Thanatos IV: Drunk Driving

“Night, guys. I’m heading home.” At least, that’s what you thought you sounded like. Everybody else just heard indistinct mumbles between your hiccups and lapses in concentration. They’re all too drunk to care, but the mutual buzz gets your message across anyway. It’s a short walk through a shared apartment complex, you’ll be fine. That’s the crux of the issue for you. You’re going home, weren’t lying about that. You turn into your building, stumble up the stairs, open the door, and come back out in less than a minute. You weren’t planning to stay here long. Just needed to grab your car keys.

Start the ignition. Engine purring. The parking lot around you is full. It’s just past midnight on a Tuesday morning; everyone’s already more or less settled in for the night. You back out, manage not to hit anybody. Let’s just drive around here for a while, see how it feels. You drive around your complex, a nice open space to get used to your latest bad decision. A little harder than usual, but you’re a pretty good driver. You’ll be fine. Leaving the apartments, hitting the open road. Nothing but green lights, but they’re all too bright. Onto the highway, into the fast lane, through the barrier and into the ditch. No, you’re not crashing. you’ll be fine. You’re a good driver. You’ll be home tonight.

You wonder why you came out here in the first place if you really wanted to make it home tonight. Roll the windows down, turn the music up, let the air hitting your face sober you up a little. Your foot’s moving too now — twenty past the speed limit, coming up on twenty-five. You weave between cars as gracefully as a drunk bastard can. Doing surprisingly well. No cops out, guess they’ve got better things to worry about. Going too fast now. Running low on gas, and you can’t afford to pay for more. By the time you look up from the dashboard your environment has completely changed. Am I still driving on the same highway? Am I still driving? Wait, why the hell am I driving right now? The air blowing through your window is suffocating you. You’re doing your best to hold it together, but you’re coming unravelled. Each blind spot checked disorients you more than the last. See a sign, something about a lane closed, not enough time to read it. The wind grabs a plastic bag in your backseat and thrashes it around the cabin for a few seconds before spitting it outside. “Damn, I’ve been trying not to litter so much.” The brief moment of levity calms you down enough to figure your way to a gas station. Check your bank account, sigh, fill your tank. Get in the car, sigh, try not to break. You’re not getting in an accident. You’re not getting arrested. You’re getting in your car and going home. But man, you really don’t wanna go home right now.

Start the ignition. Engine purring. The parking lot around you is empty. Not many people out so far so late. Take the turnaround, get on the highway, same way you came. Roll the windows down for a few seconds, roll them back up and focus on the road. Try to, at least. Start wondering why you came out here. You know why you came out here. It just hadn’t occurred to you to think about it yet. A sudden realization: “Oh, yeah. I came out here to kill myself.” That makes sense. It’s barely a realization, a thought bubbling at the top of your subconscious and spilling over into every inch of your body. You might as well have been screaming “I WANNA KILL MYSELF,” the whole way there and back. “I just wanna see if I can do it,” you told yourself. What a load that was. Oh yeah, the road. Should you even be looking at the road at this point? I mean, you know what you came out here to do now. Why not just get it over with already? You push this thought to the deepest corners of your mind as you focus on the road.

See the exit, get off the highway. Turnaround, check your blind spot, signal and creep your way over to the entrance. Back in the parking lot, back at your building, oh whaddya know, your parking spot is still open. Walk upstairs, walk through the door, walk into bed. You’re home. You made it out there and back and nobody will ever know. Should you tell somebody? Probably not a good idea. Don’t wanna get locked up in some facility full of suicidal maniacs. Glance at your phone, not much to glance at. A week-old text still not returned. A twitter post somebody sent you. Oh look, so-and-so’s going live on so-and-so app. When’s the last time you even opened that app? You start to realize how sick you feel. Should’ve eaten today, should’ve drank some water, should’ve crashed when you had the chance, should’ve-

Oh, right. That’s still there. The tumor in your brain that made you get in your car didn’t disappear. It didn’t even quiet down. It just stayed right where it was, waiting for your next moment of weakness. Maybe you should tell someone.

—

Tears and spit mix in the dirt. Your casket was buried a few hours ago. Beautiful ceremony, some say undeservedly so. A head on collision at ninety miles an hour, both cars obliterated on impact. The nerve to take his life. The nerve to take someone with him. This is so like him, they say. One of your closest friends jokes that anybody who knew you at all has been expecting this for a while. A few people chuckle, your mother bursts into tears. Your father is keeping it together, but he’ll try to join you sooner or later. Your friend feels awful, dad tells her it’s alright. “He would’ve wanted us here laughing. He was always that kind of person.” People trade stories, funny and sad and occasionally inspiring. They want to remember you at your best, not your worst. Besides memories, they have nothing left but your absolute worst. Mom pulls it together and says something beautiful for the service. Dad says some stuff. Even your friends have things to say. Love and pain fill the air, but something else too. Right beneath the surface, everyone can feel it, but nobody wants to say anything. They don’t want to ruin the day for everyone else. Anger pervades the atmosphere. Vile, hateful, and well-deserved, it trickles out as they talk about you.

“Everything he put me through, just to go and do this.”
“I miss him more than any of you can know. But I don’t know if I can forgive him.”
“Why didn’t he ever talk to me? I thought we were close, but he never said a word.”
“I just wish we knew. I wish we could have done something.”
“He should know what it’s like to be where I am today. He still got in that car. What do you want me to say?”

Your parents are the last to leave. Across your hometown, a few separate groups are pouring one out for you and preparing to get as blasted as you were when you slammed into that minivan. They know better than to drive like that though. Your mom goes home and cries with your cats. They cry too. Your dad goes home to choose between a bottle of liquor and a shotgun. He drinks, but it doesn’t help. Your friends cry in parking lots and crowded apartments. They curse you to hell for everything you put them through before they pray for wherever your soul is now. What’s left of your body is buried now. What’s left of your soul is in pieces, scattered across I-35 and the hearts of everyone you’ve hurt. They won’t all remember you like this, but some of them will. You’re gone now. What else are they supposed to remember?

—

You pour yourself a glass of water. Open the pill case on the counter, swallow Tuesday’s load, and get ready for work. Drive there, get out, clock in, and take some orders. You’re twenty minutes late, but your managers don’t care. They know you’re a good guy. They’re good people. Two waters with a side of who cares, we’ll have that bread right out and so on. Your coworker Chris greets you. “Hey man, how’s it going?” You used to think a lot about that question. You’d stand there for a second, think about your shitty day, put on a big smile, and say something wry like, “I’m still here, ain’t I?” You don’t need to do that anymore. You don’t have a problem with saying you’ve had a shitty day now. But you don’t have as many as you used to, so the rest of the time you just say, “I’m doing great, man, how about you?” The lithium helps. So does the rest of your daily prescribed cocktail. It was hard getting here. Years of trying this medication with that one or maybe these ones or what if we changed the dosage of this one and added another-

Yeah, it was pretty messy for a while. Felt like you were all over the place but you weren’t getting anywhere at all. But now you’re here, and this is the new normal. You’re holding down a job, being a reasonably good person, not hurting anybody else, not even hurting yourself. It was hard getting here. Talking about the things you don’t want to talk about. Making an honest effort to get better. Trusting your friends, your family, some hack you’re paying to give you pills every month. Ends up he wasn’t a hack after all. These things just take time. It feels like you’ve lived a thousand lifetimes, but you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you. You love people. You love yourself. You know what it feels like to suffer, and you’ll move heaven and hell to help another in need. Of course, that could all change at any time. Maybe your meds stop working, someone says something that sends you spiralling, or you just wake up depressed one day. And you’re back in that pit with nothing but the darkness. But you’ve been there before, and you finally have at least a vague idea about how to get out. Not by drinking, or smoking, or telling everyone you know that you love them or hate them — But by being good to everyone you meet. Being honest with the ones you love. Being kind to yourself.

You call your mom and ask her about her day. She went out sailing with some friends, had a really great time. Goodnight, love you, talk to you later. You call your dad and ask about his day. A long day at the office, they still don’t appreciate him like they should. It’s alright, he says, that’s not his whole life. Just glad you’re doing alright. Goodnight, love you, talk to you later. You call a friend and ask if you can come over. Is something wrong, something’s wrong, say no more. You drive to his place. He’s already got the liquor out. Come, sit down, tell me all about it. You don’t know what to tell him, you say your world is falling apart but it’s not really but it really does feel like it right now. “Say no more,” he says without opening his mouth. He pours you both drinks and you talk about high school, that new tv show, oh buddy you shoulda HEARD this motherfucker i had at work the other day! You pass out on his couch and wake up a little less depressed than when you got there. Good morning, I love you, talk to you later. You drive yourself home.