Whatsername And Suicide - Where Have We Gone Wrong?

I’d been at my sisters for a week now, it was my first time away from home, and here I was in Texas, thousands of miles from where I lived in New England.

I was here because of the crying and the sleepless nights, and my mother finally hugging me and asking me a question.

“Honey, are you suicidal?”

She said it like she’d never uttered the word before, like it had never crossed her mind even once, let alone connect it with one of her kids…but it was connected.
It was my label, a label no one knew, and it had been that way for awhile.

In less than 6 hours I was on a plane at 7am, scared shitless.
I had never been on an airplane before…15 and never flown.

15 and scared
15 and brave
15 and sad
15 and alone
15 and oh so smart…

After surviving the take off and watching New York pass below me I let out the breath I had been unknowingly holding.
I finally pulled out my CD player and put in Green Day’s CD American Idiot, the only CD I had to my name, and only because I nicked it from the local library a few days before…

Seig heil to the resident gasman
Kill all the fags that don’t agree

I’d missed my punk rock…the CD’s that went flying out the window one by one at 75 miles an hour as we were passing through Maryland…compliments of my dad…

So strike the fucking match and light this fuse

There was something about the sneer that these rockers had in their voice…
Billy Idol, Billy Joe, Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, Joey Ramone…okay, not so much Joey Ramone, but you can’t not love Joey…

Thought I saw her down on the street
Turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and them I took a different path
I can remember the face but I can’t recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been…..

The plane ride was 5 hours and 45 minutes, I don’t know how many times I had listened to the last track on CD, all I know is that I had it on repeat, and I knew it was meant for me. I was her, she was me, it was destined.

Whatsername….

What a scary thought…

I met him almost as soon as I stepped into the door of the apartment…in a white crumpled t shirt and pajama pants, he’d just woken up, sure it was 2 pm, but apparently he worked late shift with my brother in-law.

Kase says “oh, Adam, this is my sister Fay, Fay, my roommate, Adam”

Adam nodded at me a hello and said “Hi” picking up a small object from near his feet, a Chihuahua, I realized. He stepped past us out the door, barefoot, crumpled; needing a shave…That was him.