My Friend Killed Himself

And I'm pissed. And I'm sad. And I'm confused. And I'm hurt.

His name was Zack Davis. He was 17 years old. And he killed himself last Friday. I learned about it, oh...ten minutes ago.

Breathe. I'm alive. He's not alive. Not anymore.

Is he in Hell now, Christ-Followers? Is this the Christian retribution for the ultimate sin?

Atheists don't believe in fairy tales. He's gone. Wherever he's gone, we won't know for now. But he's doing it, right now.

What I do know, and what both Atheists and Christians alike believe, is that it is wrong. That it is stupid. That it is worthless and does no good.

And he was so smart, you know? He was the stereotypical Smart Kid. He got little to no response from girls. He lived in his own mind. He played a lot of World of Warcraft, he could beat the piss out of me in a game of Magic.

But he's not here anymore. He's gone. Dead. I may see his body tomorrow.

I don't like open casket funerals. When I was a kid, everytime you saw an open casket it wasn't too long before that body moved. In the bad TV shows, it was the actor's chest moving. In the movies, they got up and chased the good guy around.

And now Zack will never know how highly I thought of him.

Worse, he never knew how badly I came close to killing myself. At 17, even.

When I was a kid, and I refer to myself at 17 as a kid, so those 17 and older can go ahead and sneer and then years from now agree with me, I was desperately seeking attention. I was too smart for my own good, I had a string of awful internet relationships.

Some of them came to fruition further than others. But back in 1997, I was near rock bottom. Another girl, another string of profoundly exciting emails and instant message sessions.

Her loving words kept me alive. I was tired of school. It bored me horribly and endless nights of video games were causing me to miss classes. My friends were few and far between. I graduated high school early, so I didn't enter the local community college behind a wave of my buddies. I was alone there. I was alone online. My online groups were falling apart, my chat buddies were always busy. She was there.

Let's call her Kristy. I went and saw Kristy who lived in Michigan. Twice.

The first time was a crash and burn disaster. My lack of intimacy experience became apparent within a half hour of my arrival, and the rest of the week offered no chances from her to rectify the situation.

The next week I arrived and waited so long to make the decision to go up there that she didn't recieve my last message that I was headed up there. This time her parents were there. Her sister was there. And there was me. The non-boyfriend who was hanging out for two days.

I spent a few horrid, cringe-inducing hours with her mother, having to explain my jobless life and my girlfriendless existence. Boy, that was fun.

When I got home that winter, I had made my decision. I was tired of it all. The next day at school was a blur. All these people. They wouldn't miss me. They wouldn't notice I was gone. They wouldn't care. They didn't give half a shit for a guy like me.

The whole school wouldn't even blink. My family would mourn, sure. But I was a drag on my mother, a woman who once had a high-paying factory job but was back to answering phones and going to school part-time to make ends meet.

I, being the coward, immediately thought of how many pills it would take to kill me. A handful? A bottleful? Would I have to steal liquor somewhere? How could I do this by myself?

I didn't care. I would take it all. Everything in the cabinet that supposed to cure an ailment I'd take in. I didn't care.

I hopped online to say goodbye to whomever was there. The only guy I saw was a guy named Andy.

"Goodbye Andy," I said.

He asked why. I dodged. He pushed, I resisted. Finally, I told him. And of course he freaked out. And he explained, bit-by-bit, how it was stupid. How it was ignorant. How it would do no one good, from my family to my well being. That I needed help. Or a change. Or something. But not a death certificate.

And through the tears, I agreed with him. And it was silly, really. It was cowardly, for sure, but it was a close call with what may have been, at the least, brain damage from such overdoses.

The next day I took the initiative to go to follow my mother's advice and go by the job office. There I saw an ad for a "Computer Operator" at a local community bank. I was chasing down jobs for KFC and a local computer store, but this was nothing compared to that.

I went on the interview and it went great. A week later they hired me, a 17 year old, taking a chance. From there began my humble career in systems administration.

It just occurred to me it's been almost ten years since that faux suicide attempt. Since my cry for help.

I wonder who Zack's cry went to. I wonder who ignored the signs. The missed appointments or the unreturned calls. The text messages that were never read.

Zack was always one of the first to give his opinion on The Magic Show, what he liked and what he didn't. I really respected the feedback and it made me happy when he enjoyed it.

I saw Zack every time I visited the local gaming store, manning the tournaments or throwing down the weird decks. He was my point of contact for upcoming events there, and we chatted many a time.

I'm still angry. And I still wish he wouldn't have pulled the trigger, tied the knot, or swallowed whatever pill he may have had (i.e. I don't know how he killed himself).

I'm just sad. And sorry. And upset.

I told my wife, "It's a shame, you know. He just denied some girl two smart kids and a kick-ass husand."

The funeral is tomorrow, and I'll be attending. Grimacing, hoping that the truth isn't up there, that his family isn't in such pain, that there was a better reason than "he was depressed" but probably not going to get one.

Zack Davis is dead.