Suicide Isn’t Painless

With a bottle of whiskey dangling precariously between my fingers, I walked past my roommate late one night as he watched television in the living room.

I stumbled out into the front lawn and grabbed the garden hose, coiled up like a sleeping snake tucked up under the spigot. I unhooked the hose, dragging it through the grass toward my truck parked next to the lawn.   

I then grabbed a roll of duct tape from out of my truck, securing one end of the hose to the exhaust pipe. I ran the other end of the hose to the passenger-side window, sealing it with copious layers of duct tape.

Tossing the roll of tape aside, I jumped into the cab of my truck and took a pull from the whiskey bottle. I was fully prepared to turn the engine on, fall asleep, and never wake up again.

I’ve mentioned before how the thought of suicide has always brought me much comfort. Back then, it would have ended what felt like permanent isolation born out of my self-hatred for being gay. I would no longer have to worry about being kicked out of the military under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

I would no longer be an abomination in the eyes of God and his followers. I felt I didn’t deserve any compassion or forgiveness or kindness, my depression punishment for being a heathen homo.

After wiping a few tears from my face with the back of my hand, I closed my eyes, pushed in the clutch, and turned the ignition. The truck’s 5.2 liter, V8 engine roared to life.

But in my desperation, I forgot that my roommate had watered the lawn earlier that day, leaving residual water in the hose. A sudden splash of frigid water smacked me hard in the face. I went from being lonely and suicidal to being lonely and suicidal and cold.

I started to laugh. Then I cried. Then I laid myself down across the now-wet bench seat in my truck and started doing that weird, simultaneous laugh-cry.  The engine was still running, pumping toxic gases into the cab. And as I lay there, waterlogged and waiting to die, my thoughts began to drift. I thought about my roommate finding me in the morning. Who would call my parents? My brother?

I remembered how my older brother protected me from bullies in high school.  There was one summer he let me hang out with him and his friends when they went camping near Eleven Mile Lake. He used to read to me when I was a kid.

I’ve always found the notion that suicide is selfish to be a gross oversimplification — but I’m not blind to suicide fallout.

My death would have devastated my brother, so I reluctantly reached up and turned the ignition off. The truck shuddered a bit as the engine died. I continued to lay there and shiver.

I often ask myself what would have happened had my roommate not watered the lawn that day. (Honestly, there are still days I wish he hadn’t.) But I got to spend one night this summer hanging out with my brother, drinking beer, and playing original, 8-bit Nintendo games … and I’ve never been so thankful for my roommate’s judicious attention to lawn care.