He said he’d do it. Kill himself, that is. When he said it, no one believed him and he
didn’t expect them to either, it was just so goddamn outrageous. Why would he even want to do something like that? That question probably passed through everyone’s head at some point after he declared that his life was over. What bugs me the most is how did he get those two retards to help him? No, for real, they were retarded—no one else would have helped him do it.
I keep saying “he” and “him”, but the guy I’m talking about, his name is Rod. Rodney Blake. His friends called him Rod, but since he no longer has any friends, I’ll just call him Rodney Blake.
Rodney Blake was twenty-five and he was balding. Some people joke that that’s why he did it, killed himself. He was kind of tall. Well, average really. And he had a small beer gut, but a lot of women found it cute or whatever. He didn’t care either way, he was always chasing tail and telling me about a new girl’s number that he got, or some chick that he was friends with on Facebook, or how he was gonna meet up with some girl that he’d been e-mailing. Rodney Blake considered himself some kind of “player”, but really, he’s just dead.
I say “it” and “killed himself” but really I mean suicide. It’s a nice word; it rolls right off the tongue. Just say it, “su-i-cide.” It’s calming really. The next time you want to hurt someone, instead of closing your eyes and counting to ten, you should really just close your eyes and say “suicide” five or six times.
He talked about it, suicide, only one time that I can think of. We were partying and he said to me he says, “Hey man. I’m gonna do it.”
I asked him, “What do you mean ‘do it’?”
And he says, “I’m gonna kill myself.” And he starts laughing like someone just busted the funniest joke he ever heard. We all thought he was joking too, but a few days later he was dead, and we all stopped laughing. And Rodney Blake, he stopped breathing.
He was found on a building; it was a bar. I don’t remember what it was called, some hole in the wall that had kicked him out one night. That’s what started this whole thing I think. We were at this hole in the wall one time and they let us in without checking our IDs. Rodney Blake, though, he was only drinking pop cause he was voted designated driver that night. We liked to call ourselves responsible, but really, it’s our fault that Rodney Blake killed himself. We should’ve seen it coming.
The bartender got curious as to why Rodney Blake was drinking pop while everyone else was getting hammered. He accused Rodney Blake of being underage and the two started arguing. The hole in the wall probably belonged to the bartender, so he was just protecting his assets. I don’t blame him for Rodney Blake’s suicide.
“Get the hell outta here, ya damn kid,” said the bartender as he leaned across the table and stared Rodney Blake in the eyes.
“No way, man, I’m not botherin’ anyone,” Rodney Blake said.
“You’re botherin’ me. Now get out!”
“Oh yeah, man? How’s this: I’m gonna get trashed on your place and I’m gonna die and make it look like your fault!” Anyone else would mistake this for a drunken stupor. But we, his friends, his former friends, his non-friends, we knew better. If he were drunk, he would’ve clocked this guy by now.
We exploded into laughter. “Oh Rod,” we said. “You’re a damned genius.” And we laughed.
He turned to us, laughing with us, and said, “You guys gonna help me?” He asked, “Gonna help me show this old guy?”
“Oh man, Rod,” we said. “We’ll help you overthrow the country.”
A few days later and Rodney Blake is dead.
The day after that and his non-friends are cursing themselves. I’m cursing myself.
Rodney Blake said it too, he said, “I’m gonna do it.” And when I found out what, I kept joking with him. Then I made a comment about his bald head, and he looked at me for a second. I thought I saw his eyes flash, but then he smiled and rubbed his head. “Yeah man,” he said. “It’s falling right the hell out, ain’t it?” He said, “There’s a pile of it on my pillow every morning.” He wasn’t laughing.
That was the day he finally did it.
It was a Sunday, I think. I found out about Rodney Blake after I got out of church. His mom called me. “He’s dead,” she said. There was no feeling in her voice. But she would weep later. Right now, she had a reason for people to lavish attention on her. Mrs. Blake isn’t a bad person. But to tell you the truth, I fucking hate her.
His funeral didn’t last very long, and there wasn’t a very nice service. I was a pall bearer. At the very least, I got to try something new.
Some guy wearing a suit came up to say a few words about Rodney Blake when no one else would. They were all cookie cutter descriptions that you could say about anyone and make it sound true. “Rodney Blake was a kind and giving soul who is survived by a loving mother and friends that will always hold his memory in their hearts.”
Later on while people were paying their respects, I snuck into an office in the funeral home. There was a drawer in there that was like a filing cabinet. Inside of it was a stack of cards that read similar things as the eulogy that Rodney Blake received. Except at the start of each of them it read “insert name here.”
I wish now that I would have said a few words about Rodney Blake. I even know what I would say; I have it memorized by heart. I would say: Rodney Blake was kind of a dick. He would call me all the time to tell me about some girl that slept with him, or how he banged this other broad. He was drunk a lot, but at least he had the decency to stay sober for the rest of us every now and then, even if that fact is what led to his suicide. Rodney Blake liked to make fun of amputees and retarded people. It’s kind of ironic that he got two retarded people to help him kill himself. On the weekends, he would go downtown and make some extra money by acting like he was a bum. He watched a lot of pornos, and sometimes he would call me while he was watching them, and I would be able to hear him making weird noises over the phone. He thought it was funny. One time he even called me while he was sleeping with some chick. That’s fine, I guess. Lots of people find crazy stuff like that funny. That’s who Rodney Blake was. And I liked him for who he was.
That’s what I would have said, anyway. But instead, some stranger said a bunch of facts about Insert Name Here.
Rodney Blake paid two retarded guys to set up a ladder for him on the outside of that hole in the wall. He climbed up with them onto the roof and he started drinking hard liquor. I’m talking grain alcohol. He probably pounded a half gallon of it as fast as he could. He threw up too, cause it’s all over the roof still, but he kept going. When he passed out, the retarded guys woke him back up and dumped the vodka back into his mouth.
It was alcohol poisoning. He was good and dead soon after that, and the retarded guys took the money that each of them earned and made off with the booze and the ladder. But they left one half gallon up on the roof with Rodney Blake. In the night, it fell off the roof and shattered in the parking lot.
Rodney Blake committed suicide four days after he thought about it and two days after he said he would. And we joked about it.
The two retarded guys are in jail, I think. They’ll probably get out soon on some technicality, but that’s just fine. The owner of the hole in the wall was questioned, and I think Mrs. Blake is trying to sue him, but she’ll lose cause they found the receipt for all the liquor under Rodney Blake’s bed.
In the end, Rodney Blake will win against the owner of the hole in the wall. No one will go back there now that someone’s died on the roof.
There’s still puke up there next to where Rodney Blake died. There’s also a small memorial there for him. Some people think that the owner of the hole in the wall is at fault. Really though, it was just Rodney Blake’s idea of a joke. It’s too bad there was nothing funny about the buildup or the punch-line.
And my thoughts: This was my first attempt at satire. At least I think it's satire. When people have asked me, "Hey Adam, what are you satirizing here?" I usually say that I'm satirizing alcoholism and/or suicide. It's however you want to take it I guess. This was a story that came to me one night and I was able to write it all out in a few hours. My hope is that the reader will feel like the narrator is talking to him or her perhaps at a bar, so there is a very conversational tone to the story. This is the fifth (and I suppose final) draft. Originally there was much more explicit language but I dialed down the f-bombs so that the one that I left in would be more potent. I've thought about taking the term "retarded" out of the story, but decided against it cause that would take away from the narrator's character. I don't feel it's gratuitous use of the word, offensive as it may be. This is also the first and only story that I've ever submitted to a contest and it won second place, so that's pretty cool I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment