The Weight of Him(77)

He followed the production assistant with the big, clownish feet to the edge of the set and waited for her to give the signal. He couldn’t stop sweating, couldn’t regulate his breathing. The too-tight waistband of the army pants bit into him something savage. He resisted the urge to open its button, the assistant looking him up and down again, her continued shock at his fatigues on full display.

Billy was parched, his tongue sticking to his teeth, but he didn’t dare drink anything in case he would need to relieve himself during the show. The show. God. He didn’t know what he would say on camera, in front of the nation. His mind clouded, the thoughts not forming. He didn’t think he could speak. His words seemed to have left him right along with his saliva. The assistant touched his elbow. “You’re on.”

An awful sensation came over him, as if hands were tugging on his heart, trying to drag it out of him. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn the uniform. Maybe he’d gone too far. If he went on this show tonight and sixty-thousand-plus people thought he was crazy, an absolute head case, then everything would be ruined.

The assistant, frowning, urgent, repeated, “You’re on. Go. Go.”

*

Billy lumbered across the set, his heart beating out of kilter. Maeve stood up and shook his hand, invited him to sit down. He could smell her floral perfume, and that, along with his nerves, made him dizzy. She introduced him to the audience. The cameras panned from him to Tricia and the children in the front row. They nodded and smiled, even John. The camera returned to center stage and zeroed in on Billy.

“You and Tricia lost your son, Michael, to suicide earlier this year?” Maeve said.

“Yes. January twenty-first, a Wednesday.” He gestured with his hand toward his family. “The worst day of our lives.”

“Tell us about him?”

Billy exhaled hard. “He was great. And I’m not just saying that because he’s gone. He really was a wonderful son and big brother, and a fantastic lad all round, you know? Everyone said the same things about him. He was a gentleman, good and kind and funny. He’d do anything for anyone. He was a brilliant footballer, too, and we had high hopes he’d play for the county someday and bring home the Sam Maguire. He had a great love of singing and music as well, and was mad about the guitar in particular.” He inhaled with a sharp hiss, hoping to say the next sentence with a clear conscience. “He was also passionate about the farming.” He paused, feeling he had spoken the truth to the best of his knowledge. He struggled to go on. “No one could believe he did what he did. We still can’t believe it. He had it all ahead of him.”

“The whys, and the sense of waste, have to be so hard?”

“Yeah, they are. It’s all hard.”

Maeve gestured to the miniature village and its inhabitants arranged on the coffee table between them. “Tell us what you have here.”

“I built everything myself. I really liked the idea of making a tiny world for the damaged dolls and soldiers from the factory—I work in a toy factory, Duffy’s Delights—and we specialize in hand-crafted wooden dolls and soldiers. When Michael was a boy I would bring home the damaged toys, the seconds as we say, and he and I would make up these stories about the soldiers and their various flaws, and how they had turned their lacks into advantages. We made heroes out of them.”

“How lovely. Can you tell us some of those stories?”

He laughed self-consciously. “Yeah, well, we imagined for this one soldier with damaged hands that a grenade had detonated right as he’d unpinned it, and then despite his terrible injuries he went on to become a superstar drummer.”

“I like that so much,” Maeve said. “The idea of the broken living bigger and better lives than they might have otherwise.”

“That’s it exactly.” Billy then plugged his plan to make the seconds a featured product in the factory shop, right along with the best of the toys, because they had value, too. The audience clapped long and hard. He waxed, also, about the forthcoming dolls and soldiers modeled after heroes from Irish history, culture, and mythology, drawing more applause.

Maeve congratulated him on his weight loss of ninety-one pounds and counting. Almost halfway to his goal. More lively applause.

“Your plan is to lose two hundred pounds, half of yourself, in an effort to save lives?”

“That’s right, yeah.”

“That’s great. You’re great.”

He felt his face and insides warm, until her next question, about his hopes to prevent suicide. “Do you think you’re taking on the impossible?”

He reached for the right words. “I feel I have to at least try. The crisis is so much bigger than Michael and me and my family. In the past decade alone there have been more than five thousand suicides in this country, and that’s just the ones we know about.” The feeling of hands pulling on his heart worsened. He pictured the frantic organ being dragged into his stomach, where it would be eaten. “And of course, just yesterday, there was that terrible tragedy down in Cork.”

“Yes, heartbreaking,” Maeve said.

“Horrific,” Billy said.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Halloran family and everyone affected.” She went on to mention Billy’s website, with its detailed information on suicide prevention resources, and also gave out the number for the Samaritans’ hotline. She urged those in trouble to seek help. Then, an apologetic smile on her face, she broached the subject of his army uniform. “Your whole approach to this fight on suicide … you go so far as to say you’re waging a war … some could see it as too incendiary?”