Chapter Six
Biology and Facial Education passed without any notable disasters, except that he definitively failed a pop quiz on the tongue of Gene Simmons. Nobody spoke to Danny and he didn’t spot Barbetta in the hall between classes. He felt everyone watching him and whispering behind his back. Of course, they anticipated his accident. He considered visiting Doom McCray, his head coach, or an academic counselor for advice, but he knew they would tell him the same old thing… how conceiving a wreck is a personal matter and any advice from staff members made the school liable in the event of death. He needed to pull himself up by the bootstraps. He didn’t want to conjure any doubt about his ability to lead Heavy Metal High to victory.
After seventh period, Danny walked out to the bus lot and got on bus #34. He plopped down in an empty seat near the front. The faux leather scorched his back and thighs. Although the school bus had no air conditioning, Danny preferred the heat to the company of his peers and the brooding ferocity of his father. Along the ride, he listened to Elf, the gods of blues rock and Ronnie James’ first band.
Dan Sr. was a sullen man and a drunk. He wrote for the sports page of the local paper and occasionally picked up freelance work. When Danny’s mother died of breast cancer during his freshman year, Dan Sr. lost all interest in his son. He made arrangements with the paper to write his articles from home, which he did during the four or five hours he managed to stay sober each day. Since Danny typically arrived home around four, he had not seen his father sober on a school day in three years.
But when he walked through the door on this unusual Friday, his father greeted him with a big lycanthropic hug.
Danny detected no alcohol on his father’s clothes or breath.
“Dean Hellfrost called me this morning. Congratulations, son. I always knew you’d be a champ.” His fur smelled sour, his liver was probably too damaged to ever be repaired, but at least he was alive for this moment.
“But dad, I—”
“Take it to state,” the sallow, yellow-haired werewolf marched around the living room, “take it to state, my boy!”
Danny tried to recall the last time he saw his father so animated. It saddened him to think that he would shrink back into alcoholic despair if Heavy Metal lost the game.
“I need to come up with an accident,” he said.
Dan Sr. paused in mid-celebration. “An accident?
You’re seventeen years old and you haven’t staged an accident? Where have you wasted your time? This is the most important day of your life! If Violet saw what a dumbass I’d raised our son to be.”
Danny’s father started to shake all over. He ran out of the room. How the potbellied werewolf lost faith so fast total y crushed Danny. He took off his backpack and left the house as the cry of breaking glass yielded to the howls of his father.
Out on the sidewalk, he watched car after car pass him by. He could jump in front of an SUV, but half the players on his team had already done that. The role of quarterback demanded more flair.
He was so stupid. He’d been so close to regaining his father’s love, but within minutes of standing in the same room together, everything returned to disrepair. “I guess that’s the natural way of things,” Danny said.
The absurdity of hearing himself say such a pitiful thing struck a chord in his mind. If he was too much of a loser to perform an epic accident, then fuck football and Heavy Metal, fuck accidents and all other forms of life.
Wasn’t it the great fortune of every creature on the planet to be born inherently worthless? He resolved to give the metalheads a suicide nobody would ever forget.
Chapter Seven
He went inside the house again, heading straight for the garage. He thought about Barbetta. He doubted that snuffing himself out would make her give a rat’s ass, but he no longer cared.
He switched on the garage light and found a chainsaw and some rope. He climbed inside his father’s truck.
He slipped his walkman from the pocket of his cutoff jeans and plugged it into the stereo. He took the spare key from a plastic clip on the sun visor.
He chose Sunset Superman from Dio’s Dream Evil to kick off his farewell soundtrack. The rest of the mix consisted of songs from Rainbow’s Rising, Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, and the entirety of Holy Diver, the greatest album of all time.
He fashioned a noose and turned on the truck before slipping the rope over his head. To die by the dual means of choking and decapitation would require expert timing.
The chainsaw sat beside him on the bench-style seat.
He ran his fingers over the blade, fearless and without any regrets. He laughed a bit, thinking how everything in life worked out so strangely. He never viewed himself as the suicidal type, although maybe that was how others saw him. Danny never felt safe in his judgments of himself.
Petting the chainsaw, he lost himself in the scripture of Sunset Superman. “A shadow without a name, but when he wakes up in the morning, he just won’t know he was a hero… trying to hide his burning heart before somebody cuts it all away.”
Tightening the noose, he lost himself in the crunchy sweet guitar of Craig Goldy.
It felt like the truck was rising, levitating beyond the 88 roof of the garage to meet the black pixels of space.
The noose constricted his breathing.
He rasped for air. He struggled to lift the chainsaw. So heavy, oh so heavy. The blade spun round and round.
Sunset Superman!
The door leading to the garage opened. Danny’s father stood in the doorway. He shouted, but Danny heard nothing, for the music and the chainsaw were so loud. He knew he must prevent his father from foiling his suicide.
His father staggered toward the truck and pried at the driver’s side door. The drunken man balled his hands into fists and punched the window, first with a left and quickly following with a right, but the glass held strong under the drunk man’s blows. Danny balanced the whining chainsaw between his legs and shifted the truck into reverse.
He slammed on the gas pedal. The truck pummeled through the garage door. Danny loosened the rope around his neck. He breathed deeply, relief filling his lungs. He killed the chainsaw’s motor and sped out of the neighbor-hood to the cue of Sabbath’s Die Young, heading toward the highway. The bustle of rush hour could ensure him a glorious death.
Chapter Eight
He hit the highway going ninety and only pushed it harder from there. The tape player did a weird thing. It stopped playing Die Young and switched to Dio’s Holy Diver.
Some sort of ghostly transference. Real metal shit.
Danny couldn’t fuss with the tape right then. He only learned to drive recently and he had a chainsaw between his legs.
He merged into the middle lane and honked at a puttering Chevy. He sped up to within a foot of the truck’s bumper and swerved into the left lane, too late to avoid forcing a black VW bug into oncoming traffic. Danny overcorrected, briefly returning to the center lane before losing control and following the bug through a web of southbound vehicles.
Out of fear, he let the chainsaw slip from between his legs. Falling to the floorboard, it quickly spun out of control and severed his legs at the ankles.
Danny screamed. He realized he would have his accident now, but it was no longer a prize he wanted. Did he ever want it in the first place? He no longer knew.