The goofy Great Pumpkin grin.
Jack Ketchum
E PUT THE PHONE down in its cradle on the desk and sat back in the wooden armchair—its springs creaked. The springs annoyed him. If he held on to this job for any time at all he’d have to remember to bring in the 3-in-1 oil.
In his crossword puzzle he was stuck on a nine-letter word for shapeless. All he had was a final s.
Four calls, he thought, in a little over two hours, the first two hours of his very first solo shift. Damn! People were depressed these days. He’d taken the training and asked a few questions but obviously he hadn’t asked one of the important ones—just what was the volume anyway?
He hadn’t expected it to be this heavy.
If grief were cash he’d be looking at a windfall here.
Could be it was the storm outside. A heavy cold March rainfall. He could hear it pounding at the windows of the Y. The storm wanted in.
A low barometer was called a depression, wasn’t it?
He wondered if there was a connection.
Connection. Another interesting word, given what he was doing.
He was considering an expressly forbidden trip to the men’s room for a Winston when the phone rang again.
“Crisis Center Hotline,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve been...I’m thinking that...”
The voice was agitated, thin. Male.
“Yes?”
“I’m thinking that maybe I ought to kill myself.”
“Why would you want to do that, sir? Talk to me about it. That’s what I’m here for.”
He sighed. “Okay. All right. It’s been nine whole months since Barbara left and I still can’t put it behind me—that last conversation, those last couple of days, I still can’t stop thinking about her. Jesus, nine whole months! You’d think I’d be over it by now, wouldn’t you? What do you call it? Reconciled? I mean, people have babies in nine months! I get up in the morning and the first thing I do is check my e-mail, thinking maybe there’ll be a message from her. Something. There never is. I’m constantly depressed. My sleep-pattern’s a goddamn wreck. I don’t eat enough, I drink too much. I can’t seem to decide what to do with myself, y’know?”
“You can’t get control of things.”
“That’s right. That’s it exactly. Everything’s out of control. You should see me. You really should. I’m a mess! I’ve gained weight, my immune system’s all shot to hell—I’ve had three colds already this year, herpes sores, the whole bit. Half the time I don’t even bother shaving. I can’t get into my work god knows...”
“What do you do for a living, sir? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I’m a painter.”
“A housepainter?”
“No, I paint. I do magazine and book covers. And my own fine art. I’ve got a gallery here and there. But I can’t seem to give a damn about any of it anymore.”
“You’ve lost contact with a lot of your friends, am I right?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you taking risks? I mean unnecessary risks?”
“Hell, yes. I had to drive into Portland last weekend to pick up some materials, some supplies, you know? Twice I walked into oncoming traffic! Then driving back here I had the Buick up to seventy and...well, do you know the area up north of there?”
“Yes, sir, I do, sir. Lived in this area all my life.”
“Well, then you know all these blind hills, all these hairpin turns along route 80. A dog, a cat, another car—any one of them could have sent me off the road. I’m not even that good a driver. Look, please don’t call me ‘sir,’ okay?”
“All right.”
“No offense.”
“None taken.”
“It reminds me of my father.”
“Your father?”
“He always wanted us to call him ‘sir.’ Know what I mean? So I’m supposed to be a painter, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, what I’m just trying to say here, it seems as though since Barbara left, everything’s completely drained of color. Everything’s gray. No color at all. It’s like the best of me, of my life, she took away with her. Like she took something I honestly can’t get back again. That I’ll never get back again. Like there’s no point. Like the best of me’s past and gone now. You see what I’m saying?”
“You can’t stop the pain. And you can’t see a future without it.”
“That’s right.”
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. The chair creaked again. The rain pounded. They’d told him during the training sessions that just the act of talking to someone could temporarily change perspective, offer a reprieve, that simple human contact actually had the power to alter brain chemistry. He didn’t know if he believed that but it was time to get cracking.
“Can I ask you, have you given any thought to how you might do this?”
“Do what? Take my life?”
“Yes. You don’t have any guns in the house, do you?”
“No.”
“That’s good. How then?”
“I...I don’t know.”
“I bet you can’t guess what I used to do for a living.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m retired. You know what I used to do for a living?”
“What.”
“I was a cop.”
“A cop?”
“That’s right. Twenty-four years on the highway patrol.”
“Really?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t get it. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because over twenty-four years you see things. A lot of things you don’t necessarily want to see. You know in some states attempted suicide’s still against the law? It is. And there’s a reason for that. Do you know what you goddamn people put us through? You jump off a bridge, we find you gray and blue and bloated in the water. We pick you up, good chance you’re gonna explode in our faces or fall the hell apart in our hands. Blow your head off and we pick pieces of you out of the carpet or the grass or scrape what passes for your brains off the goddamn walls. Take a dive off a building you maybe kill a pedestrian, whoops, sorry! We got to figure out who the fuck’s who. We pack you in bags, wipe away your vomit and shit and your piss. You miserable sonovabitch. You make somebody else pick up your cold dead guts and you think you’re worth the trouble. You want to die? You piece of shit I ought to kill you! I’d at least be cleaning up my own mess! My mess! Oh, you’re such a nice guy, you’re hurting, my fucking heart goes out to you!”
He could almost hear the pulse racing on the other end of the line and then it went dead. Same as the last four—though the teenage kid had hung up on him halfway through when he told him to stop sucking at his mother’s tit. The little prick.
He replaced the receiver.
He knew this couldn’t last. How could it? Somewhere along the line somebody, one of these goddamn whiners, was going to decide complaining about him was worth living for and that would be the end of it.
Meantime he figured he was doing a lot of good here.
He suspected he was probably batting four out of five.
He doubted the kid would off himself but then he doubted he’d be the one to do any complaining either.
It was time for that smoke. Hell, he was a volunteer. Screw the rules. He got out of the chair and left the office and walked down the empty hall to the men’s room, sat in a stall that still reeked of the janitor’s morning Lysol and lit up. He listened to the rain and wind outside. He got into a coughing fit, which served to remind him he had only one lung left which was why he’d left the HP in the first place. He wondered what he’d do with himself once they kicked him off this job.
Find another crisis center? They sure weren’t in short supply.