SUICIDE

Like you, I apply more effort than I can comfortably afford (on a delivery boy’s salary) struggling to dis-remember an uncomfortable collection of mortal nightmares. Most of the life-horrors I personally own, stem from the good old days of trying to get my broke ass an education. Even after innumerable electro-shock treatments and thousands of dollars fleeced in the tar-pits of psychotherapy, I have been unsuccessful in my efforts to rattle-loose the death-grip-memory of a creative writing class with Professor Adolph Borski. I am sure the professor was, in a parallel universe, an exceptionally brilliant man. But here in the 3^rd dimension of good old terra firma, he was simply a nut job. Over time I came to feel affection for and appreciate him not unlike an abscised tooth. Professor Borski inadvertently made a name for himself by inscribing an “academic best seller” not too bashfully titled: The Modus of Improvisational Composition. One of the ridiculous end-products of his Merlin-like success was chalking up a gig “teaching” a class on the topic at our school.

Being a sucker for any required elective that smelled effortless, I signed up right away. Professor Borski however, did not. In fact, the first three weeks of class he didn’t poke his head in the class a single time. Instead, he would messenger over a video tape of his lectures. All of which were over the top, bombastic sermons explaining his theories on telepathically channeling the forth dimension and writing complete works; without the anchor of re-writes or editing. In fact, Professor B. contended Moby Dick could have been written in one sitting provided one had the physical stamina or enough cocaine to stay awake for three days straight.

When Borski did grace us with his presence, he would defiantly waltz into the lecture hall donning a burgundy French beret, fake Salvador Dali mustache and carried a dozen different bottles of Rhone wines. The entire herd of over zealous students would subsequently park in a corner, get smashed, and irrelevantly discuss writing. Not doing it, but talking a mean blue streak about doing it. The net result: we became experts on French wines and running our big mouths about the art of literary composition. But again, burdening the effort to do it? Not a chance.

This charade of education went on for untold weeks. Then one sunny yet indelible day, it happened. Borski finally showed up for class without costume or a drop of booze. More miraculous than his enigmatic presence, he at last issued an assignment. An assignment? I nearly pulled out my .22 and shot myself to see if I was dreaming. The only thing that secured my fate was the pure greed to know what the unforeseen mission was. Borski took to the lectern like Stalin and instructed us to write a complete free-form exposition about suicide; without re-writes or editing of any kind.

Within nanoseconds, I had mentally complied a endless list of reasons of why this was a terrible idea... Felo-de-se, is a icy incline for most university students. Considering how many undergraduates have hurdled themselves off the roof of a dormitory or faculty building, I idealistically thought it would be more appropriate if we took a gentle stab at the topic of suicide prevention. But not on Borski’s watch. The always-passionate professor insisted we be unencumbered to write about man or woman snuffing themselves out, in anyway we saw fit. I was compelled to raise my voice and take issue with the numskull project. But I figured any assignment is better than none. Hence, I took this personal defeat on the chin, and decided to make a nice tall test tube of Captain Morgan’s lemonade out of the situation. I opted to write about the students, writing about suicide. Cheesy voyeuristic journalism I know, but hey, I paid money for his inane course and all I wanted was a passing grade

The guys and dolls division in class was about equal. But the racial demographic was so Bunyanesque; it essentially made us the poor man’s United Nations. Not having a clue, or a care where to start, I commenced my research with the course study group. A quintet of the most irritating, arrogant bookworms on campus. The obnoxious little click met after class everyday to discuss the assignments, cheer each other on, and infuriate everyone else with their shameless airs of superiority. I hated them as much as anybody else. Yet, I found myself sucking up to the irksome little brats and beseeching an audience to crash a session of their pedantic cult. And wouldn’t you know it, they were unanimously brainwashed into exploring methods of suicide. Methods. Not prevention. But the shameless promotion of suicide. In a week, they had amassed 167 sure-fire ways to commit Hari Kari. They carefully broke the information down to poetic categories with dainty little titles, such as Messy Methods, Leaving A Neat Cadaver, and Revengeful Felo-de-se. I hazarded to ask Ingrid La Pointe if any of the techniques to take ones life were painless. She looked at me as if I was crackbrained and belly laughed with her pretentious French accent.

“Mon cher, eet ees awe-ways pain-fell when yoo die. Death urts. Eet ees eh fact of lahff!”

Amy X. Lee, a dead ringer for Sandra Oh, and Samara Dhawissha, a dead ringer for Saddam Hussain, were working on a joint project about the brilliance and nobility of suicide. Amy’s uncle was a Kamikaze pilot in WWII. Samar’s brother was a suicide bomber who accidentally blew himself up at a Starbucks in Tele Aviv. The girls felt that suicide out of despair was spineless and sinful. “At least pick a damn cause before you off yourself.” Amy “shared” with us.

Aspiring playwright Tyrone “Newport” Johnston 3rd inscribed the project I found the most inspired and perhaps even helpful to someone. Tyrone created a one-act stage play about a young woman who works on a suicide hotline and is really, really bad at her job. Unerringly, everyone she counsels winds up killing themselves. She plunges into a bottomless depression over her failures and contemplates suicide herself. She finally dials suicide prevention and picks up her own call on another line. Now she is sitting with a phone in each ear grieving and consoling herself. Again, she fails to save the hapless victim and in the end hangs herself with the telephone cord. He envisions the play as a comedy.

Serena Cicchelli did a paper on the people she wishes would commit suicide. The unforgettable rap from her loving dissertation was: “I wish my mother, and my father, my aunt Rose and Reverend Gelberman would all put a 9mm to their temples and blow their brains out. But not my boyfriend. Carlos I want to kill myself.”

Gilbert H. Jon complied a list of famous last words of suicides victims. He began by reading housekeeper Betty Bakemann’s good-bye letter to Lady Katherine Kingsley of Puddingtang England. Ms Bakemann was head custodian at the estate for thirty years.

“My Dear Lady Kingsley. I hate you more than all the citizens of France and cannot bear to be on the same planet with you any longer. So I swiped Mr. Kingsley’s revolver and will shoot myself in the head right here in the parlor. Blood will be spattered everywhere. Have fun cleaning it up.”

The class applauded the reading with a standing ovation and I realized I was going to school with a bunch of bloodthirsty savages. Fortunately the next ‘last words’ were left by former award winning pornographic puppeteer Thomas X. Cardin. His message was at least a little gentler and easier to empathize with.

“Bury my body in Union Square facing Fourteenth Street where I will be able to see all my lying, cheating, backstabbing friends.”

My personal favorite was Norman Harrisburg’s so-long correspondence with whoever might find his body.

“As I hang here from a lamp post, hopefully dead as doornails, please understand I am much happier deceased. In my wallet, you will find fifty dollars. Please pay my hooker Cassandra Brooks.”

As the week rolled on, I began to wonder if any of my fellow classmates, where even thinking that suicide was terrible and unfortunate. Not this week. Sweet and innocent little Joan Chow who barely spoke in class tackled the assignment with bizzarro sensitivity. She wrote a ten thousand-word essay on men who unintentionally died from autoerotic asphyxiation. Painting them as victims of a cruel, but deserving fate.

Indira Padua did the only real research on the cause of this ill-fated pathology, or so I thought. Indira conducted interviews with students at the university who actually attempted suicide. It turned out her lines of questioning were dubious to say the least.

“So you tried to kill yourself. Clearly, you were unsuccessful. You must feel like such a failure.”

In the end, I wound up turning in a paper that was far beyond the reaches of healthy anger. It was an outright psychotic rage about the assignment itself and in particular about Borski. I begged the question; is it not the accountability of our educators to guide their students in the decent moral direction? Is it unfair to asked the educator to take responsibility for actions that may be considered anti-social? Furthermore, isn’t someone else at least partially liable for the actions of a student who other wise would have committed suicide, but instead chose to murder the professor who gave him such a lame ass assignment to begin with?

I read this aloud to the class, who did not grasp the concept at all. This did not stop them however from shouting their distain for my paper and me in particular. I knew right then would I flunk the course and risked being jumped at any given moment. Nonetheless, Borski stood up and began applauding my dissertation.

“Brilliant young man” he said. “I forked out this assignment to see if anybody would be lame-brained enough to do it. And everyone did it with the exception of you.” With careless enthusiasm, he flunked everyone else. This enraged the class so much I had to be escorted from school by the campus police who advised me not to return if I enjoyed life. I took the advice and left town that night.

Recently Professor Borski passed away and I was anonymously mailed an invitation to his funeral. Though the professor is the one that cashed in his ticket, my intuition, and sense of mortal survival tells me it would be my own funeral I would be attending if I went. I chickened out. So you see, the scraps, scars, and bruises from the college days are hard to shake, I am feeling better now. Thank you.