BY HIS OWN HAND

The convulsing cough gave way to resignation. With each attempt by my body to expel the water from my lungs, more came in. I now laid flat, face up, as light streamed down through the water in blades all seeming to come from one central point. I felt strangely relaxed, almost euphoric, as life slipped from my body, my eyes dimmed just as two arms reached down toward me.

It could have been construed as a religious experience except that the two arms belonged to my Dad and not God. The next thing I remember I was on shore, the coughing had returned along with a vicious headache. My parents and brothers stood all around me as my body ejected the last of the Silver Lake water from my lungs. It was close, so close that I had shat my swimming shorts. Even at four years old, I was embarrassed. It's the second oldest memory I have, the oldest being watching my Grandfather trying to get up after suffering a heart attack that would soon take his life.

Those memories flashed in my head as I swam down the ten or twelve feet to Bernie's body, laying flat and face up, seemingly lifeless, as air bubbles trickled from his mouth. Despite my experience, I loved the water. Whereas most people would have become terrified of it, I found a weird connection with water. If that was how drowning felt, I reasoned, it really wasn't so bad, and I had became a powerful swimmer.

It's a good thing too, our day of skipping school to enjoy some of Summer's last breaths had taking a bad turn. Squire Lake was nothing but a gravel pit, but with it's secluded position, crystal clear water and sandy beach it was a school-skippers paradise. Bernie had taken a large piece of Styrofoam out towards the deep water and suddenly starting slapping it with flaying arms. His screams of "help" were taken by all of us as an attempt at a joke, he could, after all, swim fairly well. One by one though we became more concerned as he disappeared under the surface and didn't come back up. Mitchel and me were both members of the swim team (Any white kid that could swim was forced to) so we told everyone to stay put as we swam out to where we had last seen him. I found him first, and thankfully, moments later we had him on shore coughing up Squire Lake. He was lucky, he didn't even shit his pants.

Bernie was, in my eyes, everything I wished I could be. He was witty, smart, and had Jim Morrison-esque good looks. He was a hit with every girl we knew when his parents moved into our school district. He hated our school, but then again, we all did. Bernie was also a good friend, when girls would come around with their doe-eyes, Bernie would introduce me as a great person worthy of a second look despite my average appearance. After Mitchel and me pulled him from the water he told everyone we were heroes and he would thank me to a point where it was embarrassing. I started hanging out with him regularly and would walk over to his house on my way to school even though it was out of the way. In the short time we had known each other we had become fast friends.

Unfortunately, as way too many of my personal stories do, this one took a bad turn. As I rounded the corner one day toward Bernie's house, I saw the kaleidoscope of red and blue lights in the early morning haze. Police vehicles and ambulances gathered en mass around his house. One of our mutual friends, Craig, was standing at the edge of the crowd. "What's going on?" I queried. "Don't know." Craig replied, "I think something happened to one of Bernie's parents." That made sense, he had mentioned that his dad drank way too much, he probably fell. I was totally unprepared for what happened next. The side door burst open and a whole entourage of police, paramedics, and crying people spilled onto their driveway. In the middle was a black bag on a gurney, zipped all the way up. Bernie's parents rode alongside, his mother wailing in a way only mothers do. They damn near ran to the ambulance and in a second they were gone. Another mutual friend, Dean, worked his way to me and Craig. "Did you hear?" he gasped, "Bernie shot himself!" My knees went weak. "He took his dad's shotgun and shot himself." he continued, "My mom said he died, she ran over to Bernie's house when she heard his mom screaming." My heart sank to my feet, I looked out at the crowd dispersing. The world seemed suddenly emptier, darker, and every word people were saying seemed to come from a very far away place. We were just kids, How could this happen?

Over the next few days the details started coming in. His arguments with his dad, the condemnation that he wasn't living up to their Mormon beliefs and even his last few moments. His chair sat empty in one of my classes as a reminder that he was no longer with us.

Suicide is the plague of the white male. We kill ourselves at a rate that is higher than any other group. I myself, have had suicidal thoughts, although my optimism that the future will be better and logic always pulled me through. It is introspection that feeds it. If you focus on the people who will be hurt the most by your leaving, or those who have it worse than you, and focus less on yourself, it becomes less likely.

Bernie was, I think, typical of the kind of white males who kill themselves. He kept his problems to himself, hidden behind jokes and a facade that everything is fine. Women share their misery, minorities can blame someone else, but in the white male world we are told we are the fortunate sons. If there is a problem, it is yours to solve and yours alone. If there is blame, it is you. It certainly doesn't help that we hear constantly that we are the bane of mankind, the cause of oppression, imperialism and prejudice. Bernie's death shook me to my soul, I worried constantly for my friends and always tried to look for any warning signs. In our effort to affix blame in this society we seem to care not at all for the children who are born white and male. If they are to commit suicide, so be it. It almost seems that once again we are to blame. If it should happen that one of us should kill himself, who really cares? It will be by their own hand anyway. H.C.