American Lover

I'm in the McDonald's parking lot pointing a loaded gun in my mouth, thinking of you. My Forester is filled with the rubbery scent of untouched fish filet. Somewhere up Route 117, a traffic light turns green. The night is silent save for the wind whistling through a crack in my windshield. The muzzle of the .45 tastes like loose change. I see a group of teenagers walk by. They don't notice me.

It's winter. I'm cold. I ruminate briefly on the ethical implications of staining a perfectly good cashmere scarf with blood and brain discharge, then think, Fuck it.

One of the teenagers, a corded, baseball-player type, falters in his step and looks back in my direction. His milkshake hangs limply from one hand. For one hot instant I fancy he caught my gaze – then he runs to catch up with his mates.

I thumb the hammer of the pistol into full cock.

~~~

Love is fundamentally insane. How can something that's only considered successful in the event of death be halfway cogent or rational? Sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers agree: love is bullshit – a cacophony of misfired hormones, no more – and it'll gut you in the end. Trust me, darling. What you call cynicism, I call a good education.

Remember the afternoon in July we swam out to Devil's Island? The deep water scared me to death, you knew it did, but we went anyway, because the alternative –

solitude!

– was too awful to bear. You wore shorts and I made fun of your chicken legs. You hit my arm with enough force to jar the bone, because you were terribly self-conscious about your legs (whenever you wore shorts, and happened to hear someone laugh, you purpled, under the immediate assumption that they were laughing at you). Your hair was short then, and curly to the point of stubbornness, and when you shimmied out of your clothes and plunged naked into the lake, it fell into clumps over your eyes like some strange black algae. I leapt in after, my nethers already electric on account of you.

What is it?

Something brushed against my leg.

You laughed. Grow some cajones, why don't ya?

By the time we reached the island, I had given up trying to conceal my struggle for breath. You were always the athletic one, always insisting on the importance of health and happiness. I told you to put it on a bumper sticker.

You looked about the island – no more than ten feet square – to see if the coast was clear. Your eyes were big, and very green. Your lips were pink. You didn't bother to put down a blanket.

When you climbed into the saddle you told me you loved me; when you came, you swore repeatedly.

Shit. Shit. Shit! Fuck! Fuuuck!

We rested, afterward, roped atop one another like two people caught together in a bear trap.

I never want this moment to end, I said, and meant it, though I never told you about the small rocks that dug into my back and sides. You smiled and kissed me.

Me neither, you whispered. But we should go.

~~~

In November I locked myself in the bathroom and slashed my wrists. You broke the door open with a hammer and jerked my arms over my head. You dialed an ambulance, perfect ringlets of my blood hovering over the number keys of your cell phone. Four days later you wheeled me back into the real world – remember? – out a set of automatic doors. My parents were waiting in my dad's car, faces ashen.

Why'd you do it? you asked, with tears in your eyes.

Because, I rasped, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.

You looked anguished. Astonished. Betrayed. I love you, you said. Why would you do this to me?

Well darling, I didn't exactly expect the Spanish Inquisition.

You would have laughed at that, once upon a time. That day, your face clouded and you didn't say a word to me during the ride home.

~~~

The lake was ice, and we walked to pay our second call on Devil's Island.

Do you remember, you kept asking. Do you remember. My bandages were itching and my fingers felt like frozen meat.

Do you remember.

You kissed me with an open mouth. I kept mine closed.

Please. I need you to remember.

While you talked (and talked) I wondered what it would be like to plunge through thin ice: hot, wet fear, falling to a frigid resolution.

It's not the same, I finally said. And neither am I.

You took a step back. Is it me? Is there something wrong with me?

No, I replied. I love you. But I'll never make you happy.

You did once. We were happy.

Not anymore.

Eye moisture again. I felt pain, seeing you cry – physical pain. Like someone had taken to spreading my ribs with a wrench.

The pills, you babbled. The pills Dr. Burkley prescribed. They'll make you happy.

I laughed – not out of derision, but affection. Believe it or not, I still find your willful obstinacy adorable. I said, The curse of modern medicine. Would you rather be miserably alert or happily drugged up? For me, it's the former. I'd be a terrible pig, I guess – unsatisfied with rolling around in shit like the rest of the sty.

That's just it, you said, getting exasperated. You're not a pig in shit. You're a person – a wonderful human being, and so many of us love you. Don't you understand?

Yeah, I understand. That's why you can't love me. It'll gut you in the end.

I can make my own decisions, you snapped.

I was quiet for a long time. Then I said, very quietly: Not this time, darling.

~~~

When they find me, you'll probably wonder why I did it; you'll probably blame yourself; you'll probably think, If only I had or Maybe I should've.

Don't.

Simply put, I prefer death to existence.

Aren't I entitled to my preference?

~~~

So I'm sitting in the Forester, sucking on the barrel of a .45, staring up at the gigantic "M," and thinking, This is it. This is it. Finally, it's going to end.

The ring of the cell phone ("Bathtime in Clerkenwell" by The Real Tuesday Weld – I know, right?) scares me so badly I nearly squeeze the trigger. I glance over to the Nokia, buzzing irritably across the surface of the passenger side seat, and see your name emblazoned across the display screen.

I sigh – a weird, growly sound when filtered through the pistol – and wonder whether I ought to answer.