Looking For Alaska

WARNING SIGNS OF SUICIDE the Colonel and I found on the Web:

Previous suicide attempts
Verbally threatening suicide
Giving away prized possessions

Collecting and discussing methods of suicide

Expressions of hopelessness and anger at oneself and/or the world

Writing, talking, reading, and drawing about death and/or depression

Suggesting that the person would not be missed if s/he were gone

Self-injury

Recent loss of a friend or family member through death or suicide

Sudden and dramatic decline in academic performance

Eating disorders, sleeplessness, excessive sleeping, chronic headaches

Use (or increased use) of mind-altering substances

Loss of interest in sex, hobbies, and other activities previously enjoyed

Alaska displayed two of those warning signs. She had lost, although not recently, her mother. And her drinking, always pretty steady, had definitely increased in the last month of her life. She did talk about dying, but she always seemed to be at least half kidding.

“I make jokes about death all the time,” the Colonel said. “I made a joke last week about hanging myself with my tie. And I’m not gonna off myself. So that doesn’t count. And she didn’t give anything away, and she sure as hell didn’t lose interest in sex. One would have to like sex an awful lot to make out with your scrawny ass.”

“Funny,” I said.

“I know. God, I’m a genius. And her grades were good. And I don’t recall her talking about killing herself.”

“Once, with the cigarettes, remember? ‘You smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.’ ”

“That was a joke.”

But when prodded by the Colonel, maybe to prove to him that I could remember Alaska as she really was and not just as I wanted her to be, I kept returning the conversation to those times when she would be mean and moody, when she didn’t feel like answering how, when, why, who, or what questions. “She could seem so angry,” I thought aloud.

“What, and I can’t?” the Colonel retorted. “I’m plenty angry, Pudge. And you haven’t been the picture of placidity of late, either, and you aren’t going to off yourself. Wait, are you?”

“No,” I said. And maybe it was only because Alaska couldn’t hit the brakes and I couldn’t hit the accelerator. Maybe she just had an odd kind of courage that I lacked, but no.

“Good to know. So yeah, she was up and down—from fire and brimstone to smoke and ashes. But partly, this year at least, it was the whole Marya thing. Look, Pudge, she obviously wasn’t thinking about killing herself when she was making out with you. After that, she was asleep until the phone rang. So she decided to kill herself at some point between that ringing phone and crashing, or it was an accident.”

“But why wait until you’re six miles off campus to die?” I asked.

He sighed and shook his head. “She did like being mysterious. Maybe she wanted it like this.” I laughed then, and the Colonel said, “What?”

“I was just thinking—Why do you run head-on into a cop car with its lights on? and then I thought, Well, she hated authority figures.”

The Colonel laughed. “Hey, look at that. Pudge made a funny!”

It felt almost normal, and then my distance from the event itself seemed to evaporate and I found myself back in the gym, hearing the news for the first time, the Eagle’s tears dripping onto his pants, and I looked over at the Colonel and thought of all the hours we’d spent on this foam couch in the past two weeks—everything she’d ruined. Too pissed off to cry, I said, “This is only making me hate her. I don’t want to hate her. And what’s the point, if that’s all it’s making me do?” Still refusing to answer how and why questions. Still insisting on an aura of mystery.

I leaned forward, head between my knees, and the Colonel placed a hand on my upper back. “The point is that there are always answers, Pudge.” And then he pushed air out between his pursed lips and I could hear the angry quiver in his voice as he repeated, “There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough. The Web says that suicides usually involve carefully thought-out plans. So clearly she did not commit suicide.” I felt embarrassed to be still falling apart two weeks later when the Colonel could take his medicine so stoically, and I sat up.

“Okay, fine” I answered. “It wasn’t suicide.”

“Although it sure doesn’t make sense as an accident,” the Colonel said.

I laughed. “We sure are making progress.”

We were interrupted by Holly Moser, the senior I knew primarily from viewing her nude self-portraits over Thanksgiving with Alaska. Holly hung with the Weekday Warriors, which explains why I’d previously said about two words to her in my life, but she just came in without knocking and said that she’d had a mystical indicator of Alaska’s presence.

“I was in the Waffle House, and suddenly all the lights went off, except for, like, the light over my booth, which started fashing. It would be like on for a second and then off for a while and then on for a couple of seconds and then off. And I realized, you know, it was Alaska. I think she was trying to talk to me in Morse code. But, like, I don’t know Morse code. She probably didn’t know that. Anyway, I thought you guys should know.”

“Thanks,” I said curtly, and she stood for a while, looking at us, her mouth opening as if to speak, but the Colonel was staring at her through half-closed eyes, his jaw jutting out and his distaste uncontained. I understood how he felt: I didn’t believe in ghosts who used Morse code to communicate with people they’d never liked. And I disliked the possibility that Alaska would give someone else peace but not me.

“God, people like that shouldn’t be allowed to live,” he said after she left.

“It was pretty stupid.”

“It’s not just stupid, Pudge. I mean, as if Alaska would talk to Holly Moser. God! I can’t stand these fake grievers. Stupid bitch.”

I almost told him that Alaska wouldn’t want him to call any woman a bitch, but there was no use fighting with the Colonel.