Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(57)

I’ve had a beautiful childhood.

And I admire you—I hope to be just like you.

I’ve spent my whole life watching you man the great beam—here at Lighthouse 1.

No one ever comes.

We never see any boats.

But you man the light anyway—just in case.

And we got to see it—all these years.

The great light.

The beautiful sweeping beam!

We were here to see it, and that was enough.

I never really understood how important that was and is until now.

It’s hard for me to leave you here, even though I realize you and Mom will be okay.

I hope you will come visit me once I am settled in, but I understand if you can’t, and I will come back to visit you as much as I can.

I’ve cut a thin braid of my hair off for you.

(Mom said that you cut all your hair off on your eighteenth birthday, but I wasn’t about to do that, because my hair is my best feature!) Since you’re reading this, you already have the braid that was folded up inside.

You once told me that women used to send locks of their hair to the men they loved when knights rode horses across endless dry land and kings and queens ruled the people. You told me about knights back when you were telling me fairy tales, before we started reading Hamlet together.

I love you, Daddy.

Never forget it.

Also, I’ll be okay.

Mom says you never thought you’d find her when you were my age, but you did.

You probably never thought you’d find me either, and now I need to find the people in my future too—because that’s just the way of the world maybe.

You’ll be okay.

What was it that you and your neighbor used to say? The old man? Was his name Walt?

“We’ll always have Paris.”

Well, we’ll always have the LOVE statue at the bottom of Global Common Area Two.

We’ll always have Outpost 37 and Lighthouse 1 and Horatio the dolphin and Philadelphia Phyllis and Who lived here? and all the rest.

I’m watching you breathe as you sleep in the chair next to me.

You look so peaceful.

You look just like a good dad should.

I can tell by the little smile on your face that you are having a wonderful dream.

I’ve watched you sleep for over an hour, just because.

And the whole time I wished your mind was a sea we could scuba dive in together because I’d like to see the LOVE statue that sits at the bottom of your consciousness.

I know it’s huge and red and beautiful, because you’ve been pulling the seaweed off it for so many years. I know you weeded the waters of your mind for me, for Mom, so we could celebrate my eighteenth birthday together—and so I could go on and enjoy the life you gave me.

Keep weeding, Dad.

Weed your mind.

And man the great light.

Even when no one is looking.

Love, your daughter,

S





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The following professionals read drafts of this novel and provided valuable insights: Alicia Bessette (novelist); Liz Jensen (novelist); Doug Stewart (agent); Alvina Ling (editor); Bethany Strout (editor’s assistant); Barbara Bakowski (senior production editor); Dr. Len Altamura (doctor of social work, licensed clinical social worker); Jill A. Boccia (licensed clinical social worker); Valerie Pe?a (licensed clinical social worker); Dr. Narsimha R. Pinninti (chief medical officer, Twin Oaks, and professor of psychiatry, UMDNJ-SOM); Meryl E. Udell, PsyD (clinical psychologist); Debra Nolan-Stevenson (licensed professional counselor); and Geetha Kumar, MD (associate professor of psychiatry, vice chair, Department of Psychiatry, UMDNJ-SOM; child/adolescent psychiatrist).


The core idea for this book was greatly nurtured by the many coffee talks I had with Evan Roskos. To my inner circle—and you know who you are—thanks for saving me a million times.





1 Herr Silverman is my Holocaust Class teacher, but he is primarily the German teacher at my high school, which is why we call him Herr and not Mr.

2 On Livestrong.com I read that “every 100 minutes another teenager will commit suicide.” And I don’t believe it’s true at all, because why don’t you ever hear about all of these suicides on the news or whatever? Do they all happen in secret or in other countries? Suicide can’t be that common, can it? And if it is… here I am thinking I’m being daring and original with my own plans. Ha! Here’s more damning evidence, regarding my uniqueness. According to Wikipedia—admittedly not the most reliable and in this case it’s totally outdated—“In the United States, firearms remain the most common method of suicide, accounting for 53.7 percent of all suicides committed during 2003.” Wikipedia also says, “Over one million people die by suicide every year.” So according to Wikipedia, suicide takes care of one million f*cked-up people every time our planet circles the sun. I wonder what Charles Darwin would have to say about that fun little fact. Natural selection? Nature’s way of protecting the stronger and more necessary? Is my mind simply an agent of nature? Am I about to make Uncle Charlie Darwin proud?

3 Breakfast of a Teenage Killer is a sick double entendre, as I am a killer who is a teenager, and—since my target is a teenager whom I must kill—I am also a killer of teenagers!

4 I Googled “How long does it take to die when you slit your wrists?” There are all sorts of people asking this question on the Internet and most of them say they are researching the topic for their high school health class. Most of the posted answers accuse the asker of lying and urge him (her?) to seek professional help. There are straight-up answers from people who claim to be doctors and others who have actually slit their wrists with razor blades and survived. They all say this is a very painful way to die (or not die)—that it’s not peaceful, not at all the death-in-a-warm-bath-go-to-sleep type of deal in which movies make you believe. The blood can clot, which keeps you alive and in excruciating pain. But then I found posts about how to slit your wrists the “right way,” so you will actually die, and that depressed me, because people actually post stuff like that, and, even though I wanted to know the answer, so I could weigh my options, that info maybe shouldn’t be on the Internet. I’m not going to list the right way to slit your wrists or explain it to you, because I don’t want any additional blood on my hands. But really—why do some people post the correct ways to commit suicide on the Internet? Do they want weird, sad people like me to go away permanently? Do they think it’s a good idea for some people to off themselves? How can you tell when you are one of those people who should slash his wrists the right way with a razor blade? Is there an answer for that too? I Googled but nothing concrete came up. Just ways to complete the mission. Not justification.