Kristen Hatten<\/p>\n
I was just about to do it, swipe the card and climb the steps and do it, when I saw him.<\/p>\n
No, I thought. Not tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey!\u201d I yelled.<\/p>\n
A human made shadow by fog. I saw him startle and stop. We stood there in the grey soup, looking at each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey!\u201d I yelled again, the soup swallowing up my voice so it sounded flat and weird. \u201cWhat the hell do you think you\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell am I doing? What the hell are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe?\u201d What a jerk. \u201cI\u2019m jumpin\u2019, man. What does it look like I\u2019m doin\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNuh-uh!\u201d The guy\u2019s voice was shrill. He sounded angry, or scared. \u201cI\u2019m jumpin\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo way! Today\u2019s my day!\u201d<\/p>\n
We were both on the wrong side of the fence. Or the right side, depending on how you looked at it. I wasn\u2019t worried about cops finding out I didn\u2019t have a permit. By the time they figured it out, I\u2019d be dead. Just had to get rid of this jerk.<\/p>\n
The sound of traffic going by right behind us was deafening. The wind was fierce up here.<\/p>\n
I had my journal with me. I was gonna leave it up there so they would find it. As I walked toward the jerk, I flipped in the pages of my journal. Then I held it up in front of me, two inches from his stupid face.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat does that say?\u201d<\/p>\n
The guy was young and skinny. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and a black pea-coat and a pair of retro black-and-white checkered Vans. His hair was dyed black and cut so that it made his face look extra stupid. He pushed his black-framed glasses up on his nose and gave me a sullen look before he focused on the page in front of his face. He read out loud in a dull monotone: \u201cI\u2019m gonna do it on her birthday. October eleventh. I want them to know why I did it. I want them to — \u201d<\/p>\n
I snapped the journal closed, almost catching his sharp little nose in it. He flinched.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee?\u201d I said. \u201cToday\u2019s my day.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned around and started walking back to the spot. I looked down and saw the wake of some yuppie\u2019s expensive sailboat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doin\u2019 it anyway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I wheeled around. \u201cYou are not!\u201d I said. \u201cThat is not fair! Today is my day! I showed you the journal!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because I don\u2019t have a journal doesn\u2019t mean I shouldn\u2019t get to do it. You don\u2019t understand, man. I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, so am I.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, so am I.\u201d<\/p>\n
We stood there. I wasn\u2019t gonna jump if this little weasel was gonna jump. This was my day.<\/p>\n
What to do? Beat him unconscious?<\/p>\n
Then the thought occurred to me: pay him off. I had five thousand and sixty-two dollars in the bank I didn\u2019t need. Barely enough for a month\u2019s rent on my crappy apartment, but maybe.<\/p>\n
I opened my mouth to offer him the money when I heard someone shouting from across the bridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeeeey!\u201d someone was shouting.<\/p>\n
The weasel and I both looked over. We couldn\u2019t see anything. It was too foggy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it the cops?\u201d asked the weasel.<\/p>\n
I snorted. \u201cYeah,\u201d I said. \u201cThe cops are gonna stand over there and yell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have a permit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I ignored him.<\/p>\n
We saw the guy emerge out of the fog like a ghost: a quick ghost. He was running to beat the traffic. I kept expecting to hear the screech of brakes, the thud as somebody barreled into him. The cars really zinged by up here.<\/p>\n
He was out of breath when he reached us. He leaned over on his knees: a fat black guy in his 40s, maybe 50s. A yuppie in a suit. The top of his hair had grayed in a weird circle. The weasel and I looked at each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell are you doing here?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeard you guys — \u201d he said. He was out of breath. He held up one finger, straightened up. \u201cHeard you guys arguing.\u201d His lips puffed in and out.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo?\u201d said Weasel.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t do it — \u201d said the fat black guy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d I yelled. We had to yell to be heard over the traffic and the wind. Also I was pissed.<\/p>\n
He still hadn\u2019t gotten his breath back.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy night,\u201d he puffed.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sayin\u2019 what I think you\u2019re sayin\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOctober eleventh,\u201d he said, arming sweat off his face. \u201cDay my little boy died last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t believe it. \u201cWell, boo-hoo,\u201d I said. \u201cI was here first.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, man,\u201d said Fatty, still panting. \u201cBeen here for hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDammit!\u201d I said. I started to pace. What was I gonna do now? Pay \u2018em both off?<\/p>\n
\u201cLook,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019ll give you each two thousand dollars if you wait till tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weasel snorted. Fatty laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you kidding?\u201d he said. Now that he had wind his voice was loud and booming in the fog.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m not kidding,\u201d I said. I lit a cigarette. I smoke a lot when I\u2019m nervous. \u201cWhat\u2019s one more day? You\u2019ll still die tomorrow, and you can give your wife or whoever two thousand bucks to get drunk on after your funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife\u2019s dead,\u201d said Fatty.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr whoever,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not married,\u201d said Weasel.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr whoever!\u201d I yelled at him. I pulled out my iPhone. \u201cI\u2019ll transfer it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want your money,\u201d said Fatty.<\/p>\n
Dammit. I should have known this was gonna happen. Last year 1,066 people jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I mean, it had been ramping up for decades, but the Overpopulation Act of 2054 opened the floodgates. Suicides\u2019 families were given tax exemptions and entered into exclusive drawings. Mary Chase\u2019s mom had won an iCar, but she still hadn\u2019t learned how to fly it.<\/p>\n
You could also get abortions free on demand. That got you into the drawings, too.<\/p>\n
The city of San Francisco had gates installed in the fences blocking tourists from the rust-red structure of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now all you had to do was step right through. It was encouraged. But you were supposed to take certain steps, get your permit, etcetera. The city was making a lot of money off suicides.<\/p>\n
But if I was gonna do it, I didn\u2019t wanna do it with a bunch of other jerks. One thousand sixty-six a year averaged to around three a day, but the holidays ate up a lot of those. Around Christmastime, the Exit Ports were crowded. Tourists would stand back and take pictures of people jumping. If you got a really good one, it might get on ExitPorn.com.<\/p>\n
I wanted to be the only one tonight. And apparently, so did Weasel and Fatty. It made me angry. I wanted to yell at them for being selfish. I wanted to tell them what we\u2019re all supposed to know: that death is profound or whatever, but individual deaths are not that big of a deal and we should just get it over with so there will be more resources for everyone else.<\/p>\n
But I couldn\u2019t yell at them without yelling at myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d I said. \u201cWe\u2019ll flip for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weasel and Fatty looked at each other. Weasel shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d said Fatty. \u201cIt\u2019s the only fair way, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took a coin out of my pocket. I had put a lot of \u2018em in there to make sure I sank fast. It was against the rules because it was extra work for the Exit Crew, but that\u2019s what I wanted. Extra time. Spent on me. My death.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll do best three outta five,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
A few seconds later Fatty was cursing and stamping, and Weasel was shaking his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, you agreed to it,\u201d I said. \u201cSee you gentlemen on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weasel made a scoffing sound. \u201cOther side,\u201d he said, sneering.<\/p>\n
I opened the gate and headed back to my spot. I pulled the card from my pocket. It was sapphire blue and had nothing on it but a numeral 6 in raised silver on the bottom right-hand corner. I took a deep breath and swiped it through the card reader. The little light immediately glowed green and I went through the gate.<\/p>\n
So the rumors on the ExiTalk forums were true: you could re-use a card.<\/p>\n
I had found this one in Mary\u2019s wallet, in her little turquoise canvas purse that was still hanging across her body when they dragged her grey corpse from the frigid water. The strap had been tangled in her hair. I knew because when I saw the purse, lying on her dresser in her bedroom, I could see the long, gleaming blonde strands twisted around the strap.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t ask her mom if I could have the card. I just took it. And a strand of her hair. It was in a tiny ziploc bag, the kind drug dealers use, in the right front pocket of my jeans.<\/p>\n
I was clutching it as I climbed the steps to the Exit Post. All of me was cold but my hands, which sweated.<\/p>\n
There were thirteen of them. Not my hands — the Exit Posts. One every hundred meters of the main span. I looked down at the water. One lonely boat sailed past underneath me, headed for the ocean. I could see the soft light from an iFilm coming out of the cabin. It looked warm in there and my teeth were chattering. To my right and far below tourists snapped pics and holos from the banks. I could actually hear the buzz and whir of their holocams. A little kid was laughing. What was he doing out so late?<\/p>\n
It was so cold. The wind. I tried to focus all my attention on the palms of my hands, shoved in my pockets and so hot they felt like they glowed.<\/p>\n
I turned and looked down. Weasel and Fatty were standing there looking up at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell are you lookin\u2019 at?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
They said nothing. Their faces were blank. I turned back to the water. I couldn\u2019t imagine how cold it would be. I had thought of it, but I couldn\u2019t imagine it. Would I feel it, I wondered, the shock of the icy water punishing my skin, filling my lungs?<\/p>\n
I remembered what Mary Chase had told me right before she did it. She was looking at her hair in the mirror. \u201cOnce you breathe in, it\u2019s peaceful.\u201d She had been to one of the seminars. \u201cIf you breathe in right away, it feels like nothing at all, just going to sleep. But if you fight it and try to hold on, that\u2019s what makes it hard. Just — \u201d She took a deep breath, with a peaceful look on her face, and let it out. \u201c — breathe,\u201d she said. She smiled at me.<\/p>\n
She went the next day, at this very Exit Post. Number six.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t dumb. She wasn\u2019t lost. She was brilliant. And not beautiful, but incredible to look at. The light in her eyes? It was tremendous. She was going to be a scientist. Instead she decided dying was the only moral thing to do in these times. So she went ahead and died.<\/p>\n
I admired her conviction, but I didn\u2019t have it. I was just sad. Too sad to live.<\/p>\n
To my left there was a glossy flat black screen. I touched it and it lit up. I could see greasy fingerprints all over it. I could feel Weasel and Fatty down there, watching, but I was going to take my time. This was my night.<\/p>\n
The screen glowed sapphire blue. Then a 2D image of the bridge during the day, bright and beautiful, cars streaming across and above it. Glorious music played, a Celtic harp or something.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for choosing the Golden Gate Bridge as the point from which you\u2019ll exit this life. You have chosen Exit Post number\u201d — a very slight pause — \u201dSix.\u201d The voice was warm, female, soothing. As it spoke about the dignity of ending one\u2019s own life, images of human beings faded in and then out again, with dates at the bottoms. One date per person.<\/p>\n
Herbert Voorhies, June 11, 2060. Celeste Williams, April 17, 2059.<\/p>\n
Then her face came up. I stopped breathing. She was wearing a mortarboard and smiling. The picture from when she graduated from Berkeley. The words said: Mary Chase, January 30, 2061.<\/p>\n
\u201cOctober eleventh,\u201d I said out loud to no one. \u201cOctober eleventh, 2037.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wind was suddenly very cold on my face, and I tasted snot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the day she was born?\u201d I asked the water.<\/p>\n
Now the woman\u2019s voice was inviting me to choose a prayer if I was so inclined. I reached out with my left hand, without thinking, and punched the screen. \u201cYou have chosen a Buddhist chant,\u201d murmured the voice. \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anonymous voices started to drone in Pali like a million baritone wasps.<\/p>\n
I rubbed my sore knuckles and looked at the water. It looked far away, and dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould we speed this up?\u201d yelled a voice. It was a cop. He was standing down there with Weasel and Fatty. I hadn\u2019t even heard him come up. His iCycle whirred in a little pool of purple light.<\/p>\n
\u201cGot a permit?\u201d the cop yelled.<\/p>\n
I turned back to the water. \u201cNo!\u201d I yelled.<\/p>\n
I heard a click and whirr as the cop activated his iStik. \u201cCome on down from there!\u201d he yelled. \u201cCan\u2019t jump without a permit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sneered back over my shoulder at him. \u201cWhat are you gonna do, kill me?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
I saw his face. The fog was soup-thick, but I swear I saw his face, and that\u2019s what made me do it. Because what I saw in his face was this: he didn\u2019t give a damn if I did it or not.<\/p>\n
Why was this a revelation? It wasn\u2019t. Nobody cared if anybody did it, unless it was somebody they knew. It meant more food, more room, more everything for everybody. When somebody jumped, you might shake your head, but then you said what you\u2019d heard everywhere from everyone: \u201cIf we get below nine billion, they can start letting people off Europa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing up there, tasting the salt, hearing the cop climb the ladder behind me, I didn\u2019t care if those people rotted on Europa. I thought back over the past several months and I couldn\u2019t remember making the decision to jump. After a while, if you mention it to people, if you\u2019re sad for long enough, it becomes a foregone conclusion. My mother cried the first few times I brought it up, but she\u2019d been treating me like I was already dead for months. When I called her the day before, she had sounded surprised, even disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeter, is that you?\u201d she said. \u201cI thought you jumped.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow,\u201d I said. \u201cMary\u2019s birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAwww,\u201d she said, pulling a face. \u201cThat\u2019s very thoughtful of you, Pete. I\u2019m sure Mr. and Mrs. Chase will appreciate the gesture.\u201d Behind her I could see Dad watching an old 2D that had been converted to holo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s Dad watching?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome old thing,\u201d said Mom, squinching her nose. She had the typical bourgeois hatred of anything old, including Dad. \u201cIt\u2019s called The Virgin Suicides<\/i>. Have you heard of it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. If she had made any connection between the movie and what I was about to do, she didn\u2019t let on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s it about?\u201d I asked her. I knew because I read the book, but I had nothing to say. And since it was our last conversation, I figured I ought to say something.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, Pete. Virgins committing suicide, I imagine.\u201d she said. She rubbed her elbows and looked vaguely embarrassed.<\/p>\n
\u201cMary was a virgin,\u201d I said, for no reason.<\/p>\n
She looked at me blankly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat, honey?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d I said. I took a deep breath and felt something plugging my throat and stinging the backs of my eyes. \u201cI guess this is goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom smiled at me warmly. \u201cGoodbye, darling,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll look for you on ExiTalk. All the girls at work — \u201d<\/p>\n
But I had signed off. I couldn\u2019t look at her anymore.<\/p>\n
Now the damned cop was climbing the ladder behind me and I had that same feeling in my throat. I couldn\u2019t swallow it. The cop was standing behind me on the platform. I could feel the faint hum of the iStik.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust clobber me and kick me off,\u201d I said, looking at the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoesn\u2019t work that way, buddy,\u201d he said. \u201cTurn around.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned around.<\/p>\n
I turned around, I saw that look on his face.<\/p>\n
I turned around, I saw that look on his face that said this: I don\u2019t care. You don\u2019t matter. Jump. Jump, stranger. Who are you to me? If we get below nine billion they\u2019ll start letting people off Europa.<\/p>\n
So I jumped.<\/p>\n
I jumped backwards, pushing off with my legs as hard as I could. I felt the muscles flex in my thighs. I heard the wind blow past my ears. I saw the cop\u2019s expressionless face get smaller and disappear behind the rust-red beam. It only takes four seconds to hit the water, but before I did, he had already turned away, bored.<\/p>\n
When his face was gone, I closed my eyes and pictured it, the face that said I don\u2019t care. Jump. I don\u2019t care. Jump. If I held that face in my mind it was going to be easy. If I did what Mary said, if I just breathed in, it would be a real breeze.<\/p>\n
I squeezed my butt cheeks together. I didn\u2019t want water to shoot into me and puree my intestines. I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d feel it, or why I should care, but I did. I put my hands by my sides and pointed my toes and made myself a straight, hard arrow slicing into the water.<\/p>\n
I felt myself go in. Later, I looked it up, and found out I hit going about 120 kilometers per hour. I remember thinking, it does hurt. It does hurt. It was the cold that hurt. It was like being enveloped in cut. As though all of your skin was a cut, all at once. I opened my eyes.<\/p>\n
Breathe in, I said to myself. You\u2019re not dead yet. Breathe in. Breathe in. Breathe in the water and it will all be over.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t breathe in. I wanted to. Something wouldn\u2019t let me do it. It was survival instinct. They\u2019d done all they could to train it out of us, but we still had it.<\/p>\n
And it was something else, too. A voice. No, not a voice. More of a hum in my head, and a violet light behind my eyes, and Mary. Mary with that peaceful look on her face, telling me to breathe.<\/p>\n
Then all the peacefulness left me in an instant. All the violet light and the hum — gone. Only rage was left. I wanted to open my mouth and scream at Mary with a sound louder than the trumpets of the angels in a heaven that didn\u2019t want me: NO! I wanted to scream it at her with all the energy I had ever used in my lifetime, gather it all back into me and roar NO at her with the nuclear rage of our raging, dying sun.<\/p>\n
NO.<\/p>\n
I thought NO. I was NO. I had never been anything but NO. It was the only thought I had. I had never had another thought or known another word.<\/p>\n
I swam for the surface.<\/p>\n
In the books they say, My lungs were screaming. I know what that means now. They say, My lungs were bursting. I know what that means now.<\/p>\n
Einstein said time is relative. I know what that means now.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how long it took me to reach the surface, but if I had to guess, I\u2019d say about six hours.<\/p>\n
My head broke the water and I made a horrible gasping sound when I breathed in air. I breathed for a few seconds and let the cold slash at me. To my left I could hear something: a few tourists out. They were clapping. I could hear the click and whir of their holocams.<\/p>\n
NO.<\/p>\n
I looked up at the glowing blue 6 that marked the Exit Post I had jumped from. It was the only thing visible through the fog. The bridge was gone in a thick grey soup. It may as well have not even been there at all. I imagined the cop up there, talking into his iPhone, summoning the Exit Patrol.<\/p>\n
NO.<\/p>\n
I decided since I was still alive I would go ahead and make for the shore before I got hypothermia and died anyway. I floated on my back mostly, and half-heartedly pushed myself along. I was tired. None of my body parts wanted to move. I didn\u2019t feel one way or the other about it. I just felt NO.<\/p>\n
Some tourists helped fish me out of the water. They asked me if I was okay. One of them was whispering the word \u201cmiracle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. But that\u2019s all I said. I didn\u2019t feel like explaining.<\/p>\n
The earth felt good, so good. I sat down on it and shook from the cold. When the Exit Patrol got there, they looked annoyed. Used to be, about five percent of Golden Gate jumpers lived. But now they had the seminars, where they taught you how to do it right.<\/p>\n
But I didn\u2019t go to the seminar. I didn\u2019t get a permit.<\/p>\n
I was placed under arrest by the bored cop. His eyes were deader than I\u2019d ever be. I asked why he was arresting me. \u201cFailure to obtain the proper licensure for the commission of suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge,\u201d he said in a tired voice. The paramedics on the Exit Crew put me in the ambulance, took my sopping clothes, and wrapped me naked in some shiny metal stuff, to make sure I didn\u2019t die of hypothermia.<\/p>\n
I asked them to take the sapphire blue card and the little drug dealer bag out of my pocket and give it to me, but they said no. Then the cop handcuffed me to the stretcher.<\/p>\n
The dark spell had not left me. I still felt the roaring NO inside me. I was going to the hospital, then maybe to jail. I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
My mom would be disappointed. I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes and thought of Mary. Had it been sweet for her? I hoped so. I hoped she had not been sliced at by the cold, had not felt her lungs screaming or bursting.<\/p>\n
When I opened my eyes Weasel was in the ambulance with me. He handed me my journal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks,\u201d I said. I tucked it against my wet body, under the shiny metal stuff. I thought about the entry I would make later. It would say: \u201cNO.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other guy jumped,\u201d he said. \u201cHe had a permit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I shrugged. \u201cGuess it wasn\u2019t my night after all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The medics made Weasel leave. My eyes were closing. I couldn\u2019t see it through my eyelids, through the ambulance, through the fog, but down below in the bay: a bright cluster of movement. They were pulling Fatty out of the water.<\/p>\n
KRISTEN HATTEN<\/b> is a blogger at Chronicles of Radness. She has been writing since she was six years old. She is now considerably older but still enjoys chocolate milk and cartoons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kristen Hatten I was just about to do it, swipe the card and climb the steps and do it, when I saw him. No, I thought. Not tonight. \u201cHey!\u201d I yelled. A human made shadow by fog. I saw him … Continue reading