Driving and Suicide

A little gas and I was moving down the buzzing street again. The Loop, always busy, always moving - alive. The Loop was the cultural hub for the city. All the trendy stores and Indy styles that were so popular anymore could be found there. People of many ages were browsing, walking, or sitting outside enjoying a drink in the hot humid weather that was so customary for St. Louis summers.

I passed a building under construction, some stores whose colorful signs seemed blurred behind the mist that clouded my vision. I passed Pi and the Pageant Theatre and stopped at another red light, seething and hissing curses. It was all the aftershock of a particularly brutal fight my mother, father, and I (the unholy trinity) had baited each other into. Arguing, though, had become such a routine part of my life in the last two and a half months that I figured maybe it would be commonplace, like the humid weather, something I could just get used to.

But no. Oh, no.

Leaning my head against the steering wheel, I let a tear fall to the floorboard. When things became complicated I had to drive away, run away from the stress. I sniffled, wiped the tears away and pushed the gas peddle gently, pulling my very safe, very expensive prized possession forward with the other cars, we moved like a herd, shepherded by traffic lights.

Since I was young cars had always been something that I admired. I was not a fanatic like my brothers and did not like to sit and talk for hours about engines or torque or anything like that. I did enjoy a nice conversation about new models, speed, and value. Cars were my hobby, not their inner workings. This particular car (because I did have many) was a gift from my father. He wanted his baby girl to be completely safe, to have all the luxury and protection I would ever need, and boy, was this car a work of art. A metallic steel gray 2009 C300 Luxury Sedan, and when my father told me it was Luxury, he was not kidding. The interior leather could be heated and cooled for whichever season, auto-dim mirrors, and rain sensing wipers, not to mention the three thousand dollar multi-media package…

The car was always a pleasure to drive, and a safe one at that, and with the current circumstances I had let my sense drip through the cracks of my anger and had chosen the safer vehicle.

Another red light, they were impossible to miss whenever you just wanted to go, to speed. And how I wanted to! To just go whizzing past people with this powerful machine purring beneath me. Fly away at breakneck speed from all my problems, all the fights. What a dream that would be.

Even though my father had allowed my interest for cars to blossom over the years, even encouraged his little girl away from the dresses and teas my mother so desperately wanted me to love, he had always stressed safety. No matter what new car I had been given or acquired on my own, it had always been checked and checked again to be at the pinnacle of safe driving. All the lessons and the training and the videos and experience had prepared me for the road and it’s constant hazards. So that the day I finally turned sixteen and received my license I already had more experience than most other people who had been driving for years. Safety and driving came hand in hand for me, straight from my fathers mouth. To speed and break away would be to break every core instinct about driving.

And yet…

What really was stopping me? How easy would it be to push the gas peddle all the way down, go speeding through the street, plowing myself into another car, another person trying to get away.

What would my parents think when they received the phone call from the police? The “I’m sorry your daughter is dead.” call. Would they call or would the circumstances warrant a house call from a police officer. He or she would remove their hat and glance downward with a grave look on their face. Either way, I knew the reactions. Mother would go into hysterics, sobbing into her richly upholstered loveseat, blowing her nose into a silk handkerchief. Father would set down his scotch neat, stand facing the fireplace, elbow resting on the mantle and staring into the flickering flames (even in the dead middle of summer). He would not cry in front of people, he would lock himself in his study later in the evening, pour himself a fresh scotch, put on a very soothing record and then he would cry silently to himself…

It could be a way to get away.

No more fighting.

A daze seemed to fall over me, a mist that was unlike the tears that flooded so often to my eyes, but a mist that seemed to engulf my self, my essence, my everything entirely. It was as if my body had stiffened and become it’s own organism and I could only standby and watch, eyes wide with wonder and worry as my foot slammed the gas peddle to the floor and my masterpiece vehicle sped off from the rest of the pack.

I watched myself speeding as quickly as possible into death with open arms, as if I was in the passenger seat. Everything seemed tight and constricted, was this fear or worry? The tightness became overwhelming. A car honked and I barely swerved in time to miss it. Suddenly I was back in my body heading down the Loop at full speed.

It felt odd and nice at the same time. This defiance, so open and dangerous was not only exhilarating but freeing, it was as if I could feel all my worries and inhibitions fading away with me. The constriction seemed lost in that otherworld that had swept me away to watch my disasters first hand as I committed them. Or was it possible I was going so fast all the sense and worry just hadn‘t caught up with me yet? My heart thudded so hard in my chest it was the only sound I could hear. The steady rhythm consumed me, pulling me into my own little world. Tunnel vision was all I could see, not the people on the sidewalks or the other cars I zoomed past. This moment was entirely about me and my own self-destruction.

These precarious, precious moments seemed to go on forever and the high that I was experiencing began to grow and bloom into pure recklessness. The kind that drove people to attempt life-threatening stunts that more often than not lead to their almost promised demise.

Time almost seemed to stand still now, as I waited for the right time to end all of this, the pain, the sickness, the fighting.

An oncoming truck swerved onto the sidewalk to avoid my hell bent path of destruction. I heard faintly, the sound of the driver crashing into a building and people screaming in terror. Time seemed to drag on even though it had only been seconds, if that. Why could I not hit something? Why, when I was speeding so dangerously down such a crowded and populated area that some disastrous event hadn’t already leapt at my suicide attempt and helped me along the way?

Then it happened, the opportunity I had so longed for. An intersection up ahead and coming up fast held my opportunity up right under my nose on a glowing silver platter. An unsuspecting driver had just now noticed my steadfast suicide attempt. He revved his car forward to avoid me but was too slow. I clipped the bumper of the car and it sent my vehicle into uncontrollable hysterics. A glance at the speedometer, ninety miles an hour, I felt the sedan swerve underneath me and let my instinct to jerk at the steering wheel take over, even though my father had taught me that was a big no-no years ago. My high that had been so very helpful seemed to burn out of me completely and my mind began racing with the lunacy of what I was attempting, and now succeeding at doing. One last attempt to mend this wound I had gashed open.

Too late.

The next light was approaching and for once I was glad I had caught the red. I pushed even harder on the peddle, slamming it into the floor wishing it to go further for me, to go faster. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the clear blue sky that accompanied that customary hot and humid St. Louis summer weather.

Something ripped through my head a loud sound of metal scraping against metal. It screeched and moaned like death itself coming for me. But it was, wasn’t it? The sound wasn’t the only thing that ripped through me. A burning searing pain in my gut, in my shoulder, I couldn’t lift my head.

Everything was swirling together and mist was swallowing me up, screaming at me, or were those the people around me? There was a siren, and more searing pain and then there was only mist.

* * *

I lifted my head slowly from the steering wheel, shaking off the day dream of suicide and any other ridiculous notions that may still linger. I pushed softly on the gas peddle again and taking a left, exited the ever popular Loop. Sighing slowly, I reached behind me, bending my body into impossible contorts and began to feel around for the black leather CD case that never seemed to stay in the front seat. After a few more moments of driving with my body bent backwards and fumbling around blindly with my hand, I grasped the edge of the soft leather and pulled myself and the case back up. My head felt a little dizzy and I wasn’t sure if it was because of blood flow or the reason why my life had become so complicated. I jerked at the zipper with one hand trying to unzip the case and drive.

After successfully accomplishing this goal I flipped through the plastic pages not taking my eyes off the road to glance at all of the brightly colored CD’s. Ten pages in I pulled out one decorated in a very perfect sky blue and slipped it gently into the player, being very careful not to touch the silvery underside. Mechanical clicking sounds could be heard as the player read the data on the CD. Soon, though, I was gently greeted by the soft, whimsical, and soothing sounds of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. It tumbled so sweetly over my ears and body, like I was lying in a perfectly clear brook that was singing silently through a fairytale forest. It washed over me and took away the nerves and memories of bitterness left over from the fights and the arguments that seemed to stalk me everywhere and creep into my very soul. That corrosive bitterness that led me to think of suicides and other ways to kill myself and take as many victims with me as I could. That though, could also just be the hormones making me even more melodramatic than usual.

My vision melted together and I felt heavier than someone should after they had spent the last hour crying. I blinked, and warm tears slid down my face. I inhaled slowly, not wanting to choke and cough and splutter like I usually did when crying. When I felt as if I had gained composure once more, I brushed the drying tears away. One of my hands absentmindedly ran over the very, very slight curve of my stomach that had started to appear in the last two and a half months. I don’t even know how I could even entertain thoughts of suicide with the human life that was growing inside of me.

It wasn’t all about me anymore.