Charcoal Streets: Bigger Than Jesus

Bigger Than Jesus

Eddie planned the Event down to the last detail. He liked to think the newspapers would rush to his house upon the announcement of his death and photograph him, a modern-day Che Guevara, spreading the images through the web and in fliers to prove his demise. It was a fantasy, he knew, but it made the Event more appealing. Eddie went over the standard suicide methods first to make sure they didn't offer something he hadn't considered. He didn't own a gun and didn't have the money for one. Slashing his wrists felt classic, like the Corvette of suicides, but, if his mother saw the mess, she might faint before she realized her son was dead. More than once, he toyed with the idea of lighting himself on fire in the middle of downtown Via Rosa, and although he'd read third degree burns didn't hurt, the moment between them progressing through first and second degree burns worried him. If he found a way to numb all his senses, going out like a monk in Saigon had a certain appeal. In the end, he decided on the equally-classic overdose.

Eddie knew a guy at Sonny's who could sell him the pastas he needed. He never liked crowds, but Eddie swam through the tightly-packed dance floor to get to the bar. Feeling greasy and unclean from prolonged contact with others, Eddie made sure he told his friend the pastas shouldn't have anything else like cocaine or X, something that would ruin the last few minutes before he died. Once he bought his baggie, he swam back out, went to the store on the other side of the street, and bought a classy-looking bottle of scotch. At least that way people would think him more high-class than suicides that chugged cheap vodka and pain killers.

For a few days before the Event, he tinkered with writing a suicide note, but when he realized he needed one in Spanish for his grandparents and one in English for his friends, parents, and everyone else, he forgot the idea. He did, however, write a letter to the police department and planned to mail it after the post office closed the day of the Event so someone would find him. The last thing he wanted was to end up as a flesh balloon when someone finally found him a week later.

Eddie cleared everything from the walls in his apartment and packed his things into some boxes from the carniceria down the street. It made clean-up easier, he thought, for whomever collected his things. He liked to think he was considerate like that. He finished the evening before the Event, leaving the apartment mostly bare and white again as the day he moved in.

When the Event finally arrived, he awoke early and watched the sunrise from the apartment building's roof. The rusty fire escape smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, but at least he got to see something he'd always wondered about. The dusty sky painted with the sun's light and everything shone in colors he'd never seen before. He'd never thought of the sun as a peach and the clouds as candy. He drove around Via Rosa for the rest of the morning and pretended he was in a good-bye parade. Breakfast consisted of chicharron mariachis from the gas station near his apartment. The tortillas and pork filled him, a little too much, and he worried if, after he died, the tacos would gracefully decompose like a Catholic saint or stink up the place while bacteria consumed him and a ball of corn flour.

On his way home, he stopped by a park, sat, and watched the children play for a few minutes. He was near a residential area near the edge of town, one of the cleaner neighborhoods in the city. It didn't smell like exhaust fumes and barbacoa stands. Despite being late spring, the sun didn't blind him and he barely sweat.

He was brave, he thought. The masses just accepted what they were and had. He was going to do something about it. An hour later, he took some deep breaths to take in the smell of freshly cut grass and the coming night. Someone had brought chocolate chip cookies and the smell reminded him of elementary school lunch. The extra burst of oxygen rushed through him and made him lightheaded. He thought he could see butterflies on the swing set, maybe a few shapes like paper in the wind at the edge of his vision. He relished them and drove back to his apartment.