the will has gone (preview) by grant woods

The Will Has Gone

Grant Woods

To the curiously suicidal. The freaks and fuck-ups. The lonely. The tormented. Those brave enough to look down the barrel, but too stubborn to make it go BOOM. We aren’t a team. We aren’t enemies. Only misfits, standing with our backs to the world, toes dangling over the edge – Maybe one day.

Chapter 1

I was waking up to the same sight every day. It hadn’t changed in months. It was last month’s mess, multiplied by eight new pizza boxes, plus a hundred pieces of notebook paper, crumpled and tossed into the corner. A three foot poster of Ernest Hemingway hugging Fidel Castro was duct taped crooked on the wall and the whole place smelled like a public bus seat.

I pushed my palms into my eye sockets, partially to clear the grogginess, but mostly in hopes that it would stop the pounding in my head. A dagger in my abdomen was the only reason I was conscious at all. The previous night’s combination of pizza and gummy bears disabled all of my body’s digestive capabilities. Still, I didn’t want to move.

Setting my feet on the floor meant another day on this planet. Another day maneuvering through old mistakes and new problems. The Ikea desk that I spent the better part of fourteen hours putting together, had taken on the uneven tilt of a drunken homeless man at a bus stop. Even If I did care to organize the desktop, my writing utensils would have rolled off the slope onto the floor. Weeks before, when the desk began to lean, I assisted the inevitable pull of gravity. In one angry swipe, my arm sent a stack of notebooks, pens, and a three year old laptop crashing to the ground.

I used to call these “stay-in-bed” days. They were a common theme in my life for years. If it wasn’t for

The Will Has Gone The Will Has Gone

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2 intestinal pain and bowel movements, I would have hid under the blankets for weeks at a time.

I took a deep breath and rolled to my side. More of my repulsive hygiene covered the other side of the room. A fish bowl, stocked with a floating fish that died sometime between my last rent check and the previous Thursday, was covered with a paper plate displaying two rigid scraps of pizza crust. A sheet of notebook paper bobbed in the water, occasionally nudging my deceased pet. Huckleberry Finn would be the first and last gold fish I ever agreed to take care of.

On the toilet, I flipped through an empty text message folder in hopes that something unread had slipped by. I needed to write. I needed to publish an article. Rent was due in two weeks and I had all of forty-two dollars in my checking account. My motivation and productivity were entrenched in a staring contest – neither budged.

With no line of income in sight, and the last package of Top Ramen noodles bobbing in a pot on the stove, I’d reached what I hoped was the bottom. I’d already felt the unforgiving slam of what I thought was rock bottom several times that year. Each time, some random act of luck jerked me up like a bungee cord. It could have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe I wanted to hit the bottom.

Not that I ever needed the threat of despair to motivate me. I always wished it worked that way. If that was the case, I would have been out of the slump months before. I had a tendency to accept defeat during hard times. In contrast to an alcoholic’s moment of clarity, I always saw rock bottom as a decent place for a nap.


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3 I promised myself that I wouldn’t allow my life to deteriorate again. I wrote it down on a post-it: “No more self sabotage. Rent is due in 29 days. Plenty of time to turn it around.” It was the only thing still attached to the tilting desktop. The number 29 had been crossed out and replaced by a 22. Apparently, that was the last time I gave a shit about it.

I also promised that I’d kill myself the next time I ran out of food and money. Seemed like an easy decision to make. Nothing to eat, nothing to buy, my writing was worthless – why not end it all with a back handspring off of the Golden Gate Bridge? I had enough money for about three days’ worth of food. I thought I’d be good and dead by the end of the week.

Previous times, when I found myself in this position, there was always a semblance of hope. It was never strong, but it always lingered in the background. That lasted until the first Obama campaign, when I realized how passive that word was. Hope. If I rested my laurels on hope, I might as well splash some fate in there with it. Make myself a nice, cold, flaccid cocktail. That would do the trick.

The bridge seemed like the way to go. Everyone wants to fly. Why not spend my last moments soaring toward the San Francisco Bay?

I pulled my laptop out from under a pile of junk, tossed it on the bed, and crawled back under the covers. The power button was broken and the only way to turn the thing on was with my pinky nail. I grew it out for that sole purpose.

The first email I opened was an “urgent message” from my bank. A friendly notice, politely informing me of


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4 my recent checking account overdraft. Direct deposit for car insurance sounded like such a good idea. The flashing red -$80.46 looked like a good excuse to expedite my suicide. At least the red hatchback, parked eight blocks from my apartment, was still insured. I’d like to note that the reason for parking eight blocks away was not by choice. The sputter and moan of the four cylinder engine arguing with the empty fuel tank made this decision for me. It died on a taco run at 1:45am. I abandoned it and walked home.

I never planned for my last meal to be as elegant as ninety-nine cent Ramen noodles. But I was glad that the last piece of clean silverware happened to be a plastic spork, leftover from some cheap Chinese takeout.

I ate the salty treat and nothing surged through my head. No last second ideas. No genius schemes, developed in the face of desperation. Not even casual self-pity. Only acceptance and indifference to the fact that I’d reached the end of a dirt-road life.

The laptop overheated and shut itself off before I could finish the noodles. I set the pot on the floor and rolled back into the covers. In the movies, that was the point where some inspiring, black drill sergeant should have kicked my apartment door off its hinges and flipped my mattress while I clung to the comforter. He’d get uncomfortably close to my face and degrade me for creating all of my own problems. Then he’d probably attempt to motivate me by condescendingly asking, “Are you just going to lay there and die?”

The scene would continue – I’d shake my head and whip myself off the dirty floor. The scent of determination would be emanating from my pores and


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5 there’d be a sixty second montage of me feverishly cleaning my apartment. The next shot would be me, standing next to the drill sergeant in an intense stare down. Then he’d turn to the camera. While an obviously digitally enhanced tear runs down his face, he’d say, “I knew you had it in you.” Then it would fade to another montage of me, diligently writing and producing an ungodly amount of work.

Only, I had no need for an inspirational, African American drill sergeant. Nor did I have a desire for any outside motivation. The rat race, which overtakes so many people’s lives, wasn’t a game I wanted to partake in. Even if I obliged, there was a good chance I’d be picked last. I had no desire to keep my head up, and no will to keep fighting. I’d rather let the credits roll, save the audience two hours, and save myself a lifetime of misery.

The reality was, sometimes things did get so bad that a bottle of sleeping pills on an empty stomach was the best alternative. Especially when the bad wasn’t coming from life, so much as it was being concocted in my brain. A serotonin imbalance had transformed my mind into a sworn enemy – an enemy who urged me to stay in bed for days at a time. It was a voice that whispered “jump” every time I crossed the Bay Bridge.

Keep fighting isn’t always the right answer. I had to fight ever since I joined the choir in the 3rd grade. Fighting was the last thing on my to-do list. I only wanted to lie in bed, until the sun refused to come up. If starvation wasn’t such a long process, it might have been a viable option.

Chapter 2

I made the final decision to kill myself when my daily attempt to write ended abruptly after only a single paragraph. It was a paragraph that could have been written in crayon by a drowsy toddler. I’d been calling myself a writer for so long that I started believing it. When someone would ask me about my work at a bar, after looking over my grunge stained t-shirt, it always came off condescending.

“Hey Will, what do you do for a living?” I always sipped my beer before answering the

question. The way John Wayne would take a swig from a bottle of whiskey in those old western movies before his pal dug into his bullet wound with a spoon. Just a little something to numb the impending agony.

“I write, I’m a writer.” My answer was always met with a glimmer of intrigue. Bank workers, postmen, accountants, you hear about these jobs all the time. But writer? That’s one that warrants a follow-up question.

“Really? What do you write?” “Articles for magazines, newspapers, novels.” Another array of surprise sweeps across their face and

I clutch my beer for another swig. The truth was, I should have said; “I used to be a writer.” Or even, “I wrote a few articles and a book that never got published. I’m writing a new book, but it’s been laying under a heap of trash beside my sloping desk for a month and a half. I’ve balled up more pages than I’ve actually written lately. See, I’m not much of a writer at all. I’ve been calling myself a writer in hopes that it will impress people, or get me laid. I’m actually unemployed.”


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7 This answer would require more words. And by the looks of my writing career, I wasn’t very good with words. I preferred to simply lie to people’s faces. Let them believe I was dedicated, strapping myself down in front of a computer for twelve hours a day. Dedicated to improving my craft. Only taking breaks to refuel, and to entertain bar patrons with stories of my blossoming career. At least if they believed that, they wouldn’t ask any more questions.

I couldn’t call myself a writer. I could issue it as an answer to bar-room questions, but I couldn’t look in the mirror and call myself a writer. Not with a straight face. I’d written a short story on the back of a McDonalds receipt a few days before, but I think I left it in the bag. That was the extent of my writing. If that deemed me a writer, I could have also called myself a chef, and a proud pet owner.

You never hear of people claiming to be postmen. Going out and buying blue shorts, a knapsack, and pepper spray, then never actually delivering mail. Instead of spending their time power walking between mailboxes, they spend the majority of their time staring at the ceiling of a filthy, one-bedroom apartment. This doesn’t happen in many other fields. But as a writer, I’d granted myself this privilege – living in a giant gray area. I was double-dealing. My actions and words came slow, convoluted, and equally dissatisfying.

I wasn’t a writer. I wasn’t anything. I wore a fake name badge and imagined a life of prestige and importance. Writer my balls. Writing is the easiest job in the world. It requires you to do one thing – write. That didn’t mean you were a good writer. But I couldn’t even


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8 say I was a bad writer. I simply wasn’t a writer. Unless I could staple my McDonald’s receipt to the back of my resume, I had no feet to stand on.

I’d always had the idea that I’d end up on the receiving end of a bottle of sleeping pills. Found face down in a puddle of my own hardened vomit. Probably wearing a sock with a hole in it, and reeking of Ramen noodles. I didn’t know it would be this soon. Twenty-seven is early in the story. At this point, real authors are only beginning to thicken the plot. Just like my own half-assed writing, some dreams would never make it to publication.

I had a fantasy once, very early in my life. I couldn’t have been more than eight years old. It was my first fantasy of suicide – a very underdeveloped, eight year-old suicide plan. An idea that would have probably resulted in an embarrassing flop, likely landing me in a hospital bed. I dreamed about climbing to the top of the jungle gym at lunch. Not the toddler jungle gym on the little kid playground. I planned to sneak over to the big kid’s playground.

It was a bold plan, considering I got the shakes standing at the top of the 3rd grade jungle gym. The 6th graders had one twice as big. My brilliant idea involved a hasty climb, a double middle finger salute to Mrs. Parker, the recess attendant, then a head first plunge to my death.

Fortunately, I never went through with the plan. Very best case scenario, the 6th grade jungle gym was only high enough to mildly injure myself. In reality, it would have ended with me crying, cradling a broken arm, while a crowd of 6th and 7th graders howled laughing. My high


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9 school career would have been spent warding off bullies and their constant reminder of “Will’s jungle gym jump.”

A wavering desire for life wasn’t anything new for me. Suicidal thoughts, plans, even full strategy with wind adjustments had been made more times than I could remember. Out of money and lacking conviction, I was actually in a position to accomplish a goal. Not as a writer, not as a pretend writer, but as a jumper. The goal had been in progress for nineteen years and counting.

The Golden Gate Bridge was only a few miles from my house. It wasn’t grandiose, but I knew it was effective. Every few months, there was a new person flailing to a splashy death from the Golden Gate. I’d walked across the bridge maybe fifty times. Each time, the little voice in my head urged me to climb over the guardrail and spread my arms like an American eagle.

On my walk that day, I was excited. Not nervous, not anxious or sad, just excited for it to be over. The thoughts of my family’s reaction crossed my mind. I also thought about what the families witnessing my act would think. I knew it wasn’t an ideal situation, but it wasn’t about them. It was about me. When the will to live isn’t strong enough to get out of bed anymore, everything in life gets uncomfortable. Sleeping fades into insomnia, being awake blurs with slumber. The normal, daily highs, peak at dismal levels, while the lows plummet you through the center of the earth’s core. Eventually, you make a decision – make it better, or get it over with.

The adrenaline spike was something I hadn’t planned for. It felt good, the first steps on the bridge, knowing I was so close to completing a long awaited task. I felt happy for the first time in months, which isn’t the most


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10 desirable sentiment when you’re a hundred yards from the end of your legacy.

San Francisco was full of weirdos. From your average gothic teenager, to the heroin addicted mime pushing a stroller full of beer cans. That was what you could expect to see on the Bay Bridge. It always gave me a sense of comfort, knowing that my ketchup-stained, gas station t-shirt wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention.

The sun found a space between the clouds and proceeded to heat the hand rails to a blistering red. It was beautiful, actually. I hadn’t been out of the house, or around any large group of people, in weeks. Seeing everyone jogging, or laughing, or taking blurry cell-phone pictures, made the whole scene somewhat charming. You might see that as a strange thought for a suicidal man, but I couldn’t help it. It might have had something to do with the two Xanax pills I had gulped down with warm Cactus Cooler, before I left my apartment.

Two thirds of the way across the bridge, I noticed a pudgy, clean shaven man straddling the rail. Not exactly the most comfortable position to take in the beauty of the bay. When I walked past him, he avoided eye contact. His chubby jowls jiggled as his head panned toward the water. If he was a fellow jumper, I knew it would be visible in his eyes. Some idiosyncrasy would have screamed, “I’ve reached my end.” Either that, or a subtle, ominous cry for help.

Neither of those was present in the man’s face. He was wearing slacks with loafers, and had a nose that was an inch too short for his plump head. Beneath him was another deck, one that stuck out further than the bridge. Connected to the deck was a thick, steel support beam


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11 that plunged into the water below. Even if he was a jumper, he’d have to maneuver down to the lower platform before performing his final fall.

When I looked back, I saw a shimmer of fear glisten off his forehead. Being a natural looky-loo all my life, I decided that that was a good point to stop. I figured he was hopped up on an upper, maybe speed or bad coke. His drug ride wasn’t going well and he figured the bridge would be a calm place to mellow out his high.

Apparently, he had other intentions. His inside leg swung over the rail and I watched his graceless tumble to the lower platform. The short-nosed man landed on his side, with his head jammed up against the lower rail. When he hit, I heard the wind shoot from his lungs and watched him gasp in surprise.

That was when he noticed me looking down at him. He didn’t avoid eye contact the way he had when I passed him the first time. His enlarged pupils met mine, and for a few seconds, he stared up at me. Lying on his side, on the lower deck of the bridge, he looked at me as if I was supposed to intervene. Maybe he thought I’d say something, try to talk him out of it, ask if he was okay. It was creepy in a way. He just laid there, gasping for breath and staring at me.

If his intentions were to jump, he was starting off all wrong. There was a good chance that a few of his ribs were broken, and a small trickle of blood had appeared at the edge of his eyebrow. If he was a jumper, how lucky was he? So close to his ultimate goal – and in the presence of someone who understood his mentality.

He could have gotten caught by one of those keep fighting, keep your head up people. He would have spent the


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12 last moments of his life questioning the validity of his actions. Questioning his right to choose between life and death. Instead, he got me – a man who was searching for a proper place to take his own final flight.

The man rolled to his belly and pressed himself to his feet with a wheeze. He glanced back at me again and my head naturally tipped forward. I didn’t mean it as encouragement, only as a general salutation. If he was going to jump, it wasn’t going to be me scurrying after him. I wasn’t exactly in the position to offer any words of wisdom.

There was a break in the foot traffic. The pudgy man couldn’t have picked a better time to jump. Unless someone had seen his slip, from further down the bridge, he would be able to leap from this world without torment. Without any nagging questions.

That was when I got the first waft of uncertainty. Not for my own plan, but for the man on the lower platform. His face was dripping with sweat and his nickel sized pupils had overtaken the rest of his eyeball. He faced away and leaned his stomach onto the lower rail. The sound of two concerned voices echoed over my shoulder. By the time I looked up, there was a security officer on a full sprint in our direction.

The pudgy man had been spotted. Maybe that was what he wanted. He wasn’t a jumper at all, just an attention seeker, filled up on some crudely cut cocaine. Either way, his run was about to come to a screeching halt. A second security officer hustled behind the first, and they both leaned over the top rail.

“Sir, sir, you aren’t allowed down there. Sir.”


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13 The second guard issued a similar warning, “Sir, stay where you are.”

The security guards were young. By the looks on their faces, it was a rare occasion for them. Up until that point, most of their time had been spent corralling excited tourist families and assisting rowdy mom-joggers with their strollers. Without a chance to warm up, they were called into action. The pudgy man’s dilemma pulled them out of the dugout and jammed them into the batter’s box.

“Sir. Please sit down in the middle of the platform.” “Sir.” The pudgy man wasn’t listening. He was either too

high, or preoccupied with an apprehensive inner monologue. Another dozen bridge goers had gathered, surrounding both me and the officers. Looks of concern encapsulated every face. Each person displayed an eerily motionless posture. No one wanted him to jump, but everyone wanted a good story to tell their friends.

The man standing on the lower platform was a stranger. His decision to jump didn’t concern any of the onlookers, yet they all watched as if their own lives depended on it.

Another line of command shot from the second officer, “Sir, you don’t need to do this.”

Officer Two’s statement was neither accurate, nor was it acknowledged by the jumper. The pudgy man lifted a leg and straddled the lower rail without looking at the audience behind him. Gasps from the stunned crowd echoed off the steel pillars. All at once, the man swung his second leg over the guardrail.

His body dropped, but his fingers refused to let go. Internal indecision. As his body slammed into the outside


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14 of the rail, his sweaty grip failed. For seven seconds, myself and approximately thirty other people, watched the jumper thrash toward the water. No one spoke. His body smashed into the concrete base of the pillar and rebounded into the bay.

Some people covered their eyes, some patted tears. The two congealed officers stared down with hands over their ears.


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the will has gone (preview) by grant woods

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