A Reason to Die

"Are you sure you’re going to be okay, baby?”

This was it. Devante and his mother had finally arrived at his school. He was surprised to see everything just as it was before. Kids were getting out of their parents’ cars or crossing the overpass above the expressway, coming from the El train station. A few blocks away, the police officers at the police academy were lining up in the parking lot. It was amazing that the lives of those around him continued to go on, although for Devante time seemed to stand still. It seemed as though it would always be 9:25 P.M. the night of Valentine’s Day. That was when he knew Monica was dead.

“Look at me.” His mother urged him. In theses past few weeks, it had become hard for him to make eye contact with anyone, even his own reflection. He hated looking into the mirror and seeing the face of a person who was too powerless to save the life of the girl who could have been his girlfriend. And every time he saw himself, he knew that he had known better than to have gone outside in his neighborhood after dark.

“Look at me,” His mother said again as she put the Mercedes in park and turned his face toward her. His eyelids seemed to weigh a ton. It was as if all the tears he refused to cry had collected in them. But he couldn’t let his mother know how much the events of the past month has affected him.

“I’m fine, Ma. Really I am.” He grabbed his bag quickly and hoped he could get out of the door before his mother realized that everything he had just said was nothing but a lie. He flung the heavy door open and rushed out of it so fast that the cold February air scarcely had time to come in.

Just go, he told himself, rushing forward on the sidewalk. Don’t look back. Don’t even say good-bye.

He heard his mother pulling away and realized that there were only two options for him now. He could no longer sit alone in his room in a state of depressive inertia because he had insisted that he was fine. He didn’t need to see any stupid shrinks, he had told his mother, and definitely did not want her to send him away somewhere. So what if his parents had just divorced, he had moved into a new neighborhood, and his closest friend had just been shot to death? None of that mattered now. He could handle anything.

He had a teen heartthrob face, with thick eyebrows that his doting mother often tried to straighten out and coarse, curly hair that he wore in a style that his strict father disapproved of. Many girls found him attractive. Even at the funeral, a few fast girls in short skirts had switched up to him carrying boxes of Kleenex, but he didn’t pay them any attention. The one girl who had ever mattered to him was gone, but he’d go on pretending.

With slow and measured steps he approached his school. Swarms of kids were beginning to fill the halls and he could see them through the large front windows. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice him. Maybe they would avoid him, just as they had done at the repast after Monica’s funeral.

I can do this, He thought as reached the door to his school, knowing that if he wasn’t strong enough to pretend that he was happy, there was only one other thing he could do. So what if she’s not with me anymore. So what if Monica’s¾

And just then Devante saw a couple walk by, holding hands as if they were the last two people left on earth, or the last ones left at Whitney Park High school, anyway. Their smiles mocked his misery. He and Monica had been like this once. Sauntering through the halls, sharing headphones as they listened to CD’s on his Discman, and probably seeming, just as the couple that he saw through the glass door, as though he and Monica had a feeling that no one else could ever have. Yet this time, Devante knew that his feeling was unique. He had a reason to die.

Run! The urge was raw, primitive, something that was usually aroused in a life-or-death situation. Devante obeyed this instinct. I can do this. I can die. Monica did it.

He had thought about this many times before, yet somewhere in his mind lingered the vague notion that Monica was still alive, just sleeping, that she would suddenly awaken and appear right there at the door. The sound of the ambulance screaming past Devante’s grandmother’s house with its sirens wailing had revived that long-forgotten thought, sending Devante charging down the street after it as he screamed Monica’s name. And old Mrs. Willis down the street telephoned his grandmother from inside, telling her that her grandson had gone and lost his mind. She was too afraid to even come outside and speak to the young man, who collapsed in a crumpled heap on her front yard, weeping bitterly.

I must be losing it. Scared old Mrs. Willis half to death. I don’t care, Monica. I’m gonna see you again.

A year ago, his life hadn’t been this way. Devante was barely fourteen and already nagging his parents about getting a car. The lived in a spacious house at the crest of a hill on Longwood Drive with a crescent shaped driveway and colonnaded entryways. He had just begun to rebel against his conservative father by wearing baggy jeans with his Polo shirts and listening to rap music in his stereo. He even told his parents that he, unlike his older brother, wanted to attend a public high school. His idea only fueled his parents’ bitter arguments. He spent much of his time playing the baby grand piano in the sitting area adjacent to his room, trying to drown out his screaming parents’ voices downstairs.

But what could he do now that the turmoil had entered his mind? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When he moved into his grandmother’s neighborhood, all he saw was Monica. Her personality and charm had drawn him to her. Devante liked the way she said “ax” instead of “ask” and thought it was funny when she talked about going to get her hair “did.” His father, on the other hand, took one look at her and called her “ghetto.” “That girl. That ghetto girl,” his father had always said with such contempt and disgust. He never once referred to Monica by her name. He called her Shaquandah, Safreeta, LaKeisha, or anything else that ended with an “a” that he felt was not a suitable and “respectable” name. His father seemed to think that such girls were destined to become welfare mothers. You never even met her, pops! Devante wanted to say. His father would never know about her beautiful singing, or all the times he and Monica had gone to hear the symphony and see Broadway plays with his mother. He would never know that Monica’s last words were the lyrics of a song from Les Miserables.

Is that Chad and Jerome? Please don’t let that be them! I can’t let them see me!

Devante thought he saw his two friends getting out of Chad’s father’s minivan from across the street. They couldn’t possibly understand what he had been through. How would his friends ever understand his fear of the dark, that the reason he was 15 and wet the bed was because of the horrible nightmares he had? They were unrelenting. Every night he re-experienced the shooting in his sleep or else spent many hours suspended in a purgatorial state between sleep and wakefulness. And early each morning he crept down to the laundry room in the basement to wash his wet sheets before anyone could find out.

In the late hours of the night he kept his lights on to keep away his fear of the darkness that obscured everything. Many times he played mind-numbing computer games like Tetris or even Pac-Man. Anything involving guns or blood immediately brought flashbacks of what had happened on that horrible night just a few weeks ago. It was in the eerie stillness of his room that he had come to realize that there was nothing left for him. He lived in the shadow of a bullet, his existence poisoned by misery, his thoughts contaminated by every memory of Monica. He had played the piano to drown out the sounds of his bickering parents, but what could he do to drown out the memories?

Die.

The word was short, cold, and simple. Simple enough until he thought of all its repercussions.

To die. To sleep no more.

He vaguely remembered the words from a play he had read last semester in freshman English. For the past few days he had considered it carefully. And Devante felt somewhat sedated by the contemplation of the act. He had even eaten breakfast this morning and brushed his hair for the first time in weeks. It would be like music. Taking a ginsu knife to his forearm like a violin bow and playing inaudible music with each stroke of a severed blue vein. Or plunging form the precipitous height of the closest towering vertical structure he could find and lying still, at last, on the sidewalk. But his parents! What would they say? His mother would probably start screaming, “My baby! My baby!” like she had that night, when she saw him standing there on the sidewalk, drenched in Monica’s blood. He tried to force that memory out of his mind. And what about his brother and his father?

I don’t care. He lied to himself. And I don’t care about not caring.

Somehow it had calmed him. And last night, he didn’t even scream at the conclusion of his nightmare; he knew it would be his last.

What’s the point of living? At the funeral they all said, “She’s in a better place now.” So, what’s wrong with dying? I want to be in that better place, away from all the chaos of this world. Any place where a girl with as many hopes and dreams as Monica can be shot down like a dog in the street is not where I want to be.

He looked around and realized that he wasn’t running anymore. He had stopped right at the curb, right across the street from the overpass. All along, his body was following the instinct, though his mind still deliberated in ambivalence.

I should do this. And I can. Why should I go on? It’s all my fault anyway!

There was no hope of revenge because he didn’t know who was responsible for the shooting. He knew only that “They” had done it. They were after a boy whose haircut, shoes, and coat were identical to Devante’s, yet he was unaware of who “They” were. This criminal, pants-sagging, low-riding “They” was responsible, but Devante carried the guilt that should have been theirs.

Your fault. . . your fault. . . His mind taunted as a scene he desperately wanted to forget appeared in is mind. Devante tried to fight it. He wanted to force it into the back of his mind, but the memory overwhelmed him completely. He remembered a sky without stars. A black emptiness. A city sky. And underneath that sky, that canopy, that burial shroud, he sneaked out of the side door with the roses and teddy bear that he was waiting to give to Monica.

And you know you shouldn’t have you knew it would happen! You say you didn’t but you did! Dad warned you about this place. You could have just gone to live in his big condo, but no!

He wanted to express to her his desire to be more than just friends. The only light came from the insides of buildings and the eerie orange street lamps that lined the street. This made the shadows unusually long, ominous, and deep.

And it was dark. It was so dark, a night without stars. But you kept going! You idiot! You went. . .

He walked to Monica's house feeling warm despite the cold that crept through his sagging jeans. The lyrics and melodies of every love song he ever knew were playing in his head as he climbed up the cement steps of Monica's front porch. So what if the moon seemed to be a watchful, ubiquitous eye spying on him from behind. None of that mattered now. He was glad Monica answered when he rang the doorbell.

"Are those for me? Oh, Devante, they're beautiful!" Monica said as she accepted the teddy bear and roses that he had gotten her. But a sudden look of fear erased the smile from her face.

"That driver just slowed down when he saw you." She warned Devante, who had his back to the street.

"What does that mean?" He was new in the neighborhood.

Monica never answered the question. Devante turned around to see the barrel of the gun sticking out of the open passenger side window. Monica screamed "Duck!" and the shot went off¾

She died almost instantly.

And they fired and she said 'Just don't move. Play dead' and I did and I saw the blood. . . everywhere. . . all over the roses and the white teddy bear and the Valentine's card. I killed her! I didn’t pull the trigger, but it didn’t have to happen! I should have known! Only an idiot would go strolling through my neighborhood after dark. But I thought drive-bys only happen to other people. I thought I was invincible.

Invincible. Was he invincible? If he jumped over the side of the overpass, would he die? If he jumped, would anyone notice? Would the drivers stop their cars in horror and cause a fifty car pile-up? If he died, would anyone care?

Serves you right, pops. All you ever do is boss me around and talk about Monica like that. You’ll see. You’ll be sorry.

The Don’t Walk sign went off and Devante ran across the street and skidded to a stop on the other side.

But what about Grandma? What about my mom? What’ll they do? Then again, what use am I to them anyway? I don’t take out the trash. I don’t shovel the snow. I don’t even eat anymore. They’d be better off without me.

The overpass stood before him. The threshold, the boundary between life and death. Before, he had only seen it as a way to get to Burger King during fifth period lunch, but now it had taken on a new meaning. But wait! There was a huge chain-link fence that towered over the guard rail.

That thing must be eighty feet tall. Do I really want to do this?

He did. He hurled his heavy book bag to the ground and began to climb.

I’m not scared. I’ve looked death into the face before, so it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

Yet part of him wanted someone to notice him up there. Part of him wanted someone to tell him to get down from there and show him that he still had a reason to live. And that was when he thought he heard the sirens.

“Hey kid!” A voice called to him.

Try and stop me, pig! All you cops are pigs! Where were you when they shot Monica?

“Get down from there!” Called another voice.

Devante turned around and saw a police academy car screeching to a halt.

They’re just a bunch of toy cops anyway. They can’t do anything.

Yet oddly enough, part of him wanted them to.

Come and save me! Or maybe this is just part of the lessons they teach those toy cops, how to arrest a Black guy for no reason. What’re you gonna do? Arrest me for taking my life?

They were on his side of the street now. Devante still hadn’t moved. He held on to the chain link fence and stared down at the sluggish river of morning rush hour traffic below him.

“We want to help you.” One of the officers said.

“Leave me alone!”

But I don’t know if I want to. I’m scared. I don’t know!

“Come on, kid. You’re too young to just throw your life away.”

Is he right? Will he shoot me?

Devante slowly began to climb down the fence, looking back warily at the two officers in training that stood behind him.

I don’t know! Why am I doing this?

“I don’t want to die.” He answered his own question.

At last, his feet were on the sidewalk again.

©1997 Tiffany Gholar