11/27

A '96er has fallen. Peahen was right ... and I called her right away with the news. I told her who, and she said "Damn! He was the one person I was looking forward to seeing at our 10-year reunion."

He killed himself. I don't know why or how.

He quoted Cobain in our senior yearbook. His inscription to me was "Hi ... I hope you are enjoying your day. You never know, it could be your last. Hugs and Kisses, S."

Yeah. This is not a massive shock. But still. But you know? Peahen and I laughed about it. She said, "Oh God, I killed him" (remembering what we were talking about on the phone last time.) I thought about that and said "You know, he'd probably have found that kind of funny." This sounds terrible but the kind of person he was in high school makes me think, or hope, he must have found something about his situation funny, and just sighed and said "Fuck this. I'm going somewhere else." And laughed, I hope. Am I sick? Was he? I think he was just that kind of person. Peahen asked if I knew how he'd done it (she is so morbid) and I said no, but knowing him, just to be funny he probably hanged himself. (I don't want to spell out his name here, but I'll just say one of his names is synonymous with "to hang.")

One year he dressed up like the Pope and won the school costume contest. He often traveled to Ireland with his father. I really can't describe him. Mostly because I didn't know him very well, but also because what I did know of him is basically indescribable. I could say he was quiet, funny and smart, but he was a very weird kind of quiet, a weird kind of funny, and a weird kind of smart. See? Indescribable. I had to use the word "weird." He had this heavy-lidded look to him, he was always ready with an answer to anything even if the answer had nothing to do with anything.

I'm trying to think, what could have made him want to leave? What makes anyone want to leave? Professional failure, insurmountable physical trauma, not being loved back, all these things that I would never pin as the reason S. would kill himself, but then I'd never guess he ever would (and yes, there are people that that seemed "almost likely" to commit suicide.) I can't say I've even thought about him since graduation but if for some reason I had I would have thought S. would just kind of coast on a skateboard through the rest of his life, being a smartass, being gentle, shrugging, not saying much, and continuing in other ways to dress up like the Pope and parade across the Catholic school hall stage.

I don't think the death itself is as terrible as the possibility that something or someone deeply hurt a person who never stopped coasting and who would never hurt anyone. That's why I said I kind of hope he was laughing, somehow. If an outside force could have broken him, then there's a terrible evil in the world. Well, I guess there is, I already know that. But I hope it's not the reason he left.