Suicide Kills, part 2

                                                     Chapter Two

 The smoking room lived up to its name.  It was fifteen feet long, six feet wide and full of cancer smog.  The doorway was in the left corner of the room.  An orderly sat directly by it, just a few feet from me.  A large round table was in the center of the right side of the room.  Chairs lined the walls on both sides. Counting at least twenty places to sit, I raised my eyebrows; just how many shitbats did they have in this place? 

"C’mon, Aaron. You can take us out for a little bit, can’t you?" a pretty, spikey-haired blond was asking as I took a step into the room.  She sat at the back of the room behind the round table, dressed in sleeping pants and a tank top.   Large blue eyes darted over to me, crinkling at the edges.  She had pale skin with a slight touch of honey, and looked as though she’d had a good tan that faded.  Her faces was diamond shaped - wide at the cheekbones and narrow at the jaw line - with a cotton candy smile, the kind sweeter than sugar and delicate under pressure. 

Next to her was a brunette sporting a Berenstain haircut, thick makeup buttered on her hopeful face.  Jesus, I thought, I’ve seen drag queens in Vegas with less spackle.  With narrow, deeply-set eyes and little chin, the most prominent feature were the voluminous cheeks which gave her a chipmunk-like appearance.  A shy, teasing smile hung around the corner of her full mouth. 

"What could it hurt?" Hue Paul purred, scratching somewhere beneath the mound of hair she had frozen in place. She cocked her head to the side and I watched, fascinated. Not one single hair moved. Somebody should really call the EPA. I mean, that can’t be good for the ozone and baby seals and stuff.

"Yah, Aaron, what would it hurt?" the spikey blond reiterated.

I looked at the linebacker-sized orderly sitting by the door.  Honestly, the chair he sat in would have been small for me, and I’m under five feet.  Good thing we were in a hospital. I was pretty sure he needed to have it surgically removed every time he stood up.

Aaron had a wide face, deep-set eyes, small mouth, and a miniature butt in the middle of his rectangular jaw.  His hair was cropped short and flattened downward along his forehead. 

I wrinkled my nose.  Holy Mary Shelley, he was sportin’ the Clooney, the hairstyle which got its

start in Hollywood through Frankenstein and has been ruining foreheads ever since. 

               Letting out an exasperated sigh, Aaron looked up from his book and spoke slowly. "You know the rules. We were outside earlier, and we only go once a day."

"Were you born without any personality, or do you do that just for our benefit?" Blondie asked, and winked in my direction.

Aaron ignored her and went back to the little book in his large hands.

 I squinted, struggling to read the author’s name.  Danielle Steele?  On my list of never-guesses this was a solid five, maybe even a three. For a second I was surprised, then decided not to be.  I mean, who were we going to tell? Sylvester Stallone? Get his man-card revoked?  Not likely. 

"What’s your name?" It took me a moment to realize Blondie directed the question to me.

A chair scuttled out from under the table for me to sit in and the Mary-Kay fanatic motioned me over, sliding back up in her chair.

An elderly Hispanic woman sitting in front of the table pulled the chair out further and motioned me over.  She had a round head, thinning hair, kind eyes, and an easy smile.  The faded red sweater with saucer size yellow dots simply completed the look.  The overall image made her resemble a ladybug. Reluctantly, I took the seat and made all three women wait until I’d lit my cigarette. 

“Brittni.”

"I’m Jerrilyn.” The blond said, splaying her hand across her chest.  With her cigarette between two fingers, she pointed to the young woman at her side then the older woman next to me. “This is Veronica and Maria Rosa." She fell quiet, waiting for me to make the next move and watching with cool eyes.

She could just wait.

I sucked on the cigarette, enjoying the ashy taste of the only thing left of my reality. Cheesy?  Hell yes, but I was in a psych ward.  I certainly had the right to depressingly wax poetic.  Weren't some of the best poets dead when they got famous?  Yeppers, because most people will listen to whining longer when they know how long the whining lasts.  Pricks, taking the easy way out by dying. 

"How often…?" I began, letting the question trail off and wiggling my cigarette.

"As often as we want, as long as there are two or more people wanting one." Veronica nodded towards Aaron, "Supervised, of course. Lighters, ya know."

I didn’t tell her what a lighter could do to her hairspray helmet.

"What all do we do here?" I took another long drag on my cigarette and cocked my head to the side, directing the question at all three women.

Jerrilyn grinned, "We talk about our problems, and they have classes each morning for us to go to. Dr. Rathbone, that’s the shrink, comes at night to do one-on-one’s with us. Why are you here? What’d you do? Or, more importantly, what’d you do it with?"

"Pills." I am now the Queen of Monosyllabia! Tremble, fools!

Veronica tugged on her long sleeves, a quick mindless jerk which told me she did it so often she probably didn’t realize it anymore.  Must be a cutter.  I wondered what number suicide attempt pills had been for her.

Depressing thought, considering that’s how I got here. 

Jerrilyn sucked her teeth, trying to determine if she liked me or not. "I’m depressed. Veronica self-mutilates. Maria Rosa lost her grandson. Besides all of that, we’re completely normal, wouldn’t you say, Veronica?"

Aaron snorted.

Veronica shook her head and said, "I’m as normal as they let me be." Following my gaze, she hid her arms beneath the table.  

Jerrilyn touched her shoulder, "We don’t care, Ronni. Quit worrying about the scars.  So, how long are you here for?"

Oh, goody, back to me.  "I don’t know. Until the doctor says otherwise, I guess."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" an evil glint sparked in Jerrilyn’s eyes.  I got the distinct feeling we were going to talk about sex and penises before I was released.  She put her cigarette out and began rubbing her knuckles. 

"I did, but he turned out to be an asshole. Left when I needed him the most. He was sensitive that way." I should have flipped him off instead of sticking my tongue out at his back, but then he‘d probably have thought I was hitting on him.

"All men are assholes. You just gotta find the one with the fewest hemorrhoids." Jerrilyn fixed me with a grin.

Veronica stopped fidgeting with her sleeves and smiled.

Maria Rosa shook her head at Jerrilyn good-naturedly. 

I chuckled.

Maybe this place wouldn’t be absolute hell, after all.

Back in the common room in front of the T.V., Jerrilyn and Veronica filled me in about the ward. From Aaron the apathetic orderly, to the nurses who were a step away from unprofessional, by-the-book Rathbone who couldn’t help a soul because he lacked the ability to think outside of his textbooks, and the shining light of their day-the trip outside… geez. And this is supposed to help us?

"You have kids, though, right?"

My question startled Veronica right out of what she was saying. Her hands froze in midair and she looked at me like a deer caught in blinding light, waiting to be wet confetti all over the road.

"Yes." She didn’t elaborate, but I zeroed in for the kill.

"Two, right? Neither of them infant-infants, though. Right?" My tone sank deeper and I watched her squirm. Her eyes ran deep into the forest of memories and picked one, then climbed it. For the next several minutes she clung to it, refusing to climb down, eyes dull and fixed on a place upon the floor. I could tell it was a sort of punishment for her, reliving bad memories.  It was what she thought she deserved. 

A part of me bucked against the cruelty, but I fought the need to apologize.  I wasn’t going to play nice simply because I was under a psychiatric thumb; if anything, I would play much, much harder.

Jerrilyn’s expression hardened. She looked straight at me, daring an attack.

"And you, " since she expected it, I’d let her have it, "you have a boyfriend. Long-term, right? Gotten used to, and even annoyed with, your little psychiatric tantrums, hasn’t he?"

Stunned, she opened and shut her mouth, then spat an affirmation through gritted teeth. Her blue irises grew bright and wounded.  Tears trickled from the corner of her eyes.  "Why would you say something like that?"

I expected her question, was even ready for it, but when I opened my mouth to answer I found my voice gone.  I liked Jerrilyn, I really did.  How could I tell her I had done it because I was trying to hurt her?  God, now even I thought I was a bitch.

"She’s doing it because she’s hurting, aren’t you, mija?" Maria Rosa’s voice cut through the silence to be absorbed immediately like a gently placed bomb. "So, she eh trying to hurt everybody else, tambien."

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I shot a look at Maria Rosa, ready to deny her soft accusation.  All I found in her time-worn face was sympathy, understanding.

The room became suffocating.

"I’m sorry," I mumbled. I jumped to my feet and  raced out, trying to flee from another failure, another painful memory I had just forced myself to create. And alone on my bed, I wept.