A friend of mine, whom I'll call S.C., committed suicide on a
Wednesday in February. On the following day, the New York
Post reported that his age had been 37; I thought he was
35, tops. I had known him for two years, and in that time, for
me, I guess, he hadn't aged a day. The paper was unsure if he
had landed in the water and then been washed ashore or if he had
not touched the water at all. He had leapt from the George Washington
Bridge somewhere just past noon on a day when the sun was bright
and the sky blue.
When I read this on Thursday morning in the paper's "Daily Police
Blotter," the fact that it truly had happened came home like a
nail driven soundly into wood. I had heard the news from a colleague
in the late afternoon on the prior day but hadn't acknowledged
it in the way that I did on reading those words. Somehow the dispassionate
text, about a person unknown to the writer of the piece, meant
more to me than anything I had been confronted with the day before.
The paper said S.C. was a resident of Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
This is wrong. He had lived with his wife, paying a rent he could
not afford, in Windsor Terrace. Even if one is not a devoted and
true Brooklynite, as was he, it is difficult to mistake the two
neighborhoods. The vast, hilly necropolis that is Greenwood Cemetery
undulates dramatically between them -- as distinct a boundary
as any--with its multitude of dead; its ancient trees; its mausoleums;
its hawks and crows and worms; its hushed tombstones and well-swept
paths.
In the Post account, his act was compared to that of
a previous, recent suicide -- a man who had posed as a custodial
worker in order to gain access to a window on one of the higher
floors of the Empire State Building. I was untouched by the other
man's story; it remained for me unreal, though I knew that it
was real. Nevertheless, it read like fiction.
But my experience of reading was just the opposite in the case
of S.C. One might argue that the newspaper article wasn't really
the important thing, that I had needed time to process this horrible
event, perhaps even that I had been in shock, and that by the
time I had read the article I was ready to accept the reality
of the event -- but I don't think that's it. Somehow it was the
written word itself that transformed the experience for me into
something real, something vivid, something perhaps not the equivalent
of but analogous to, in a much lesser way, my having witnessed
the act itself. Something objective and hard.
The day before
On Tuesday, one day before that fateful, treacherous Wednesday,
S.C. came into my cubicle, as on occasion was his wont, to shoot
the breeze or to use my garbage pail (an eccentric, but endearing
gesture that was indefinably mischievous) or to share with me
a piece of cake or fruit that he was just then carrying, and he
sat on the stool I keep in the corner. The stool was not particularly
comfortable and was piled with papers, but he didn't seem to notice.
His mind was on other things.
At first, he only sat nearby, quietly. Then he was reading --
he had brought with him an academic journal with a powder-blue
cover. He read for a short time, not saying a word, silently expressing
the intent to sit there indefinitely. No more than four minutes
had passed, though, when he asked me to take a look.
"What do you think of this article? Would you say that the author
sounds pretentious?" he asked. As an afterthought, he added: "She
was a friend in college."
I read several paragraphs of the article, which was about architecture
criticism as a discipline and how critics were not getting the
fair shake they deserved (that is, the attention they desired
from practicing architects and the greater world). The article
seemed to say in three pages what it could have said in one, and
defensively. I thought then of the comical Napoleon portrayed
in the movie Time Bandits -- the insecure, 4-foot-tall
general who kept his hand beneath his tunic because he had a deep-seated,
neurotically based itch that demanded constant scratching. I could
easily see S.C.'s critic scratching like a madwoman, hopping up
and down, shouting bramble- and thorn-encircled sentences like
"Enter [with me] into discourse on the subliminal reach of foreground
and background in psycho-social volume!"
"Well, sure, a bit -- she's really trying, isn't she?"
I said.
"Definitely. The world has seen enough of this bull. Who
cares that no one listens to critics? Come on! And who's
she talking to? Critics! What's the point? This is such
a great big fat joke."
He was tired of it, that's certain. All of it. Self-importance.
Hypocrisy. Posturing. Putting a face on for the world.
Because of chronic back problems and a nagging pain that grew
larger the longer he sat still, he couldn't stay in one position
for long. He soon stood up, stretched and raised his arms above
his head. For an almost absurdly extended moment he held this
pose. Then he relaxed, settling back into himself. He looked at
me and nodded with a smile, then ambled off.
We left work together that evening, and he was his regular self:
up and down, briefly angry, then faintly sad, but mostly even-tempered
with the occasional laugh -- just like all the rest of us. I walked
with him from our office on Park Avenue South toward the corner
of 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue -- there we'd go our separate
ways. He was aiming to catch the F train to Brooklyn, and I the
PATH train to Jersey City, where I would meet my girlfriend at
her place for dinner. We talked of many things.
About halfway to our destination, having come to the Flatiron
Building, we stood at its foot in a strong, conflicted wind, which
blew at us first this way then that, as we waited for the light
to change.
"Twenty-three skidoo--. Whaa-hoo!" he said, without merriment.
He was repeating what our boss would sometimes say when the three
of us passed here together.
This was the point of conjunction of two great streams of air
-- one that aligns itself to the forthright, straight-shooting
Fifth Avenue, and its sister stream, the one in correspondence
with the shifty, now-westside, now-eastside Broadway. Here, at
23rd Street, the winds became as one for but a moment and then
were split again in two by the straight edge of the Flatiron.
This conflict had for years caused innumerable loose skirts and
dresses to fly up, one thousand thousand coifs of well-kempt hair
to stand on end and the debris of the ages -- newspapers, gum
wrappers, plastic bags -- to rise up to the heavens in wide, determined
spirals, as if on the very fiery chariot of the prophet Elijah
himself, borne to the land of angels for some special, unfathomable
purpose. The fallout from this conflict had been felt for decades.
But no longer did the phrase "Twenty-three skidoo" mean much
-- it now suggested change, age and dying. Nostalgia and impotence.
The phrase was obsolete. When the Flatiron Building was finished
in 1902, respectable people were scandalized at how the rushing
air around it might force the revelation of the white flesh of
an ankle or a calf or even God-forbid! a thigh. In those days,
policemen were posted to discourage loitering and to shoo away
lascivious hangers-on. But now, a century later, the notion of
such modesty was for the most part forgotten -- at least in New
York -- and the words that harkened back to those earlier days
inspired only feelings of regret and a longing for more reasonable
times. S.C.'s face was filled with these sentiments then, or so
I now imagine, in remembering.
"One of the things that annoys me most," he said as we stood
there in the wind, "is that this back prevents me from reading
for very long. I can't sit still for more than five or 10 minutes,
then I need to stand."
I asked him if he'd tried reading while lying down. He said
he had, but it was obvious that this solution was inadequate,
that he wasn't happy at all about how his angry back prevented
his full enjoyment of one of the great pleasures of his life.
But he quickly turned a bright eye on things.
"I read The New Yorker every morning on the subway
coming to work and every evening on the way home. That's a good
solid two hours reading, or thereabouts. I don't need to read
more than that. Two hours of reading a day are plenty! Who needs
more than that?"
I didn't argue. He said it with a smile, and for a little while
I believed he meant it. But I guess he didn't. How could he? I
am now certain that he hated the fact that this pleasure had been
relegated to those suffocating moments on packed subways when
he stood (because the condition of his back demanded it) the whole
way in from Brooklyn and then later the whole way back.
For one who loves to read, such reading, subway reading, is
only a temporary measure. One who reads, any lover of
the written word in its myriad forms, will naturally read when
an idle moment presents itself, when a good book or magazine or
newspaper or even pamphlet is, along with time, at hand. It was
natural that S.C. would do so on the subway -- as do I, and many
others. However, any true bibliophile, and he was one beyond a
doubt, will have his true, perfect reading states -- whether it
be propped up in a soft bed; in an armchair with a good light
and a cup of coffee at one's right hand; in a rocker beside a
window with a view out at the tree-lined streets of Brooklyn;
or some such combination.
I know that S.C. used to enjoy going on a summer's day to Prospect
Park, to lie out in the grass, his elbows planted firmly in the
earth, to then read with the sun shining down from above, with
the soothing sound of insects and birds and animals rustling in
the lively world around him. Usually such individuals can read
among clamor and chaos, but the highest pleasure of reading, and
I know he knew this, comes only during times of quiet and ease,
when one can lose oneself in the written word, when one is transported
to another universe or when one is made marvelously aware of this
world here just beyond the pages.
Certainly, such a man can think amidst confusion and
noise -- but that's not the point. The same man loves truly
to indulge in this great pleasure without distraction. He wants
to feel, in all fullness, the many glories potentially to be conveyed
through the contemplative perusal of letters, words, sentences,
text; he will linger over the tactile and olfactory stimuli to
be discovered in ink and paper and binding. With joy near to quivering
he will sniff at new books and old ones, for he has long known
that books have distinctive aromas, that one fine, moldy or sugar-corn
scent will bring him back to his childhood, when he read mysteries
and fantasy novels, which stood like doorways and windows to similar
sweet transcendence. He will sometimes even, without shame, palpate
the very flesh of the textual manifestation at hand as he might,
at other times, the flesh of a lover -- with care, desire, longing,
pensiveness, playfulness, even anger and frustration -- but, ultimately
and always, with deep adoration and reverence, the very love of
life itself.
That morning
On Wednesday morning, we spoke briefly. We joked about something,
I can't remember what. He told me he'd been reading on the train
earlier that morning and had thought of me. From his black nylon
bag, he pulled out the latest issue of The New Yorker.
He began to tear out from its pages an essay he thought I'd enjoy,
but I stopped him and walked off to make a copy. When I came to
him to return the magazine, he was reading again from that same
academic architecture journal we'd discussed. I was vaguely surprised
to see this, thinking he had put the journal down for good the
day before (he'd said, "No wonder I never read this rag!"). I
thought there was something in his former classmate's article,
something about the existence of the article itself, that had
gotten to him. When he saw me, he put the journal aside, and,
though I may have imagined it, he seemed pale with shame.
I returned to my cubicle, ready to settle in to that day's work.
Not more than 10 minutes had passed, though, when S.C. came over.
The expression on his face, and I can still see it, was one of
frustration, illness and distracted uncertainty -- I know that
I am trying even now to "read" his face. I have trouble going
beyond his eyes, which were blank then, like mirrors that reflected
nothing; I cannot see much more than the gesture of his left hand
rubbing his back and the bit of skin revealed by the action. He
told me that he was going home, that he felt terrible. I asked
him if it was his back; he said that it was. His manner, however,
hinted that there was more here, that it was his back and his
anger and disgust and melancholy and so much else that made him
sick, but he didn't put this into words.
Just before he turned to go, he told me he might make an appointment
with a doctor, but he made it clear that Brooklyn, home, was the
only immediate destination he had in mind. (As I discovered later,
he had had an appointment with a doctor already scheduled for
that afternoon, which he had at some point canceled; a fact I
cannot rightly understand. Why did he bother to cancel an appointment
that wasn't going to matter? Was it one last act of consideration?
Was he not yet set upon his course and so planning for a future
in which there might be financial consequences for missing and
not canceling a doctor's appointment? Why did he tell me he "might
make an appointment," if he already had one? These questions now
mystify me.) I asked him if I'd see him on the following day,
and he said that I would. But I never saw him again.
He took an uptown train, probably, bound not for Brooklyn but
for the far north reaches of Manhattan. Some of his favorite neighborhoods
were to be found on the island's green head -- Washington Heights,
Hudson Heights, Fort Tyron Park. I can imagine that, on arriving,
he climbed to the top of one of the hills that overlooks the Hudson.
There were no leaves then on the trees. He would have been able
to see clear across the river to the impassive Palisades, to the
lonely monastery that straddled the cliff and stood as a reminder,
for any who would see, of the tenuous nature of existence, of
the delicate line upon which we all walk. Then perhaps he made
his way to the bridge, his purpose still not sure -- pulled at
by compulsion, by a dark desire or need or sadness or lure to
unholy and unknown excitement. One longs to find consolation in
the notion that he saw beauty in the end, from that vantage on
the bridge: the great Hudson River below him, with its history,
its majesty; and before him, as far as he could see, the splendor
of Manhattan, with its spires of stone and steel, its sparkling
glass, its hint of promise and possibility. But this consolation
would be, at best, uncertain -- it is possible he saw instead
a nightmare and only one means to deliverance.
A subway ride from 23rd Street to the neighborhoods near the
bridge takes at least 30 minutes. I wonder if he brought reading
material along. I suspect, if only out of habit, that he had.
The academic journal, however, had been left behind. It sits,
even now, dumbly on his desk.
In the days soon after, I would sometimes pick up the New
Yorker essay he'd given me to read. But I could not get much
beyond the first page. Part of me had hoped I'd find in the essay
some answers, some clues as to why he had done what he did; a
second, equal part of me had feared that the essay would answer
none of my questions. Four days passed.
Finally, I read the piece. It was about a nondescript road that
ran through New Jersey to the Lincoln Tunnel, a road on which
the writer had deliberately walked, for miles, in order to know
something more about it. It was a wonderful essay about perambulation,
quiet thought, roadside garbage, duels in the days of early New
York, tunnels, buses to Port Authority in Manhattan and curiosity
itself. But as far as I could tell, it offered no clues. It did
not address suicide or anything in particular that I might connect
with S.C.'s living condition or ultimate end. I could only suppose
that he simply thought I would find it interesting, and nothing
more.
I had told him on that now portentous Tuesday night, when we
had walked together toward our trains, that I couldn't stand the
PATH, that that was one thing I'd never like about commuting to
and from New Jersey. Perhaps he thought this essay would help
me see that even the most mundane passages to, from and through
New Jersey could be filled with revelation, or, if not that, at
least, that I might find in such periods of transit points of
interest, stimuli to curiosity, or even just a reminder of the
potential for finding that which is meaningful in the humdrum,
in the dirty or frustrating corners of everyday life. And I think
that this is so. However, I now struggle to understand how he
could have so generously extended to me this bit of hope and yet
have gone off with nothing of it left over for himself.
I seek a place of peace and quiet, free from distraction, from
which I might turn again to that vision of his face, to the text
that must be there, clearly inscribed. I want to see life as letters,
words and sentences that I might read, and S.C.'s own
essay, with its beginning and its end, as one that I might examine
exegetically, find connections in and determine to be ultimately
meaningful.
I have settled into my soft pine rocker by the window, overlooking
a tree-lined Brooklyn street; a cup of coffee is beside me, just
the way I like it. I glance out the window at the sky -- it is
so blue, so beautiful, as it must have looked to him that final,
final day. And then I try to read. But I cannot. I cannot make
out the words.
* * *
Douglas Stephen Curran is an editor at Rizzoli International
Publications in New York.
(April 2006)
