Russel Ray

read with caution ;; warnings apply

easy way out

Major tws apply. Suicide attempt. Self harm.

5/14/1990,

When I look up at night I don’t see popcorn ceiling or a spinning fan. I don’t see the smoke detector or the vents. People occupy the space between my eyelids, people I haven’t seen in a while. It’s the only way they still exist to me, really. In the forefront of where a brain ought to be. I think that’s my problem. I think that’s why I have to go.

There’s no greener grass or other side of the fence. Hell, I’d be surprised if there was much of anything waiting for me. It’s not a matter of wanting to; not really. Death scares me. I don’t want to die. I know there’s nothing pearly up there for me- but I don’t think that’s a decision I get to make anymore.

I’ve thought about this before. I can’t think of a time and place where this night hadn’t been at the back of my mind. I think about everytime I could’ve gotten this over with. Just one foot in front of the other at the subway, the lake, a balcony. I see my body laid out in front of me everywhere I go; that’s my burden.

More than anything, it feels like an inevitability. I’ve accepted it for what it is, I can see myself for what I am. I can’t imagine myself much older than I am now, and I can’t imagine allowing that. Russel Ray was always going to die young. Tragically, maybe. A sob story in the papers for a few days until the smoke settles and people begin to move on.

There’s a comfort in that, the knowledge that my peers and those who knew me will find their footing. That my absence won’t impact them, not really. They’ll be able to mingle, laugh, celebrate and graduate and when (if) my name is brung up they can say ‘God rest his soul,’ and move on. I hope one day my mom can learn to do that, too.

I don’t feel any particular dread. I always imagined myself crying around this part, especially without someone to hold my hand. I wonder what she’d think. I wonder if she’d laugh, because ‘fucking finally,’ I’ve listened to her. Maybe she’d be angry, that it took this long, a breakup, and cut contact to finally give her some mind. Maybe I’ll call her.

…That’s a bad idea. I won’t. But I entertain the idea more than I’d like to. When I look up at night, rather than the fanhead or the shutters, I’m imaging the curtain of her hair. The ways in which it would’ve hung over me from this angle. I imagine she loves me. I imagine it wasn’t that bad.

I’ll miss my friends, but they’ll understand. Skinner knew as well as I did how this was bound to end. He saw it in me, I think, which is why he tried so hard to make me into something more like him. That’s a nice thought. My shortcomings aren’t on account of his teaching, he did the best he could all things considered. There’s just not much to do in my case. I don’t imagine there ever was.

Chip will be disappointed. I’m taking the easy way out, and he’d have my head for it if he knew. The least I could do was go out in some violent, bloody manner and leave a real name for myself. Instead, I’m lying in my bed with paper sticking to my skin and letting myself spin out of my head. He’d be livid, and he’d have a million things to say to me. Maybe that’s why I’m leaving, to avoid the consequences of my actions.

I never subscribed to the idea that suicide was a selfish act. It isn’t, not for anybody. Anybody except for me. I can’t help but figure that when I decide to kill myself, it’ll be for my own betterment. My own gain and satisfaction and knowing I’ll never have to face the people I left behind in doing so. Suicide isn’t selfish, but I am.

My arms feel tacky. A weird, sickly-sort-of sticky where toilet paper congeals with clots of blood. Creating a strange mache which clings to the hair on my biceps like wax. I pinch my mouth shut at the idea of having to pull that off, and then I remember; I won’t have to.

I don’t have to set my alarm tonight. I don’t have to lay out clothes or prepare my lunch. I don’t have anybody to send a message to. People in movies always seem to dread the end of the world, but my last day on earth may be the easiest one.

When I look up tonight, my peripherals blur. My ears are ringing in static pitch, white noise streamlining my system. I squint and try to make out faces; voices, experiences. I try to imagine a hand in mine, breath on my skin, a sting in my rib, but it doesn’t come.

When I look up tonight, I see the ceiling. Just plaster and popcorn and the ceiling fan spinning to a halt. I see headlights from where my window looks out onto the street. I can hear my nightlight humming. I never realized how nice the silence was. I think I’m going to sleep now.

5/15/1990,

I woke up.

Two of us

Major warnings apply. Implied self harm.

Chip Bell to Russel Ray. 1996

“He did thuh wrong thing, yer father,” The words are somber, and they sound strange in Chip’s lilt. Like his accent wasn’t good for much more than yelling and demanding. Quieter, like this, it comes out blocky and unsettling. “Getting up and leaving. For yer sake,”

“I try not to think about it,” Russel presses his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around himself. Curling into his core. “He still sends me letters, and… stuff,”

“Birthday cards are a damn lousy excuse fer fathering,” Chip stares off. He’s seated beside Russel, boots in the grass. Fingers picking at weeds beneath him. “Ya could’ve been a fine man.”

The latter perks up. “Could’ve?”

“No man without a father figure can grow up expectin tuh be anything great. Ya didn’t know what ye were supposed tuh look like, act like, how tuh behave,”

“But- I-I do- I.. I think I do-”

“Ye don’t. I’ll be thuh first person tuh tell ye that,” Chip is looking at him, now. Eyes raking over Russel as he coils into himself. “Ya don’t seriously believe yer much o’ a man, do ya, Ray?”

He swallows. Hard. “I know I’m not,”

“Aye. Thas right,” Chip rubs his palm over his mouth, considering. “No use kiddin yerself. Even Orville’s got thuh one-up on you,”

“How can I be?” Russel blurts. “I-I mean. I don’t… I’m not… I don’t want to be this. Me. If- if I could wake up one day and be just a bit more like you-”

“Is that what ye think this is? Just gettin up and deciding tuh be better?”

He blinks, shoulders perking up to his ears. “Isn’t it? You- you have to make the choice to be-”

“Ya don’t know what yer on about,” Chip snaps, clutching the grass between his fingers. “It ain’t a choice, and it ain’t somethin ya just get tuh have. Ya work for it. Ya sweat and bleed for it, and goddamnit, you don’t got what it takes,”

“But I could!”

“Ya don’t.” Chip stares him down, head on. Russel shrinks in his wake. “It’s too late for that. For you,”

For a beat, there’s silence. Like Russel is playing mental gymnastics and hurling the options of what to say. How to say it. What to do and before he can gather his bearings, the words tumble out and off his tongue. “...How.. How come you get to decide that?”

“I don’t,” Words come so much easier to Chip. “Look at ya. Really look. Would a real man wear a jacket in this weather?”

Russel stills in place, fingers suddenly twitching where they overlap. His eyes are wide enough to well up with salt; mouth clammy and dry. He stifles a noise, tongue suddenly too large to speak. Uncomfortable in his mouth and vain. Chip doesn’t give him the chance.

“I know, Ray. Of course I know,”

A sob makes it past his teeth. “I-I’m.. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t tell my mom,”

“Nothing she can do tuh stop ya, anyway,”

“I can’t help it,” Russel’s voice goes shrill with panic. “I don’t- I don’t want to do it. Not usually. Not always. It’s- it’s like…” He gestures uselessly, hands fumbling like a ragdoll. “Like an itch. Like a swell welling up in my stomach. And it just… pushes. Like it’s trying to push me out of my own skin. And- and I have to. I have to. What else do I do with a feeling like that?”

Chip shrugs. “Ya get over it,”

“I never learned how,”

“Thas why it’s too late,” Russel shrinks when Chip’s eyes narrow. “Do ye think about her?”

“All the time,”

“When ye hurt yerself?”

Russel worries his lip between his teeth. Staring down like there was nothing more interesting than the ways in which the grass blew. “...Sometimes. But, it’s not about her. I did it before her and now she’s gone and I’m still.. Still..”

“Still thuh boy she left behind,”

“It’s unbearable,” His voice cracks. “It’s… it hurts,”

“Naturally,”

“But that’s why I do it. That’s why nobody understands. They’d think I’m.. I’m stupid. For hurting myself. Going against nature, biology, everything that tells you not to-”

Chip doesn’t let him compensate. No use in excuses at a time like this. “But ye do it anyway,”

“I can’t imagine stopping,” Russel croaks, voice raw.

“Do ye want tuh stop?”

“...No,”

“Makes two of us, then,”

The shorter of the two sharpens at that. Eyes flicking up to meet Chip’s. “Do you–”

Chip waves him off, shaking his head furiously. “No. No, not like ye do. I ain’t like you, Russel,”

“But we’re…”

“There is no we in this. We’re not thuh same,”

“Chip,” Russel starts, uneasy. “Do you want to stop?”

.

“No, I don’t,”

.

“...Two of us, then,”

credits

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