I am Committing Suicide

I am sitting here thinking about suicide which I am going to commit as soon as I get drunk enough to lose the remaining inhibitions that prevent me from doing it. I am going up on Geronimo's Mesa and jump off the high ledge of red sandstone at Lover's Leap where, according to legend, two thwarted young Apache lovers jumped to death hand in hand. I will not jump hand in hand with anyone. I will jump alone as soon as I can get some little trigger of compulsion ready to force me up to Geronimo's Mesa and to the edge of the sandstone of Lover's Leap.

It is March, and I am in New Mexico, where I have been since I left the Art Institute in Chicago. Sometimes I have wished I had never left college to go to art school with Lucille Kenton, and now I wish I had not left the Art Institute. Maybe if Lucille had not married that guy with the muscles I would not be (continued on page 65)Suicide(continued from page 59) here in this desert. I no longer have friends. I was fired from my job at the drug store for selling morphine without a prescription to a character I know. My boss said he ought to have me arrested, but he did not do so because I had been a good man in the store otherwise. That is the one break that I got, but I was fired anyhow.

I have been in bed with Mort Mowery's wife, Cynthia (among other wives), and Mort is gunning for me. I was going to bed with Cynthia pretty often until Mort found it out, and now he is telling around town that he is going to pump me full of lead. Because of that and because I have not paid any rent for five weeks, my landlady has told me to get out of my room by Saturday. I have only three more dollars in my pocket. A lot of people think I am crazy. Except Rita Garcia who does not care if a man is crazy or drunk as long as he will go to bed with her, and I did oblige her a couple of times before I began shacking up with Cynthia Mowery. But, with Rita, it did not have the thrill of cuckoldry.

Do I want to die? No, I do not think I want to die. At least I do not want Mort Mowery to shoot me. It would be bad for a man's reputation to be killed for sleeping with another man's wife. I want to live as much as anybody else because there are things I want to do. There might be much in the anticipation and spontaneity of living that I could enjoy, but I doubt it because of things that have already happened in my life. I think it would be better and easier to die than to take a chance on anything good happening in the future. I guess there is something wrong with me. I guess ...

"Dead soldier. Another one?"

"Yeah."

Alec the bartender is taking away my empty beer bottle and bringing me another full one. I am taking the money out of my pocket to pay him.

I wonder if I would be going to Geronimo's Mesa if I had a million dollars? I wonder if I could buy peace of mind with a million dollars? I wonder if a million dollars would make me remember just the things that would be best to remember, think the things that would be best to think? Maybe. Though I guess a million dollars would not change the world, but maybe it would change me enough to make my part of the world look different. The world exists only in the mind of the person looking at it anyhow.

"Hi, Phil. Why so glum?"

Rita Garcia is standing behind me. I am wheeling a little on the bar stool. 'Hi, Rita."

Even if I was shacking up with Rita Garcia, I could not go with her tonight, because I am going to jump off Geronimo's Mesa at Lover's Leap. Maybe I would enjoy going to bed with Rita again, but I have been in bed with lots of girls, and what good has it done? Look at me now. I am going to commit suicide as soon as I get drunk enough to have the guts to do it. A guy who has to get drunk to have enough guts to commit suicide ought to commit suicide. Rita Garcia is wasting her time with me tonight. She will have to find somebody else. Maybe one of these other guys who will pay her for the pleasure.

"I said why so glum?" Rita is saying.

"Guess it's the way I feel."

"Come sit in a booth with me. I got what it takes to make you feel better."

"No. Guess I'll just sit here a while."

Rita is pulling on my arm, and her big white teeth are shining between her red-smeared lips. I am taking fifty cents out of my pocket. "Hey, Alec. Give Rita a Martini. Over there in a booth by herself. Now get the hell away and let me alone, Rita."

"OK. OK. If that's the way you feel about it."

"I feel that way."

I am beginning to be drunk, but I am not yet ready to go up on Geronimo's Mesa. I cannot yet pull that little trigger in my mind to make myself go.

"Alec. Another beer and a double shot."

Alec is setting a double shot glass in front of me and pouring whiskey into it. "You must want a get there in a hurry," he is saying.

How does he know? "Oh. Drunk. Yeah, I guess so," I am saying.

"Boilermakers'll do it. That's for sure."

I am thinking it is not even necessary to comment on that. I am drinking the boilermaker, and in the bar mirror I am looking like I am in pain. I do not like straight whiskey. I only like the way it makes me feel. I am beginning to feel more courageous. Pretty soon I will start walking out across the red dirt plains among the mesquite and creosote and yucca. I will be careful not to fall on the cactus, and I will climb up Geronimo's Mesa and jump off at Lover's Leap. I am wondering who will find my body. Maybe the coyotes. May be I ought to say something to Alec or Rita, so somebody will find me before the coyotes do. But that would be silly, like leaving a note.

"Same thing, Alec. Boilermaker."

"Hadn't you better slow down a little?"

"Am I causing trouble? Is my money counterfeit?"

Alec is pouring whiskey into the double shot glass in front of me. I am drinking it, and in the bar mirror when I can focus my eyes on me, my face is looking red, and my eyes are filling with water too weak to put out the vein fires spreading from their corners. If I can get off the stool without falling, I will now start walking through the mesquite and yucca to Geronimo's Mesa.

I am off the bar stool, and I have not fallen on my face. I am walking to the door.

"Wait a minute, Phil. I'll go with you," Rita Garcia is saying. "We'll get into something together. I need you tonight."

"I have to do what I'm going to do by myself, Rita. Nobody can go with me. You stay here. Pick somebody else up." I do not want to jump off the red sandstone ledge of Lover's Leap hand in hand with Rita Garcia the prostitute. I do not love her.

I am reeling a little in front of the Pecos Bar in the moonlight, and Rita is watching me, but I am walking around the stuccoed building to the red dirt plains.

The yucca women are beginning to dance in their Pilgrim's bonnets and capes out there among the mesquite and creosote. They are beginning to dance in a frenzy like they had stepped on a cactus in their bare feet.

Something is happening to the night. It is getting dark. The moon is gone. The wind is blowing. I cannot see the dancing yucca women any more, and I am falling on a cactus. My palms are feeling full of thorns like a porcupine. It is raining, and I am getting wet.

I am walking back to the Pecos Bar. I will not commit suicide until it quits raining, and I hope Mort Mowery does not find me and fill me full of lead while it is raining. I do not want to be shot.

"You didn't stay long. Did you get it done? Whatever it was you had to do by yourself?" Rita Garcia is saying this while I am walking back to the bar stool.

"It is raining too hard. Nobody likes to die in the rain," I am saying as I get back on my stool.

I am getting out my last dollar. "Same thing, Alec."

"You've had enough. I can't sell you any more," Alec is saying. "Why don't you go home and go to bed?"

"I'm waiting for it to quit raining. I got something to do, and I need a drink to kill time."

"Well, one more. Just one more," Alec is saying. "Then you call a taxi to come out from town and get you. You're gettin' in a bad way."

"Make it a triple shot and a quart of beer then."

"No. Just a single shot and a short beer chaser."

I am feeling woozy, but I am trying to sit up straight on the stool. I am holding on to the bar with both hands. But it does not matter how I feel because I am going to commit suicide up on Geronimo's Mesa as soon as it stops raining. My inhibitions have gone. I now have the guts. That little trigger in my mind has been pulled. If it would just stop raining, I could get going.

Rita Garcia is jerking my arm. "Let me take your drink over to my booth. Sit with me while you drink it. I'm so lonely I could cry. You're talking crazy like you could stand some good female company, too. Come on. You can go in a little while, if you want to."

I am going with her because I am afraid I will fall off the bar stool. The stool is beginning to spin around, and the bar is pulling away from it.

"OK, Rita. But I'm leaving soon's it stops raining. I got something I'm going (continued on next page) to do."

"You going to Cynthia Mowery's? I'd like to cut her throat. She don't care anything about you. She don't need you. She's still got Mort."

"I'm not looking for Cynthia, because Mori's going to fill me full of lead if he finds me. But he will not find me after it stops raining. I am going to commit suicide. I am going to jump off Geronimo's Mesa at Lover's Leap."

"Whose hand you going to hold? Not Cynthia Mowery's, I bet."

I am not answering. I am drinking the boilermaker, and Rita is triplets sitting at three tables. I am getting sick at my stomach although I am a heavy drinker. I am in one of those swings on a chain at a carnival being whirled around in the air. I am not seeing Rita, the three Ritas, not even one Rita now, but my head is leaning against the warm breasts of Rita, the warm and soft and big breasts ...

I am jumping up. I cannot pass out. I am going up on Geronimo's Mesa and commit suicide where the Apache lovers jumped off the sandstone hand in hand.

I am not remembering how long I was back in the Pecos Bar. I am not remembering how much I drank or what I said. It is not raining, and I am walking out across the red dirt which is now red molasses mud. I am not always dodging the mesquite and creosote, and sometimes I am dancing with the yucca women in their capes and bonnets. I am not falling on the cactus.

The sky is clearing, and there is Geronimo's Mesa in front of me, a huge up-turned bowl, looking like I can touch it, but it is a mile away. The red mud is thick, and my shoes are getting heavy. I do not know why the plains are gurgling, gurgling, gurgling behind the mesquite thicket in front of me. I am skirting around the mesquite to go on to Lover's Leap to commit suicide. I do not want to live since I do not have friends, since I do not have a job, since I am being kicked out of my room, since Mort Mowery is gunning for me anyhow. Maybe it will be an ironic joke to beat Mort to it.

I am now around the mesquite, and I am falling into a deep erosion gully, ten feet deep, I guess. I am now in the middle of the gurgling sound which the rain has brought running down off Geronimo's Mesa. The water is over my head, and it is cold. My clothes are making me heavy. I am fighting the water. I am going to drown, and I do not want to drown. I am pulling at the banks of the erosion gully which is only about two-thirds full of water. The banks crumble down on me and become slick mud in my hands. I am floating down the gully with the water. Finally, I am getting my hands on a mesquite bush, but it is pulling out by the roots and floating down the gully on top of me.

I am getting tired. I cannot get out of the gully. I am scared. I am going to drown. I do not want to die in this gully. There are many things I want to do yet. I will leave town and get a job somewhere else. I will quit drinking. I will not sleep with another man's wife. I will forget the fun of cuckoldry. I will stay out of Mort Mowery's way. I will be a changed man. I will get money and send it to my landlady. I want to get out of this gully. I want to go back to the Pecos Bar and sit in a booth with Rita Garcia. Maybe I can love her the way she needs to be loved. But the mud of these banks keeps crumbling down on me. I am yelling for help, and I am not drunk any more. I am dying, and I am not doing it by jumping off Geronimo's Mesa. I am not committing suicide.

Now, something is squeezing around my neck. I cannot breathe. I am dying. But I am listening to a voice, and I am not floating any more. I am being pulled up the slippery bank by my head. I am out of the water on my back, and Rita Garcia is taking a lasso off my neck.

"Phil, you're a fool," Rita Garcia is saying. "What on earth are you trying to do? I thought you were going to jump off Geronimo's Mesa, not drown yourself in this gully. I have decided to go jump from Lover's Leap hand in hand with you. I am like you. I feel like you do. That's why I brought this rope. To help us climb up that last steep cliff. You almost spoiled it by falling into this gully. Look. I brought a fifth of tequila so we could have a farewell drink together. I don't want to live either. I'm tired of cruising the bars for the love I need. It was you I wanted all the time. And now you are going to jump off Lover's Leap. I am, too. I'm going to do it hand in hand with you like the Indian lovers did. Cynthia Mowery would never do that with you. Her nor any of the other wives you been in bed with."

I am lying here gasping for breath and spouting water. I had been thinking about reform, changing my ways, and my life has just been saved. I am not drunk any more. The face of Death in a flooded gully has had a sobering effect on me. And now Rita Garcia is reminding me of suicide which she thinks I must commit by jumping off Lover's Leap hand in hand with her, a prostitute who has slept with nearly every man in town.

"I got to get my breath," I am saying. "I cannot do anything without breath. I nearly drowned just now."

"I will wait for you to breathe a while before we go up to Geronimo's Mesa. It will be a romantic thing, Phil. You and me jumping hand in hand. It will be the biggest thing in my life. It would be wonderful to have grandchildren to remember it. You are breathing better now. Would you like some tequila before we start?"

"I sure need it, Rita. I'm feeling sober as the middle of Sunday morning. Give me the bottle," I am saying.

The juice of Mexican cactus is burning my throat, but I am liking it. It is restoring some of the life fluid which was washed out of me by the gully flood water. I am coming back to life, and I am getting to my feet.

"Come on, Phil. You ready now?"

Rita is asking.

"Don't rush me," I am saying.

But I cannot let her back me down on what was my idea in the first place, and I reckon Mort Mowery will still be gunning for me even if I did almost drown. I am walking toward Geronimo's Mesa with Rita. I will not now jump from Lover's Leap alone. I do not much like what it will do to my reputation to jump hand in hand with a prostitute, but I am going to do it. I will not know the difference tomorrow when the coyotes find me. I guess I owe Rita something for saving my life. I must let her commit suicide with me.

The yucca is no longer Pilgrim women. It is just plain yucca with its grass skirts making a sluggish rustle in the wind that has blown away the rain and brought the moon back out. The red mud is sticking to our shoes, making us walk on clay snowshoes, and the wet mesquite slaps us on the thighs.

"Look at the mesa, Phil. Geronimo was an Indian chief, but the mesa reminds me of an Indian princess, maybe the girl who jumped off hand in hand with her lover. It is dark now, dusky like the skin of the Indian girl. Look how it curves up from the plain then shoots up steep like the nipple on the breast of a virgin. It is a romantic place from which to jump. You are a sweet thing to let me do it with you," Rita is saying.

"Give me the bottle again," I am saying, and I am looking at this big molehill on the desert Rita is calling the breast of a virgin. Rita Garcia speaking about a virgin! And I am thinking I am going to sleep my last sleep on this rocky virginal breast. I am committing suicide. It is not a pleasant thought, and I do not want to do it now after I almost drowned and have thought about changing my ways. But ... but ...

I am taking a big swig of tequila because I cannot let a prostitute have more guts than I have.

We are now walking up the curve of the mesa breast, and I am getting tired because the mud is thick on my shoes, because Rita is dragging on my arm now. I am breathing fast, deep breaths of ozone mixed with the scent of scrub cedars and pinons which are growing up among the boulders which have broken from the ledge of Geronimo's Mesa and rolled down where the Indian lovers fell.

We are at the bottom of the cliff which supports the mesa's flat land.

"Let's rest under this pinon before we start the steepest climb. I am out of breath," I am saying.

We are sitting on a big flat rock covered with pinon needles. It is wet, but I am already wet, and Rita has rolled up her lasso to sit on. I am drinking some more tequila. "I wish I had some salt and a lemon," I am saying.

"Give me a drink," Rita is saying.

She is taking a big swallow, and she is not coughing or making a face. She is drinking it like a man. I did not know she could drink like that -- a good trait in a woman.

It is cool up here in the breeze with the wind blowing on my wet clothes, and I am beginning to shiver a little. I am drinking more tequila to warm my guts. Rita is grabbing the bottle and drinking without wiping the wet of my lips from its mouth. This I like.

"Look at the town asleep yonder, Phil. No more than an anthill out there on the plains."

"Why are towns anthills and people ants when you are looking down on them? But most of the people in that town are no better than ants," I am saying.

"But we're not ants. We're going to do this beautiful thing together. Jump hand in hand."

She is leaning against me, and she is warm, and I am not shivering so much. The moon is making the wet plains glisten below us. I am drinking from the tequila bottle and setting it on the rock beside me.

Rita is putting her hands under my shirt, around my sides, with her warm palms flat on my shoulder blades. She is not acting like see is about to die, but she is saying, "We're going to die in a little while, Phil. What we say and do won't matter now. Why did you go to Cynthia Mowery and some of those others who had husbands to love them? My bed was always empty for you."

"Except when it was filled by the husbands whose beds I was filling."

"I wanted love. I wanted you to love me."

"But you sell love. Cynthia Mowery does not. She gives it. But now Mort has found it out, and that is bad."

Rita's hands are warm on my back. Her breath is warm on my neck, and she is kissing the hollow under my Adam's apple. "In a little while," she is saying, "we'll be dead over there under Lover's Leap."

I am feeling sorry for Rita. I do not like to think of any woman dying. I do not like to think how she will look when the coyotes find her. I am putting my arms around her, and I am leaning my cheek on her hair. I am closing my eyes, and my head is beginning to swim, reminding me of the gully. It is the tequila. I am opening my eyes and jerking my head up.

"What's the matter, Phil?" Rita is asking.

"I was dizzy. But I am now ready to climb the cliff and commit suicide."

"Not yet. We can do it any time we want to. There is nothing to stop us. Kiss me first."

I am feeling sorry for her, and I am kissing her, because I do not like to think of any woman dying, not any woman jumping off a mesa with nothing but coyotes to find her. I am holding my lips on hers a long time, and she is squeezing her warm arms tight around me, and her lips are moving open, and they are coming alive with a quiver, and I am sorry for her because she is going to die, and I am thinking suddenly that no other woman would commit suicide with me on Geronimo's Mesa by jumping off the sandstone ledge of Lover's Leap where the Apache lovers jumped hand in hand.

"Rita," I am saying, "you do not have to jump with me. I do not want you to do that. You must go back to town. I will take you back; then I will come up to Geronimo's Mesa alone."

"I want to do it hand in hand with you," Rita is saying. "Who down there in that town will care? Let my bed remain empty."

"I am not going to let you do it," I am saying, and I am kissing her again, and she is squeezing me with her warm arms, and I am kissing her rough and hard, wanting to do it. I am very much alive.

"Your bed will not have to be empty tonight," I am saying.

She is holding me tight against her. "This rock is like a bed, Phil," she is saying. "Here in the shadow of Lover's Leap where the Indian lovers died hand in hand."

She is right. The rock is as level as a bed. And I know now it is not suicide I am committing on Geronimo's Mesa tonight.