Suicide Dialogue

 

A woman named Clarice sits at the gravestone of Jez Franklin, a friend who died from self hanging recently. She is sad and weeping as she remembers her friend.

Clarice: Why? I Still don’t understand why, even six months later.

Jez appears behind her as she weeps in silence. He looks like he is pondering how to play a joke, but then thinks better of it and shrugs.

Jez: Has it been that long?

Clarice whips around and sees her friend. She is shocked and horrified.

Clarice: Jez! What-how-are you really here?

Jez: You can see me, right?

Clarice: Yes…but can I touch you?

Jez: Well, that would be a first.

Clarice reaches out, but cannot feel his mortal self.

Clarice(sadly): No, I guess you are a ghost.

Jez: Boo.

Clarice (turning angry): That is NOT funny!

Jez: Depends on your perspective! You’re the first person to visit my gravestone since I killed myself, so I think a little humor with my first visitor is rather…ceremonial.

Clarice: If you say so.

(silence for a long moment)

Jez: Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be shoving off for…wherever!

Clarice: Wait! Are you an angel?

Jez: I…don’t think so.

Clarice: Are you a demon from hell?

Jez(laughing): That’s what my brother Mark used to call me! So maybe yeah.

Clarice: That’s what they say at church, that if you kill yourself you go to hell!

Jez: I would say that’s a preconceived notion…completely bullshit.

Clarice: Then what are you?

Jez: I’m really not sure…I’m in what used to be called Limbo, I think….kind of a waiting place.

Clarice: What’s it like?

Jez(looking around): Like here, I guess, when the light of day hits me. Mostly it’s darkness.

Clarice: How often does light hit you?

Jez: Today’s the first. I think it’s because of you.

Clarice: Why do you say that?

Jez: Not sure, but as far as I can tell, you’re the first to visit my grave since I…left. Speaking of which, you were asking a cold lifeless slab of rock why I did leave.

Clarice: Yes.

Jez: How about asking me?

Clarice: I thought I was.

Jez: No, you were asking a gravestone. My dad’s didn’t answer me, either, when he left, so it stands to reason gravestone technology hasn’t advanced much except weather-proofing.

Clarice: So…why?

Jez: It seemed…the right thing to do.

Clarice (angry): That makes NO sense at all! Since when is hanging yourself right?

Jez: Well, I did ponder wrist-slashing…but since I am…WAS…scared of blood, that wouldn’t have worked. We had no guns in the house, so death by gunshot wasn’t likely. Yet, there was a LOT of rope in the garage…the lack of air and the neck-snapping were instantaneous and…painless.

Clarice: No no NO!! I’m not talking about your mode of transportation, I’m talking about ‘the right thing to do’! Suicide is NEVER the right answer!

Jez: But it was…for me.

Clarice: I refuse to believe that!

Jez: Why?

Clarice: Because you loved life so much.

Jez (guffawing): Loved life so much! You silly blind fool! How long had you known me?

Clarice: Since the third grade.

Jez (annoyed): Eight years. What exactly told you that I loved life so damn much?!

Clarice: Well…you were always joking, making others, including me, laugh…you were always riding your bike around…you just seemed like you had it together.

Jez: Yep, that was me, the clown on a bicycle. Where did you get the happiness angle?

Clarice: Well…it just looked that way to me.

Jez (nodding): It looked that way to a lot of people, I suppose. In fact, I looked so fucking happy that nobody really ever asked me how I was doing, more like what I was doing, if I could tell a joke, if they could borrow a pencil from me. I think everyone just assumed I had it all together.

Clarice: OK, so maybe you had a few problems, but-

Jez: A FEW problems! Holy fucking mackerel! You have NO idea about me! Were you at the funeral?

Clarice (looking down in guilt): No, I couldn’t handle it.

Jez: I know, I saw.

Clarice: You were there?

Jez: I was standing right next to that sanctimonious bishop, Father O’Keefe. Listening as he spoke of the horrible tragedy that was my death, the altogether-too-short life of Jezra Franklin, how if I could have gotten some help I might have overcome whatever had struck me! Was I able, I would have taken the noose to HIS damn neck! Would have done that so-called church a lot of good!

Clarice: What’s wrong with Father O’Keefe?

Jez (furious): That son of a bitch laid his hands on me so many times…laid them everywhere!  And not just on me! Oh no! That little shit had his way with so many of us…us boys…on those weekend retreats my mom made me go on!

Clarice: What?!

Jez: And it’s not like nobody knows…just that nobody talks. I could see them in the audience…all those other boys who were ‘counseled’ by him…all with a blank look on their faces. And all those other self-righteous jerks who go every Sunday, playing right into his hands…those fucking hands!

Clarice: No! No! This can’t…

Jez: Can’t what?

Clarice (shocked contemplation): He’s been there for years…nobody knew.

Jez: Oh, NOBODY knew! Right! Those boys know, and they, like me, decided to clam up and let it keep happening, because they’re ‘good Catholic boys’ who don’t want any trouble. (looking down) If that were my only trouble, I wouldn’t be here…wouldn’t not be here to better put it.

Clarice: Then…what else…I don’t know.

Jez: Nobody did. (shrugs) I could have handled it, or at least buried it better, if that had been it. (looks at his Dad’s gravestone nearby) You know, these graves aren’t as cold and lifeless as I made them out to be…they tell.

Clarice: Tell what?

Jez: Who came to visit. My stone says you’re number one…after the burial service, anyway. Now, my dad has just a few more than that. I account for at least two. My mom never did come. (thinking, then turns back to Clarice) You’ve never come to my house, have you?

Clarice: I was never invited.

Jez: Well, you didn’t miss much. In 5^th grade my dad died, cancer. I think after that was when the joking Jez emerged. Everyone probably thought it was puberty. You know, jokes coming with the hairy balls. Just my way of coping.

Clarice: His death hit you pretty hard?

Jez: No. He was a pretty vicious bastard. Hit ME pretty hard, but laid into my brother more than me, though. Loved his scotch and loved his stogies…and loved the brutal power it gave him over his family. For some reason he didn’t touch my mom, though. Like she was the holiest of all.

Clarice: Was she?

Jez: No. Just another blind congregation member, truly blind. I tried to tell her about O’Keefe but she and her new husband sent me to a therapist…a therapist set up by the damn church of all places. You can probably see where that went.

Clarice: Told you to talk to Father O’Keefe?

Jez (laughing): Oh no! He told me it was all my fault, that O’Keefe was a good man and I somehow made him do it…if I was telling the truth, though I think he knew I was asking for honest help. No, this guy told me to keep my mouth shut if I truly believed in God…you know, God loves the meek and silent the best!

Clarice: It’s strange, you say it like you should be angry…but you’re not.

Jez: That’s a perk of death, I guess. The emotions that got me to where I was seemed to have died when my neck snapped.

Clarice: Why didn’t you…ask anyone else for help?

Jez: Who? The school counselor? A teacher? The police? One thing I’ve noticed is that nobody really listens. Most people talk while pushing their screen, they don’t absorb anything that’s not typed out for them in electronic shorthand.

Clarice: What about me?

Jez: What about you?

Clarice: You could have talked to me.

Jez (tilting his head in thought): That’s interesting you say that. I don’t suppose you remember me asking you to any of the dances in 7^th grade? 8^th? I asked you to a movie once or twice, just as a friend. Any of this ring a bell?

Clarice: Well…yeah…but you know, there was always some guy I was going with.

Jez: And going somewhere with the class clown wouldn’t help your ‘image’ whatever that was.

Clarice: Now wait-

Jez (holding up a hand): Oh it’s ok. I’m not angry…I’m not anything really. But you coming here is peculiar for you. Why today?

Clarice (crying): I…missed you today!

Jez: After 6 months? It doesn’t matter, nothing does to me anymore. It’s a strange feeling to be free after dying.

Clarice(growing angry again): Did you think of anyone else when you killed yourself? When you wanted this freedom, did you consider ANYONE ELSE’S feelings?

Jez: Quite honestly…no. I had pain. The pain of being me. My mom and stepdad didn’t get it, my real dad certainly got nothing except scraped knuckles from his title bouts with us. The church turned a cold but knowing eye. The teachers, especially after 5^th grade, couldn’t have cared less, they just can’t wait until the bell rings to get ready for the next class to repeat it.

Clarice: Hey, Mrs Gerhart was cool, she liked all of us!

Jez (shrugging): Maybe. One good one among the apathetic crowd didn’t stand out for me. But…what led me to finally do it? Finally end my pain? Any idea?

Clarice: No, I don’t have any idea anymore about anything.

Jez: Oh please! Quit the pathetic self reflection. My death had nothing to do with you. It had nothing to do with our friends, it had nothing to do with ANYONE….except me. There was no last straw, it had just built up for years. I was done. Done with going through the motions. Done with giving out cheap laughs for an uncaring crowd, done with sitting in a church on Sunday with a family in their own ignorant world.

Clarice: Please stop this! I DID care!

Jez: Maybe you did. But there’s the problem…lots of people ‘care’…that’s an interesting and empty word: care. You want to listen and help…but you don’t know how. I can’t say whether I was giving out help signals or not, but nobody’s really tuned in to anyone anymore. (looks as if he hears something). I think I need to go now.

Clarice: Why?

Jez: I’m not sure. Something is calling me. To where I don’t know. Thanks for listening, Clarice. You know it’s funny, I was feeling some anger earlier, but it’s like the more I talk, the more it just let itself go. I think I AM free now. For the first time you really did hear me…and it’s also the last.

Clarice (smiling a little): I’m sorry for that. What’s calling? Don’t tell me a white light!

Jez: No, just…something…a new home is my guess. Be good.

(Jez walks off. Clarice stares after the direction he went, then smiles at his grave.)

Clarice: Thanks for clearing it up.