Departing

My departure was scheduled for 4:35 PM. James, my younger brother, offered to drive me to the airport and hang around until it was time to board. I was grateful for the company. But more so I was touched by the gesture. James and I had hardly spoke in the last ten years; not since high school, in fact, when we had a falling out and went our separate ways. You might say I was to blame. You might also say this falling out was the reason I left town and stayed away for the better part of a decade.

James arrived at my motel a few minutes ahead of schedule and insisted on carrying my bags to the car while I finished getting ready. Five minutes later I rushed outside—hair damp, teeth smeared with toothpaste—and bounded to the parking lot below.

James smiled and opened the passenger door. Thanking him, I climbed inside and reached for the seatbelt. As I fastened the buckle, I spotted two safety seats in the back seat. Both were empty—pale blue and littered with cracker crumbs. After high school, I moved to California, while James stayed behind and got a degree in fire science. Soon after, he took a position with the Fire Department, landing one of the older stations near our childhood home. A few years later he met a nice girl, married, and fathered two adorable girls. I met them both for the first time during this trip. And as I stared into the back seat I imagined their smooth, anxious faces smiling back at me—smaller, younger versions of the face now seated to my left.

Traffic was light, so we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to kill. After checking my bags, we took a table at a small cafe and ordered something cold to drink. I had iced coffee. James had water. Having recently become an EMT with the fire department, James adopted a more health conscious attitude toward what did, and did not, enter into his body. Which meant no caffeine, no hard alcohol, and nothing too sweet to drink

As we sipped our drinks I asked James about the details of his job. And he said he mostly sits around the station, waiting for calls while he watches nature shows on TV. Of those calls, he said, most involve drunks and elderly mishaps. But every once in a while, there’s a suicide.

Like most humans I possess a degree of morbid curiosity, and perked right up at the word suicide. “What kind of suicides?” I said, speaking into the lid of my coffee cup.

“All kinds,” he said, then proceeded to relay the more gruesome—and therefore note worthy—ones in the bunch.

He began with the worst. It involved a man who had attempted to poison himself with extra-strength, liquid Drain-O. He said the man siphoned the Drain-O into thirty gelcaps, then swallowed them in succession. After, just to be safe, the man took a handful of sleeping pills and opened the veins in both wrists. Once all this was accomplished, the man positioned himself on his sofa-bed and waited for death to take hold. Lying on his back, eyes closed, he passed from consciousness and proceeded to vomit periodic geysers of blood and stomach bile. These came ever thirty minutes, just long enough for one to dry and another to wash over; creating a thick, red mask over the man’s face and throat. This went on for several hours, James said. But the man did not die.

Eventually the man regained consciousness. And with it, the will to live. James said the man’s neighbor discovered the man staggering around the parking lot of their apartment complex and immediately dialed 911. James’s unit was dispatched. James said he had no trouble finding the man, as his face, chest, and arms were laden with multiple layers of sticky, black blood. James approached the man. The man tried to speak, but his tongue was too swollen, too corroded, to function properly. James said the man died three days later—three long, painful, horrific days later.

James said lots of people mistake household cleansers for lethal, fast-acting poison. They think bleach and antifreeze are no different than arsenic and cyanide. James said it takes several weeks to die from antifreeze. In most cases, he said, the person’s kidneys will give out and they will spend the rest of their life on dialysis.

James said the best way to commit suicide is a shotgun beneath the chin. He said it’s the quickest and most effective method for ending one’s life. And he would know, I guess—having witnessed seven self-inflicted shotgun wounds in the past year alone. In fact, two weeks before I came to visit, he responded to a gruesome suicide involving an older woman and a double barrel Remington. James said he was the first person on the scene—other than the neighbor, of course. (It’s always the neighbor, he said) When James arrived, he found the neighbor slumped against the open door of the victim’s aparment. She was crying and clutching her mouth and it took James several minutes to calm her down. Eventually she directed him to the bathroom, where he located the woman’s body inside the shower stall. It was one of those modest, stand-up showers, he said; no bath tub—just a linen closet lined in white tile. James said the woman put the barrel beneath her chin and pulled the trigger with her toe. He said her face was completely gone, scooped out with a melon-baller and flung against the wall.

I told James I couldn’t believe a person could do that to their friends and family, couldn’t believe they’d leave a ghastly, horrid mess for loved ones to discover. James said most often—in cases of shotgun suicide—the person is too distraught, too heart broken, to recognize feelings other than their own. They care only about visually expressing their pain and anguish to the person who broke their heart. This single desire, he said, supersedes all else.

By now I had finished my coffee and chewed up most of the lid. A voice came over the intercom, reminding passengers not to leave their baggage and personal belongings unattended inside the terminal.

Suddenly I remembered I was one of those passengers. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Fifteen till four,” he said.

“Crap! I better get moving,”

I scrambled to my feet, collected my satchel and slipped it over my shoulder. Calmly, my brother rose from the table and pushed his chair into place. I thanked him for the ride and promised to return the favor one day. He nodded and said it was no problem. Anytime, he said.

It was then I told my brother I loved him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d told him so. Years, probably. Probably sometime prior to high school. But at that moment, standing beneath the lights of the airport terminal, the words fell effortlessly from my lips. As though I said them every day.

Smiling, James took my hand, shook it, and said he loved me too. And rather than bask in the sentiment, I asked if he still had the double barrel our father had given him on his sixteenth birthday. His smile dissolved. He said he did, that it was at home, hidden beneath the bed. Without thinking, I asked if he’d ever thought of using it on himself. And as soon as the question left my lips, I felt my ears grow hot and a wave of regret wash over my entire body. I tried to suck the words back in, but it was too late. They’d already swelled and filled the space between us.

James said nothing for a long time. He just stood there, staring at my heart, touching his tongue to the corner of his lips. Several moments passed. Then, leveling his eyes, he sighed and flushed the words from his throat. “Once,” he said. “But it was a long time ago.”

I nodded. Another announcement flooded the terminal. I tried to make out the words, but the voice was mumbled, unclear. I glanced at the small table. My brother’s cup was still brimming. The ice cubes all but melted away.

“Was it because of me?” I said. “Because of what I did in high school?”

He didn’t answer. He just smiled, then wished me a pleasant flight. And before I could respond, he turned and made for the outside world. I followed halfway, watching from the mezzanine between floors as he descended the last escalator and plunged into a carousel of large revolving doors. Once outside, I lost him in a wash of bright afternoon light. But still I stood, watching, eyes fixed on the whirling panes. Another announcement rained down. I ignored it—my attention locked on the glass, desperate for the image of my younger brother to present itself.

Time passed. Hours. Minutes. But the image never came.