The Suicide Club (16 page)

Another change that took place was that myself, Matthew, Jenny, Clare and Craig found ourselves hanging around with each other even more than before. Although Clare had initially distanced herself she had now come back, despite the fact that her parents had strictly forbidden my company. You see, there was a reason that we were all hanging around more. Me.

A lot of the kids ostracized me. It upset me at first because I wasn't used to it but I knew that I deserved it. There were a few occasions where there would be a big group of people and I'd go over and everyone would walk off. Moments like that made me feel like crying. But Matthew and Jenny always stayed on my side, no matter what, and as a result, after a while, they became tarred with the same brush. I loved them for what they were doing, but I wished they had kept at arm's length so that they wouldn't be dragged down with me. I was OK anyway. I was strong and determined to be a better person so I knew that I'd get over this temporary blip.

There was also a second bond growing between us, born of the fact that we had been through so much together. Apart from the whole Bertie thing, we had been the ones to help Craig. We had smoked cigarettes at the lake that night. We had played tag in the graveyard. We had been there when Freddy had run away from the headmaster and because of that we stuck together.

I guess, after all of this, what I'm trying to say is this: Yes, I was trying to be good, that's one thing. But the second thing was, and I hate to say this, it . . . wasn't . . . working.

I realize now that we were cutting ourselves off. We must
have looked like a gang of kids who thought they were better than everyone else. Which, and this is where the acid kicks in, we genuinely were becoming. Even though I wanted to be a better person, I really did, the fact of the matter was that, after a while, I started not to care that the other kids in school were trying to mentally bully me because I had my small group of friends. That was all I needed. It's often the case that when you're in the middle of something very harmful, you don't realize it. We were the emo kids who had killed the bird and we thought we were special. We were unapproachable and intimidating. And you know what? I was beginning to like it.

IT WAS THE
evening of the Thanksgiving party at the airbase. My MCR album still hadn't turned up, so I sent Play an email asking them what had happened. I was starting to get fed up with it all, to tell you the truth.

Anyhoo I called for Matthew and we walked to the base. We had agreed to meet Clare, Jenny and Craig there. The airbase is on the outskirts of town. It's surrounded by huge fences and the inside is like a town in itself. On a miniature scale. There are funny little suburban American streets with little white houses, clipped lawns and American flags fluttering from flagpoles in the gardens, all the sort of stuff that you would absolutely expect. There was even a little high street with little shops. We were going to be in the main hall that they have there – I think it's called the mess hall or something.

The night was bitterly cold and I was glad that I was wearing my fashionable new scarf. The gates up ahead were lit up like a piece of heaven had snapped off and landed at the entrance – incredibly bright. A few people were filing in and I wondered how the hell they could call this
security
. Clare was right there with Jenny and Craig. She had on a pair of jeans with a shirt, tie and a cool-looking tank top. Around her wrists were white bandages that made her look like a self-mutilator. Which she wasn't. She looked awesome; the quintessential little MySpace emo girl.

Jenny was dressed in a big winter coat and scarf which made her look tiny. She took us to the security booth where we were issued with passes and we headed in.

Beyond the security gates was a main thoroughfare where all of the shops were. It was a really bizarre place, but I liked it. It was like a microcosm of America right here in my English town. McDonald's, Starbucks, Gap, they were all here with their shiny shop-fronts. To get to the mess hall you had to walk through the residential area.

It was as we were walking past the houses that we heard a shout.

‘Hey, Ricardo.' We all turned and looked down the street. It was empty. ‘Up here,' came the shout again.

We craned our necks up to the bedroom window of a house to our left. It was Chad, an American kid who lived on the base.

‘Come up and have a drink,' he called. ‘All of you guys.'

‘Aren't you going to the mess hall?'

‘Sure,' he called. ‘Later. Come on, get your asses up here.' He was such an American meat-head, but I still liked him. He was one of the few kids who were still talking to me after what had happened to Bertie. I could tell that he had a good heart somewhere beneath his muscles and efficient haircut.

Have you ever noticed how American kids seem so much bigger than us Brits? It's always struck me as odd and I put it down to differences in climate affecting our genetic make-up over many generations.

His house looked like something out of the fifties but I won't go into it because that would be pointless. We went up to his room, which was a little more modern, even though he had loads of dumb-bells and that sort of thing to feed his biceps, which he probably called ‘guns' non-ironically.

‘Sit down,' he said. I suddenly realized he was drunk. His
words were slurred and his eyes were a tad off-kilter. Upon closer inspection I saw a half-empty bottle of vodka on his desk sat next to a tube of plastic cups, which he used to pour us drinks.

I took a sip and almost choked with the heat of the vodka.

‘I've got to show you guys this,' he said. His arm reached over the side of his bed and he opened the lowest drawer of a chest of drawers. When his hand reappeared I felt a shard of panic in my ribs. Chad was holding a gun. It was one of those quite old-fashioned pistols that have six chambers, you know the type. The metal was dull, dark-grey, and it looked really solid. My initial jolt of fear died away almost immediately and was replaced with curiosity. I had never seen a gun before in real life.

‘Jesus,' said Clare, acting like Chad was a stupid little kid.

‘Do you know where I got this?' he said, smiling and waving it around. As he washed it through the air, it criss-crossed the line between my eyes and the light bulb so my world was suddenly all light followed by dark shadow.

‘Is it loaded?' I said.

‘Hell yeah,' he said Americanly, like it was impressive. ‘Do you know where I got this little puppy?' he asked again.

‘Your mother?' Matthew said quickly.

‘Hey, man,' he retorted, looking drunkenly at Matthew. ‘What did you say about my mom?' He raised the gun and pointed it at Matthew's face. The atmosphere suddenly changed in the room and I could feel a cold sweat under my clothes. Everybody recoiled, even though Chad was clearly playing around.

‘Chad,' said Jenny quickly. ‘Put it down.'

‘Ha,' he said. ‘Whatever,' and he lowered his aim.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Really. You never know, the gun might have gone off of its own accord.

‘I found it,' Chad said. ‘I found it at the side of the road. Right on the sidewalk.'

‘Don't you think you should hand it in?' I said.

He flopped back against his headpost. ‘Nope. I think I'll hang on to it.' He took a swig from his drink.

‘So if you found it on the base, how come there are no signs up saying that it's gone missing?' Jenny, being a resident of the airbase, was clearly talking about some sort of protocol that came into operation if a weapon was lost.

But Chad just shrugged. ‘Like I give a fuck.'

‘Can I hold it?' It was the first thing that Craig had said all night. I didn't think that giving a loaded pistol to a boy with clear mental problems was a good idea but it was in his hand before any of us could say anything. Now the room started to descend into panic again. It was a calm panic, just like what I imagine a plane crash to be like – nothing hysterical, just silent dread.

Craig was fingering the barrel of the small pistol.

‘It's heavy,' he said hollowly. And then he pointed the pistol at me, held it square at my heart. ‘Bang,' he said calmly.

I've got to say it, I had never felt anything like this before. I had a loaded gun pointed at my chest and my terror was turning loops in my stomach. I was getting the feeling that Craig really hated me. I guess he still blamed me for Bertie. His face, even though he was talking, had that indifferent glazed look of his. Everybody was silent. And then Craig did something that made my bones tighten. Slowly, purposefully, he lifted his thumb into the air and released the safety clip.

‘Shit, Craig,' I said.

‘Craig, baby, put it down,' Clare said. I'm sure she said it patronizingly so that he would be antagonized and shoot me. She was cunning like that. I kept my eyes on his trigger finger so that I could at least
try
to get out of the way of
the bullet should it happen to get fired out of the gun.

‘I'm not putting the gun down,' he said, neither calmly nor maniacally. ‘Why shouldn't I shoot him?'

I hated the way he was talking about me like I wasn't in the room. He had probably forgotten that I was a person in his crazy brain.

‘I could shoot him in the face,' he said.

That chilled me. The seconds dragged on like a shovel being scraped along concrete. I found myself physically unable to speak. My guts were loosening and I started to feel tired. I always feel tired when I'm in dire trouble. I'm just glad I didn't feel like crying.

‘Craig,' said Matthew. ‘Craig, please put it down. Stop messing around.'

He cocked his neck so that his right eye was aligned directly over the barrel of the gun. He was looking straight at me. I could feel the light bouncing off me and burning into his retina.

‘Chad. Do something!' Jenny shouted.

It must have jolted something in Craig's brain because he suddenly brought the gun down and tossed it on to the bed. Nobody grabbed it and nobody said anything. I think we were all too stunned. Eventually Chad leaned over and took it in his hands, put it back in his drawer.

I didn't feel suddenly relaxed, I felt angry. Extremely angry. In fact, I was shaking and I sort of lost control, which I don't do very often. I was on my feet and on Craig in a second. I didn't punch him in the face or anything, but I pushed him up against the wall and started screaming at him.

‘What the fuck are you doing, you fucking idiot!'

His face went blank like it always does and that made me even more angry.

‘Don't you go inside your shell, you stupid bastard.' I
wasn't being too harsh – this boy had just threatened to murder me, for crying out loud.

Matthew and Chad pulled me off and the girls took Craig away.

I was kept in Chad's room for a few minutes so that the others could get to the mess hall without me going nuts again and trying to kill Craig.

‘What the hell was he doing?' I said to Matthew.

‘You know, he's . . . mental.'

I shook my head. I was feeling a little calmer now as common sense returned.

‘I know, I know. Christ, did I go over the top?'

He didn't say anything but I suddenly felt a separation between us. Usually, Matthew would tell me exactly what he thought. But he wasn't doing that. I felt like he was holding something back that he would have normally said. I wondered if the murder of that stupid bird had left a deeper impression than he had let on. A terrible feeling was creeping into my gut. Was Matthew
afraid
of me? I could hardly blame him, given my past and how the old Richard seemed to be resurfacing. But I couldn't stand that thought so I stopped thinking about it.

‘Come on,' I said. ‘Let's go.'

‘You're not going to do anything to Craig, are you?'

I breathed out. ‘I suppose I should apologize to him.'

I felt like there was a great burden on my shoulders. No matter what I tried to do, things were thrown back in my face. I had tried to help Craig. After he had tried to kill himself it was me who had called for him to make sure he was OK, who looked after him, who brought him into our own little group. So why was it me he pointed the gun at? Was he really so upset about Bertie? Or was there something else?

An unbearable soul-cracking splinter shot through me with an idea: did Craig know the real me? People say that mental illness can give you an extraordinary insight. Did he know that deep down I was a really bad person? Evil. I was almost crying with how unfair this was. I didn't want to be evil. I wanted to be a good boy, but life was determined to stop me becoming that.

Inside the hall the noise was deafening. The roof was nothing but metal and the sound was crashing off it like cymbals. There was a line of disco lights that flashed around the room like spectres. The hall was full of people. Most of the adult men were All-American Heroes with steely haircuts. Most of the women were their wives. But the kids were a fair mix from all three of the town's demographics: Americans, locals, boarders. There were lots of little kids running around as well but I liked that because family values should be admired. And I love kids. I like to play stupid games like Cowboys and Indians with them.

‘Here,' a voice whispered in my ear. It was Clare. Her face looked like an alien because the disco lights were shining all over it green, red, yellow. She was offering me a cup.

‘What is it?'

‘Just drink it.'

I took a sip, keeping my eyes on her. I think it was whisky and Coke because it really burned my throat. Whatever it was, it was very strong.

‘I'm sorry for going so mental on Craig,' I said.

Clare smiled at me and then did something amazing. She kissed me on the cheek. ‘You're so sweet.'

I had to bite my lip in case I broke down. Why was I apologizing for having a gun pointed at me? More importantly, why the hell was I feeling so emotional?