Kevin's Post dreging up brutal thoughts
I just read Kevin's last post tonight and it brought some ugly things to the surface that i haven't really thought about in depth for a long time, mostly because i dreaded going there. Kevin, I'm sorry that you have to go through this. I know what it's like. First semester last year, a guy i knew, Jonas committed suicide. He was one of those college friends that you were friendly to but didn't really know. I smoked with him a couple times freshman year and talked to him on occasion, but nothing more than that. He was one of those people you could read immediatly and he was a genuinely decent person. The last memory i have of him is the last day before i moved out at the end of my first tumultuous year at college. Mare, Jonas and i were in the cafeteria, eating dinner. We just sat with each other cuz most everyone had gone home for break but we still had exams. The only food they were serving was chicken nuggets, gray chicken nuggets. We talked about the common miseries of college, drunken escapades, war stories as it were.
That's the last memory of him i have. He was smiling, talking, being friendly as he always was. Mare knew him because they did some of those "help people" activity things that Mare is so fond of and they talked alot.
I heard about him from Mare, she called when she found out. It didn't register, at all. I knew what it meant, but i couldn't form a thought process to match up with it. That kid that was always around, that i passed so casually so many times and said hi to, the kid i ate dinner with at the end of freshman year was dead. Fucking over and done with. Such finality.
That wasn't all there was to it. See, i had a job to do...i was an editor at the paper and the only one that our advisors trust to write anything serious or important for the news section. So Dave Barry, the news editor, and I had to write the article about Jonas' death.
I vividly remember, Dave and i did an interview with Anthony Campbell, dean of students, about Jonas' death and the death of a freshman Mike SanAndreas who died as a result of a heart condition, which he was born with, earlier that week.
Dean Campbell read off his statement, what he would say for the record while the tape recorder was going. When the tape recorder was off, he told us what he really knew. He sat there across that desk and told me that Jonas had been found hanging from a tree in Warton State Forest. He was from Medford. I had to sit there, and be professional, act like i was just recieving information, as i saw in mind this guy i knew dangling from the end of a rope tied to a pine tree in a forest that i had camped in more than once. I could see his face, all colorless with eight-ball hemorages from strangling to death.
I thought i was going to explode, but i didn't. I held just fine. THen came the article. I got dozens of quotes from professors and students about Jonas, and i even had the wonderful task of talking to his mother on the phone.
We wrote the articles and slapped a big picture of Jonas and another of Mike on the front page, side by side, two fellas, my age...one i knew, the other who lived in my building, both fucking dead. Never to be anymore than photographs and memories. Still...i held.
Then, a few nights after we'd heard, Mare, Erin and i were in Erin's room, talking...about anything but Jonas, but we couldn't think of anything else. Erin said she needed a cigarette. She doesn't smoke. So i took her outside and gave her a cig. She lit it, sat on the step in the dark and started to cry. I sat next to her, put my arm around her and i felt tears rolling down my face. I wasn't sobbing, blubbering, or making any sound at all. Tears just kept falling from my eyes as i blinked. Our cigarettes burned down between our knuckles without being smoked. We said something to try to comfort each other and went inside. Then, i broke...i punched a window by one of the stairwell doors, the kind with chicken wire running through it, and set a large vertical crack in it. I slumped on the floor in the stairwell and just couldn't move. I stayed there for a long time. I ran through what i thought Jonas' last moments had been and i wondered how many times he'd driven to the woods with a rope in his trunk and thought about doing it. I thought, maybe he'd even tied the noose once or twice, maybe even slung it up and put it around his neck. I wondered if he'd ever stood on the hood of his car with the death around his neck and, for whatever reason, decided not to. Then, inevitably i wondered what made the last time different. What was it that made him step off that hood. I went insane for a while with these kinds of thoughts. But they faded as everything does and i thought about it less and less. There is nothing that can be said that can comfort anyone who knows someone, especially a good person, who decides to take their own life. It's such a rediculous waste that it's very difficult to even conceptualize. I can't think about this anymore
That's the last memory of him i have. He was smiling, talking, being friendly as he always was. Mare knew him because they did some of those "help people" activity things that Mare is so fond of and they talked alot.
I heard about him from Mare, she called when she found out. It didn't register, at all. I knew what it meant, but i couldn't form a thought process to match up with it. That kid that was always around, that i passed so casually so many times and said hi to, the kid i ate dinner with at the end of freshman year was dead. Fucking over and done with. Such finality.
That wasn't all there was to it. See, i had a job to do...i was an editor at the paper and the only one that our advisors trust to write anything serious or important for the news section. So Dave Barry, the news editor, and I had to write the article about Jonas' death.
I vividly remember, Dave and i did an interview with Anthony Campbell, dean of students, about Jonas' death and the death of a freshman Mike SanAndreas who died as a result of a heart condition, which he was born with, earlier that week.
Dean Campbell read off his statement, what he would say for the record while the tape recorder was going. When the tape recorder was off, he told us what he really knew. He sat there across that desk and told me that Jonas had been found hanging from a tree in Warton State Forest. He was from Medford. I had to sit there, and be professional, act like i was just recieving information, as i saw in mind this guy i knew dangling from the end of a rope tied to a pine tree in a forest that i had camped in more than once. I could see his face, all colorless with eight-ball hemorages from strangling to death.
I thought i was going to explode, but i didn't. I held just fine. THen came the article. I got dozens of quotes from professors and students about Jonas, and i even had the wonderful task of talking to his mother on the phone.
We wrote the articles and slapped a big picture of Jonas and another of Mike on the front page, side by side, two fellas, my age...one i knew, the other who lived in my building, both fucking dead. Never to be anymore than photographs and memories. Still...i held.
Then, a few nights after we'd heard, Mare, Erin and i were in Erin's room, talking...about anything but Jonas, but we couldn't think of anything else. Erin said she needed a cigarette. She doesn't smoke. So i took her outside and gave her a cig. She lit it, sat on the step in the dark and started to cry. I sat next to her, put my arm around her and i felt tears rolling down my face. I wasn't sobbing, blubbering, or making any sound at all. Tears just kept falling from my eyes as i blinked. Our cigarettes burned down between our knuckles without being smoked. We said something to try to comfort each other and went inside. Then, i broke...i punched a window by one of the stairwell doors, the kind with chicken wire running through it, and set a large vertical crack in it. I slumped on the floor in the stairwell and just couldn't move. I stayed there for a long time. I ran through what i thought Jonas' last moments had been and i wondered how many times he'd driven to the woods with a rope in his trunk and thought about doing it. I thought, maybe he'd even tied the noose once or twice, maybe even slung it up and put it around his neck. I wondered if he'd ever stood on the hood of his car with the death around his neck and, for whatever reason, decided not to. Then, inevitably i wondered what made the last time different. What was it that made him step off that hood. I went insane for a while with these kinds of thoughts. But they faded as everything does and i thought about it less and less. There is nothing that can be said that can comfort anyone who knows someone, especially a good person, who decides to take their own life. It's such a rediculous waste that it's very difficult to even conceptualize. I can't think about this anymore