimer: Mine, except a few obvious pop culture references. Don't do drugs and don't kill yourself. Both are bad ideas.
Kevin:
Forgive my atrocious handwriting. I’m writing this out for you because, of everyone in this huge, obnoxious-ass family, you’re the only one that ever gave a shit about me and you deserve better than a typed out note full of lies and a farcical little textbook example of adolescent suicide. If you read the other note, then you’ll know it’s all mendacities. Very clever ones, if I may be so bold, but you’re smarter than they are, so you probably gathered that.
Anyway. You know I love Burroughs best of all his contemporaries, but I think Kerouac really said this best: “Isn't it true that you start your life as a sweet child, believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome, grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life.” (On the Road; I’m too damn lazy to look up the page for a proper citation, but this isn’t a paper, it’s a suicide note; you’re not grading me on how MLA kosher it is and, even if you were, you’d forgive me for this because we understand each other without their fucking rules.)
And it’s depressing because it’s true, and you know where I’m coming from with this. We both started thinking that they loved us unconditionally, but, as I’ve come to realize, “love” is only ever conditional, except from you. My parents love me if I’m perfect; the rest of the family loves me if my parents say they should. Pete loved me when our parents didn’t know, and, as soon as they found out, he went to that straight out of But I’m A Cheerleader ex-gay summer camp. His parents didn’t even make him; they tried to talk him out of it… and they’re Evangelicals. Fucking Evangelicals, Kevin! They’re supposed to be the crazy anti-gays, and here they were, telling their gay son not to go to ex-gay summer camp while the Catholic boy gets earful after earful about what a disgrace and a shame and… whatever this all is.
I seriously don’t know how I’m still writing this. I just took the biggest fucking hit of heroin I have ever seen in my life and I’m kind of nodding off but not really, and I’m probably going to put the gun to my head, miss, clue everyone into what I’ve been doing up here, and get my scrawny, drug-addled, gay ass dragged to rehab and therapy and all that ineffective bullshit. It won’t work. We both know it won’t work. They’ve wanted to put me in therapy since I was shoved out of my nice, comfortable closet, but they won’t do it because they hold onto the archaic notions that only crazy people need therapy and that no son of theirs could ever be crazy. They need that apparent, and entirely farcical, perfection; they thrive on it. And it’s iffy to think about it (don’t you love my technical terminology? “Iffy?”), especially with regards to whether it could’ve saved me or not, but it would’ve been a nice gesture, don’t you think? “We might not always love you, David, but we care about your mental health.” Might’ve kept me from getting into heroin, at any rate.
It’s really true, then, what they say sometimes. When you’re addicted to heroin, you’re fully aware of it and, regardless of how you handle it, you always know that you need more. I don’t mean to belittle your drug of choice, and you’re certainly not an addict, though I can’t say that you don’t have addictive tendencies, but I know people who can’t function on a basic level if they don’t have pot, and they’re so completely unaware of the hold that the green lady has on them. Don’t get me wrong, she’s fun to fool around with, but I have seen no sorrier sight than some shit-head who’s so obviously addicted to his weed, going on about how much of a problem he doesn’t have. Maybe the fact that more productive famous people (Kurt and Courtney, Burroughs, Bela Lugosi, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, John Lennon, David Bowie, Miles Davis, River Phoenix, Christian Slater, et al)… maybe sharing my choice poison with them has made me into a pretentious, elitist drug snot, but that’s neither here nor there, really.
You know, it’s sinister. I know, I say that about fucking everything anymore (and it’s Ginsberg, who’s great and all, but lacks the emotional depth of Burroughs; his problem was that, as much as fifties society thought he wasn’t, he was stable, just pissed off and witty and whatnot. He had issues, but none of them were really that serious, comparatively speaking. Burroughs… he was tough.) but it’s true. It really is. Everything is sinister anymore. I just wish I knew what I’ve been doing so wrong, or so right, that I’ve been able to pull this off for so long. It’s been five years I’ve been thinking of killing myself, and eighteen that probably should never have happened. I mean… sure, birth control and abortions are out because they’re Catholic, but the only message I’ve gotten from them was that I was a mistake. Kids weren’t something that was supposed to happen to them, but, once they had one, they were hooked, just like me and heroin. And that’s why I have a ton of brats to be a role model for - needless to say, I’ve failed miserably - and it’s why the expectations are so high - they don’t know what to expect, so why not expect the best?
They’re either going to have a suit fitted posthumously or bury me in something that’s too big for me. I don’t have an appetite when I’m high, and I’m nauseous and diarrheic when I’m coming down, so I couldn’t eat even if I wanted to, and you’re not an idiot, so I’m sure you’ve noticed that nothing I own fits me. I look anorexic and it’s disgusting, but you’re the only one who’s noticed and I can still get laid.
I want to be confessional here because I refuse to die without telling someone these secrets; I don’t want to take anything to the grave. One time, about nine months after Pete left me and eight months into heroin, I sucked a guy off for drugs. That’s really the first indication that you have a problem, but I knew before then. I have been jacked off, sucked off, and penetrated; I have sucked off. It’s really indicative of all my relationships really: I take more than I give, I’m pathetic when I try to give, I’m passive… I’m a social parasite. It’s vicious and harsh, but it’s true. I leech and I leech, and I take and then take some more, but I can’t give anything back anymore. I tried to give back to Pete and got hurt, and I give to you, I think, but it’s all the wrong stuff.
I almost slit my wrists in my ninth grade October; I wasn’t really out then, but I’m one of the most obvious fags I know, and the football team agreed. It was part of some sick initiation for the JV team and the freshmen were merciless towards me. I mean… I’d gone to school with them forever, and we were never best friends but we put up with each other, and, suddenly, I wasn’t “David,” I was “fag” and “sissy.” They did everything they could think of to me - stole my clothes after gym, beat me up (clumsiness stories are stereotyped because they work), they broke my favorite CD, they tried to cut my hair. The last one’s the biggest one, as you well know. I’m really protective of my hair and what it symbolizes; the only reason I willingly cut it now was because it’d be a mess at the mortuary and they’d just have to cut it anyway. The only reasons I didn’t die then were you and fear.
Fear is obvious, I think, but I need to explain the former, don’t I? Well, I’ll try, but it’s a highly illogical, hard to explain thing. You were twelve or thirteen, I think, at the time and, already, you’d been through more than you ever needed to go through. I mean… yeah, we lead very cushy lives, but… your parents didn’t care when you needed them the most. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even Pete and least of all you. Maybe you kept it hidden from everyone else, I knew you were getting high before you told me and, in a way, I think I saw a bit of myself in you. Different circumstances, certainly, but… I lost what I was going to say on that, but I couldn’t bear the thought of you - the only person in this family who never showed me any ill will, ever - being young and alone. You were there for me in the most effective way a twelve-year-old kid could be… you tried to get me, which was and still is more than I can say for everyone else.
You’re the only person who understands, Kevin, and I don’t want you to beat yourself up for this; it was bound to happen eventually. The fact of the matter is that you love me more than you should. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the fact that anyone gives a shit, and you’re the one person who I really want to care (your opinion is the one that matters most, you’ve noticed), but I’m going to drag you down. I am a horrible person.
Since this is probably the most selfish thing I could ever do, I’m trying to hold off on any other transgressions - Catholic educational carry-overs. I blame them and how they use the same strategy as nicotine, but encounter far less stupid, which leads to more roadblocks. But I need one last moment to be selfish. I gave them a list of things to do, stuff to give to people (enjoy the vinyl; you’re the only person I trust with it), but I expect half of it won’t get carried out because of legality. Comparatively speaking, the job I’m going to give you is most likely harder, but that’s why I’m giving it to you.
What I want is for people to know some kind of truth, about me, the situation… about everything. It doesn’t even have to be my truth or about me, as long as it’s some kind of truth. And I want you to be the one telling it. Keep writing poetry. I know you hate your stuff, but I’ll say it one last time: to me, you’re brilliant. Keep writing and telling truths; tell the stories that people instinctively don’t want to hear. Don’t cry, don’t mourn for too long, don’t be emo and cut yourself: get in everyone’s collective, pathetic little face and show them raw, visceral reality. That is the best way you can remember me.
And know always that, whether you do that or not, you’ll be misunderstood as long as you live, like I would be if I planned on staying alive; visionaries and Jeremiahs always are. We’re cut from the same cloth and stitched up by the same tailor, but you’re a masterpiece, in the classical sense of the word; I’m more of a journeyman’s effort. You’re too good for this world, Kevin, and that will scare everyone who knows you.
Now… I’m running out of things to write and I have a date with my mom’s pistol, the ultimate feminist symbol of male dominance leading to destruction: it’s long, hard, undeniably phallic… and it kills people.
I love you. I love you more than anything or anyone else in this world or any other. Remember that too.
- David