We’ve gone back to the custodian’s room. It was inevitable. We understand that now. It’s what we knew would happen. There was no other option. After everything, it’s all there is.
We passed the woodworking and auto classrooms. We went by a door that read Dance Studio. There was another that read Student Council. We saw the drama department. We didn’t try any of those doors. What’s the point? We’ve been walking by these doors on these floors for years. After all this time, even the dust is familiar. We don’t care if they’re clean.
The custodian’s room is ours. It’s where we’re meant to be. In the end, we can’t deny who we are, who we were, where we’ve been. Who we want to be doesn’t matter when there’s no way to get there.
We passed the door to the basement.
This is who we are. Fingernails. Fistfuls of hair. Blood on our own hands.
We saw the photos. The man. We understand. We do. We wish it weren’t true.
Whoever works here, the custodian, he’s not in here. We realize it as we look at his face in the photo. He’s not here anymore. He’s already gone.
It’s us. We’re in here now. With Jake. Just us. Us all alone.
In the car. We never saw the man in the school. The custodian. Only Jake saw him. He wanted us to follow him into the school, to go looking for him. He wanted to be in here with us, with no way out.
Jake’s shoes. In the locker room. He took them off. He took them off himself and left them in the gym. He put on the rubber boots. It was him all along. It was Jake. The man. Because he is Jake. We are. We can’t hold it in any longer. The tears come. Tears again.
His brother. That story about his brother being the troubled one. We think that’s made up. That’s why his dad was so happy we were visiting, that we’d been kind to Jake. He was the troubled one. Jake. Not his brother. There is no brother. There should have been, but there wasn’t. And Jake’s parents? They died a long time ago, like the hair that we can see, the hair that grows on our head, the hair that falls out. It’s already dead. Dead a long time ago.
Jake once told me, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”
JAKE IS BEYOND HELP NOW. He tried. Help never came.
Jake knew we were going to end it. Somehow he knew. We never told him. We were only thinking about it. But he knew. He didn’t want to be alone. He couldn’t face it.
The music starts again, from the beginning. Louder this time. It doesn’t matter. The small closet beside the desk is empty. We push all the empty wire hangers to one side and step in. It’s hard to breathe. It will be better in here. We’ll stay in here, wait. The music stops. It’s quiet. Pure silence. This is where we’ll stay until it’s time.
It’s Jake. It was Jake. We’re in here together. All of us.
Movements, actions, they can mislead or disguise the truth. Actions are, by definition, acted, performed. They are abstractions. Actions are constructions.
Allegory, elaborate metaphor. We don’t just understand or recognize significance and validity through experience. We accept, reject, and discern through examples.
That night, long ago, when we met at the pub. The song was playing that night. He was listening to his team chat and discuss questions but not talking at all. He was still part of it. He was engaged. He was thinking. And maybe he was enjoying himself. He was taking small sips of beer. He was sort of sniffing the back of his hand, off and on, absentmindedly, one of the ticks he developed when he concentrated on something, when he was relaxed. It was so rare to be relaxed in this kind of setting. But he’d actually made it out, away from his room, to the pub, with other people. That was difficult and significant.
And the girl.
She. He. We. Me.
She was sitting beside him. She was pretty and talkative. She laughed a lot. She was comfortable in her own skin. He desperately wanted to say hello to her. She smiled at him. For sure, it was a smile. Empirically. No question. That was real. And he smiled back. She had kind eyes.
He remembers her. She sat beside him and didn’t move away. She was smart and funny. She was at ease. “You guys are doing pretty well” is what she said, and she smiled. That was the first thing she said to Jake. To us.
“You guys are doing pretty well.”
He held up his beer glass. “We’re helpfully fortified.”
They talked a little bit more. He wrote his number on a napkin. He wanted to give it to her. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t.
It would have been nice to see her again, even just to talk, but he never did. He thought he might run into her. He hoped that kind of chance existed. It might have been easier the second time, that it might have progressed. But he didn’t get that chance. It never happened. He had to make it happen. He had to think about her. Thoughts are real. He wrote about her. About them. Us.
Would anything be different if she had had his number? If she’d been able to call him? If they had talked on the phone, met again, if he’d asked her out? Would he have stayed at the lab? Would they have gone on a road trip together? Would she have kissed him? Would they have entered into a relationship, two instead of one? If things had gone well, would she have visited the house where he was raised? They could have stopped for ice cream on the way home, no matter the weather. Together. But we never did. Would any of it have made a difference? Yes. No. Maybe. It doesn’t matter now. It didn’t happen. The burden is not hers. She would have forgotten so soon after that first night, that single, brief meeting in the pub.
She doesn’t even know we exist anymore. The onus is ours alone.
That was so long ago. Years. It was inconsequential to her and to everyone else. Except us.
So much has happened since then. With us, with Jake’s parents, the girls at the Dairy Queen, Ms. Veal—but we’re all here. In this school. Nowhere else. All part of the same thing. We had to try putting her with us. To see what could happen. It was her story to tell.
We hear the steps again, the boots. Slow steps, far away still. They’re coming this way. They will get louder. He’s taking his time. He knows we have nowhere to go. He knew all along. Now he’s coming.
The steps are getting closer.
People talk about the ability to endure. To endure anything and everything, to keep going, to be strong. But you can do that only if you’re not alone. That’s always the infrastructure life’s built on. A closeness with others. Alone it all becomes a struggle of mere endurance.
What can we do when there’s no one else? When we’ve tried to sustain fully on our own? What do we do when we’re always alone? When there’s no one else, ever? What does life mean then? Does it mean anything? What is a day then? A week? A year? A lifetime? What is a lifetime? It all means something else. We have to try another way, another option. The only other option.
It’s not that we can’t accept and acknowledge love, and empathy, not that we can’t experience it. But with whom? When there is no one? So we come back to the decision, the question. It’s the same one. In the end, it’s up to us all. What do we decide to do? Continue or not. Go on? Or?
Are you good or bad? It was the wrong question. It was always the wrong question. No one can answer that. The Caller knew it from the beginning without even thinking. I knew it. I did. There’s only one question, and we all needed her help to answer.
WE DECIDE NOT TO THINK about our heartbeat.
Interaction, connection, is compulsory. It’s something we all need. Solitude won’t sustain itself forever, until it does.
We can never be the best kisser alone.
Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way never thought or believed possible.
I hold my hand over my mouth to muffle my own sound. My hand is shaking. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to hear anything anymore. I don’t want to see. It’s not nice.
I’ve made the decision. There’s no other way. It’s too late. After what has happened, for all this time, for all these years. Maybe if I’d offered her the napkin with my number at the pub. Maybe if I’d been able to call her. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened like this. But I couldn’t. I didn’t.
He’s at the door. He’s just standing there. He did this. He brought us here. It was always him. It’s only him.
I reach out and touch the door, waiting. Another step, closer. There’s no rush.
There is a choice. We all have a choice.
What holds this together? What gives life significance? What gives it shape and depth? In the end it comes for us all. So why do we wait for it instead of making it happen? What am I waiting for?
I wish I’d done better. I wish I could have done more. I close my eyes. Tears slip out. I hear the boots, the rubber boots. Jake’s boots. My boots. Out there, in here.
He stands at the door. It creaks open. We’re together. Him. Me. Us. At last.
What if it doesn’t get better? What if death isn’t an escape? What if the maggots continue to feed and feed and feed and continue to be felt?
I hold my hands behind my back and look at him. He’s wearing something on his head and face. He’s still wearing the yellow rubber gloves. I want to look away, to close my eyes.
He takes a step toward me. He gets up close. Close enough that I can reach out and touch him. I can hear him breathing under the mask. I can smell him. I know what he wants. He’s ready. For the end. He’s ready.
Critical balance is needed in everything. Our temperature-controlled incubators in which we grow large volumes, more than twenty liters, of yeast and E. coli cultures that have been genetically engineered to overexpress a protein of our choosing.
When we choose to bring the end closer, we create a new beginning.
It’s all the extra mass we can’t see that makes the formation of galaxies and the rotational velocities of stars around galaxies mathematically possible.
He lifts the bottom of the mask off his chin and mouth. I can see the stubble on his chin, his chapped, cracked lips. I put a hand on his shoulder. I have to concentrate to keep my hand from shaking. We’re all here together now. All of us.
One day on Venus is like one hundred and fifteen Earth days. . . . It’s the brightest object in the sky.
He puts a metal hanger from the closet into my hand. “I’m thinking of ending things,” he says.
I straighten it out and bend it in half so both pointy ends stick in the same direction.
“I’m sorry for everything,” I say. I’m sorry, I think.
“You can do this. You can help me now.”
He’s right. I have to. We have to help. That’s why we’re here.
I bring my right hand around and jam it in as hard as I can. Twice, in and out.
One more. In. Out. I slam the ends into my neck, upward, under my chin, with all my strength.
And then I fall onto my side. More blood. Something—spit, blood—bubbles from my mouth. So many small punctures. It hurts, all of it, but we feel nothing.
It’s done now, and I’m sorry.
I look at my hands. One is shaking. I try to steady one with the other. I can’t. I slump back into the closet. A single unit, back to one. Me. Only me. Jake. Alone again.
I decided. I had to. No more thinking. I answered the question.