Legend of a Suicide Read Online Free PDF

Years before, I had mistaken that same closet for the bathroom and peed in the corner where he lay now, then pulled down two of my mother’s old skirts in an attempt to flush the toilet.
    “The impossible has become real,” my mother told us one of those first Legoland evenings. Wearing her purple velour robe, she actually raised her hands into the air.
    Emmet and I smiled at each other. He was a man who could appreciate exaggeration.
    My mother’s slides were of me and some Danish girl she had corralled that August along with the girl’s single father. The move had been pure calculation: my mother knew that a potential magazine article would have to include two children and both parents. This girl had a blond pony tail and very large eyes. Her forehead, also, was uncommonly wide. My mother called her Helga, because neither of us could remember her name.
    Helga and I drove Lego cars, held up our Lego driver’s licenses, sailed in Lego boats past Lego Mount Rushmore, and shot each other with Wild West Lego revolvers. My mother’s favorite slide was of twenty or thirty Lego horses and Lego men all piled up on the porch of a Lego palace while the very large and human gardener came by with a lawn mower. Helga and I were peering over from either wing of the palace. Something about that picture just delighted my mother. Quaint little Europe was a part of it, perhaps, but all those men dumped unceremoniously, alongwith their horses, had its appeal, too. Plenty of hints were available, if only Emmet had cared to take note.
    Toward the end of my mother’s Emmet period, I traveled farther into the hills, began firing from thick patches of brush, and nailed my first stoplight from a distance of over four hundred yards. From Survivalist Magazine, I had mail-ordered a converter kit that allowed me to shoot .32-caliber pistol shells from my father’s .300 Magnum. The pistol shells were perfect for neighborhood streetlights because they were much quieter and could be mistaken, even, for firecrackers. With the stoplight, however, I began using full-sized shells. The shock they gave out echoed clear off the other side of the valley, miles away.
    I ricocheted three bullets off the pavement before I finally hit the red light. At the gas station, people ran for cover, hid behind poles and cars, but some hid with their backs open to me. No one could tell which direction the shots were coming from. I was firing from too far away.
    The entire stoplight bounced on its line into the air, its red gone silver. I smelled sulfur and heard dogs yowling and sirens from across the valley. Through the crosshairs, I watched a patrol car screech up and wondered whether John was inside.
    Pat was the man who was always laughing. Followed by a cloud of Amway aftershave, he laughed himself in one door and out the next. As far as I could tell, even the breakup seemed funny to Pat.
    Merril lived next door. He came over with some vegetables from his yard a few months after his wife had left him and didn’t return home for more than three days. His back sliding glass door was unlocked that entire time, so I went in. I cataloged everything; I even opened his cheapo safe and wrote down how much cash he had. I found copies of Playboy and The Joy of Sex under his bed. From his medicine cabinet, I discovered that he suffered from hemorrhoids and cold sores, from a bad elbow and gingivitis. I saw pictures of all his kids—grown up by then and moved out—and found even the cause of his divorce. His wife, Carolyn Somers, maiden name Alexander, had spelled out everything very carefully in a letter from half a year earlier. Merril had videotaped himself having sex with one of his daughter’s girlfriends, then left the tape lying around for years. Alise, his daughter’s friend, had been only fifteen at the time. I even watched the videotape myself. Merril still hadn’t gotten rid of it.
    My mother got rid of Merril when he refused to go home one night. It was late.