He’s special, this one. I never would’ve taken him home if he weren’t. And it’s not like it’s our first date. I’ve done this before. I’ll do it again. Unless he’s the one. Whether he is or not, he’s the one right now.

What’s that he says? My belt? I picked it up at a thrift store. I tell him that. He says he likes it anyway. More, in fact. There’s a mystery about it, having belonged to someone else. I smile.

I watch his fingers as he unbuckles the belt. He peels the pants off my legs. I laugh. I like them tight. He says he does, too.

He’s calm. Takes his time. Just how I imagined. He’s good. Very good.

As we lie in bed, we talk for a bit. About little stuff. What dinner was like. The restaurant was nice. I ask him if he wants to go back sometime. He says no. It was good, but he doesn’t need to go back. I feel sticky. I tell him I’m going to take a shower. He says something that sounds like “good-bye.”

He’s not going home, is he? He says no. I tell him I’ll just be a minute. He nods. I go to the bathroom.

I love showers. Long, steamy showers. One of my indulgences. I’ve a right to a few, don’t I? I massage shampoo into my hair. I rinse. Add conditioner. The water feels good.

I get out and towel myself off. Wrap my hair in a second towel, like I usually do.  I put on my robe. Thinking of him, I add a few daubs of perfume on each side of my neck. I go back into the bedroom.

There. That’s where it is. Not him. It. The thing. The thing that used to be him. The lifeless body hanging from the ceiling. Hanging by a belt. My belt.

It’s naked. The body is completely naked. Suspended. Perfectly still. The chair on the floor. On its side. I look at it. Not the chair. It. Him.

What do I do? I find my phone. Call 911. “There’s a man,” I say. “He’s hanged himself.”

“Is he alive?” a voice asks.

“No,” I say.

“Did you check the pulse?” the voice asks.

“No,” I say. “You don’t understand. He’s dead.”

“Check the pulse, ma’am,” she says. But how do I get him down? “However you have to,” she says.

I pick up the chair and set it on its legs. I climb onto the chair and grab hold of the body. The same body I’d just been holding. The belt is hanging from that hook in the ceiling. I try to get it off. It isn’t easy. With one arm around the body, I reach up with my other arm and try to unhook the belt. I have to lift the body in order to unhook the belt. This isn’t easy. I get the belt free of the hook. The body falls. Dead weight. I hate those words.

I get down on the floor and roll the body onto its back. I undo the belt from the neck. There are marks. I check for a pulse. I know I won’t find one.  I check again. How long was I in the shower? How long had he been hanging there?

I go back to the phone. “I can’t feel anything,” I say to the voice on the other end.

“Do you know CPR?” she asks.

“No,” I say. She says an ambulance is on its way. She says I’m to do exactly as she says. She walks me through the process. I find the spot on the rib cage. I do the compressions. This isn’t working. He’s dead. I do the compressions.

The ambulance arrives. Paramedics take over. They take away the body. I am alone.

The police are in my apartment. Crime scene. My apartment is a crime scene. An officer asks me his name. “Bill,” I say. His name was Bill. The officer asks for a last name. I don’t remember. Why can’t I remember his last name? This guy must think I’m a slut.

The officer asks, “Why did he hang himself?” What does that mean? I don’t understand.  “Was it a part of a game?” he asks. “Fantasy? Role play? Auto-erotic asphyxiation?”

Oh my God! He thinks I’m worse than a slut! No, no! I’m not into that. I try to explain that it was normal—everything had been normal, and then I came back from the shower and he was dead. I thought he was happy. He seemed pleased. Satisfied at least. Perhaps a bit too satisfied, now that I think of it. It’s like he was at peace. He even said good-bye.

“Did he say anything else?” the officer asks.

“No,” I say.

“Did he leave a note?”

I hadn’t found one. The investigators going through my apartment can’t seem to find one, either. I glance over my shoulder. I see a woman carefully placing my belt inside a plastic bag. I want to vomit.

Two of the officers speak to each other. Their voices are low. They don’t want me to hear what they’re saying. The one who was speaking to me comes back. He tells me to get ready to go down to the station. I comply.

Interrogation room. That’s where I am. I’ve seen them before. Movies. TV. It’s different when you’re in them. The man in the gray shirt keeps asking the same questions. I answer him, but it’s like he isn’t listening.

“So you’re telling me he did everything all by himself?” he says. I tell him, yes. That’s what happened. “And tied the belt to what? The crook of the moon?” I explain to him about the hook in the ceiling. “Why the hell you got a hook in your ceiling?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t put it there. I think it’s to hang a plant or something.” That sounds stupid.

  “This guy was a lot bigger than a potted plant,” he screams. “How the hell is a little hook going to hold him up?”

“I don’t know,” I say. It did. It held him. I saw it. “Maybe it’s screwed into a beam or something.” That sounds stupid, too. I’m crying. He’s dead and I’m crying and we’re arguing about a stupid hook.

“And you didn’t have anything to do with this?”

“No,” I say. “I hardly knew him. I came back and he was dead. Don’t you understand? Dead.”

The man in the gray shirt leaves. A few minutes later a woman comes in and offers me a cup of coffee. I take it. 

“I’m sorry about that,” she says. “We just had to be sure.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I say.

“I know,” she says.

“He said good-bye,” I say. I’ve stopped crying now. I can feel the salt on my cheeks. “He knew he was going to do it.”

The woman nods. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s not your fault.”

“Why?” I ask. “Everything had been wonderful. Why did he have to kill himself?”

“It’s best not to ask those things,” the woman says. “Who knows why people do this stuff? He was ill. Needed medication, probably. That’s all.”

I sit. I can’t cry anymore. I sip coffee. It tastes terrible.

“Try not to think about it,” the woman says. “You must be tired. We’ll have someone drive you home.”

I am home. At the crime scene. I try to take the woman’s advice. I won’t think about it. I walk into the bedroom. I see the hook hanging from the ceiling.

I sleep on the sofa.

I’m going to have to go into the bedroom. I will. Not now. These things take time. I walk to the bedroom door. Later. 

I’m in the bedroom now. The bed. The bed where we did it. Doing. The last thing he did. In his life. Second to last.

I lie on the bed. Close my eyes. Open them. They go straight to that spot on the ceiling. The hook. I’d hardly noticed it before. I notice it now.

I climb on a chair and examine the hook. It’s screwed in. Tight. I’ll never get it out. Maybe I can cover it up.

Back in college—Melissa draped that tie-dyed fabric across the ceiling of our dorm room—it’ll be just like that. The blue fabric I found will be like the sky. The sky draped over the ceiling. Over the hook.

Maybe I’ll redecorate the whole room. The old sheets I threw away, anyway. Green. The new ones won’t be green. I’ll get a new comforter. Maybe a floor lamp. That would be nice.

I wish I hadn’t been the one to find him. He should have waited to have gone home. Killed himself then.

That’s terrible. I’m a horrible person. I deserve this.

No. I don’t.

What would’ve happened? If he’d done it at home? I would’ve wondered why he didn’t call back. Would’ve been mad. For a while. Then forgotten. I’ve forgotten a lot of assholes.

Why hadn’t he done that? What right did he have to drag me into this? Did he hate me? Did he know what the police would think? What they’d do to me?

That doesn’t make sense. He’d been nice. He’d even said good-bye. It wasn’t bitter, either. Just good-bye. Like he was going to the store across the street.

He was obviously disturbed. It had nothing to do with me, anyway. I’d best forget about it. That’s what everybody says. He must’ve been messed up. I’ll never know what was going on inside his head. Best not to ask. I’ll forget about him. It won’t be easy, but I’ll forget. The naked corpse.

Jesus.

What? Who is this? But that was months ago. I was just starting to put that mess behind me. What do the police want with me now?

Her voice is raspy. Like my aunt who I never saw without a cigarette. “We’ve got something of yours,” she says. “It was marked as evidence, but the case is closed now, so you can have it back.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“Look, I don’t know,” she says. “We want to clean this stuff out by next Tuesday, and there’s a box here with your name on it.”

“Can you open it? Tell me what it is?” I ask.

“It’s in the back right now,” she says. “If you want it, you can pick it up. If not, we’re throwing it out next week.”

How long is she going to keep me waiting? I should have just let them throw it away. Been done with it. But if they throw it away, I’ll never know what it is. Irrevocable. I hate that word.

I have to at least see it. What is taking her so long? Here she comes. What a terrible dye job.

“Here it is,” she says. I look in the cardboard bin. 

I see my belt.

“Don’t just stand there,” she says. “Take it.” I can’t move. “I haven’t got all day,” she says. I grab the belt. “Sign here,” she says. I sign.

Maybe I’ll just throw it in the trashcan on my way out. That would mean stopping. Don’t look at it. Just go home.

I toss the belt in a drawer and shut it. I probably should throw it out. What am I going to do with it? Wear it? He killed himself with this belt.

That’s why I can’t throw it away. It’s sacred—or blasphemous? Maybe they’re the same thing. I can’t just throw it out like a pizza box or an egg carton. Don’t think about it.

I’m lying in bed. Thinking about it. It’s in the drawer. I want to get up and look at it. Why? It’s the last thing in the world I want to see. I have to see it.

Maybe it isn’t my belt. It could all be a mistake. They returned the wrong box to me. I’ve been worried over nothing.

Of course it’s my belt. It’s right there. Lying in the drawer. No one snuck into the apartment and stole it in the middle of the night. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check. Just to make sure.

I turn on the lights. I go to the drawer. Open it. Look down. There’s the belt. Just like I remembered. I shut the drawer. I go back to sleep.

I can’t sleep.

I think I’m going to laugh. Now, that would be appropriate. Look at them. Walking around the office like this is important. Like if we don’t get the report out on time, people are going to die. That’s not why people die. What are they doing here? Do they really think what we do matters? Is the world going to end if we don’t finish?

Bill. Bill’s beyond all that now. Beyond everything. The way it had happened. Hanging. Grisly. But in a strange way, it’s like he’s liberated. No meetings. No e-mails. No using a key to open the bathroom down the hall. Nothing.

Don’t think about it. It’s best not to ask.

Maybe on Friday I can round up a group to go out. Not that I like going out. People are always laughing and drinking and having a good time. Or at least thinking they’re having a good time. Is that the same thing? It’s so empty.

I could die. I could die, and no one in this room would care. That’s not true. I know it’s not true. How come I keep thinking it?

There’s more to life than this. There’s helping people, and caring, and the common good—whatever the hell that is. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find it. And I’ll stop thinking about Bill. And why he killed himself.

Holy shit, I’m in church. When was the last time that happened? I haven’t set foot in a church since—what—fifteen? This can only be described as an act of desperation. Does God care? It there a God?

The hymns are nice. I like singing together. Part of a group. It almost feels like you’re larger than yourself. But look at him. Who even is that? I don’t know these people. I don’t belong here. We sing together. We pray together. We leave together.

And then what?

That blue cloth looks stupid. The hook’s still there. I know it. What difference does it make that I can’t see it if I know it’s still there? What difference does a drawer make when I know what’s inside?

Why did he do it? He was a good-looking guy. Didn’t seem depressed or ill or anything. Wasn’t too different from all sorts of people. But he did it. Killed himself. Deliberately. One night, he said goodbye, wrapped a belt around his neck, and hanged himself.

I look in the drawer. I take out the belt. I lie down with it on the bed. I run its leather over my arms. This. He did it with this. I take the leather and bring it to the side of my face. I touch the leather. It’s wet.

I’ve been crying.

Dana’s back from Costa Rica. I’ve never been to Costa Rica. Maybe I should go sometime. I wonder if Bill ever went to Costa Rica. Not that it matters anymore.

I want to take out the belt again. Feel it in my hands. It’s repulsive, but I can’t help it. I’m not a morbid person. At least I don’t think I am. Is there something wrong with me? Should I see someone?

I think I still have that prescription for anxiety medication. I never filled it. I wonder if it’s still good. I wish I could just talk with someone. Our stupid health plan doesn’t cover therapy. Just medication. I probably lost the prescription anyway.

I wonder what Bill would think.

Okay, so maybe Nancy wasn’t the best person to talk to, but she’s here now, so I might as well go for it. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like to die?” I ask.

“I’ll find out eventually,” she says.

“I don’t mean in the hospital, or in bed when you’re like a hundred and two,” I say. “By that time, you probably don’t even know what’s happening to you.” She doesn’t understand. How do I explain this? “I mean, do you ever wonder what it’s like to look death square in the face, to know it’s coming, to feel its fingers wrap around you… and to let it.”

“Let it?”

“Let yourself die,” I say.

“Isn’t that sort of like suicide?”

“Maybe,” I say.

“People who kill themselves are cowards,” Nancy says. “If they really had guts, they’d live.”

“You’re probably right,” I say.

It’s quiet. Now Nancy’s talking about a TV show.

I’m brushing my teeth. I’m thinking about it already. The bed. The drawer. The belt. 

I open the drawer. I take out the belt again. I press it to my chest. I think of all the reasons Bill might have killed himself.

He’d been in love. A beautiful woman, with shining green eyes, who had looked remarkably like me. She’d died tragically in the full bloom of youth, but he never forgot her. He made love to me, pretending I was someone else, then hanged himself to be reunited with his one true love.

He’d been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He’d seen his mother’s body wasted away by chemo, and had vowed to never put himself through that nightmare. He decided to have one last night of passion, and then end it all.

He’d secretly murdered his best friend when he was seventeen and had been wracked by guilt ever since. He’d gotten away with the crime, but seeing my pure and undefiled goodness, couldn’t live with himself anymore.

This is stupid. I know none of this is true. I’ll never know why he killed himself. Perhaps even he hadn’t known. Do people ever really know why they do things?

He seemed so at peace before he died. As if his entire life had been leading up to that moment, which I suppose—in a way—it had.

Why did he have to be so smug about his death? Before, I hadn’t had any problems. I’d gone to work each day, had friends, gone out with men I’d found somewhat attractive, made vague plans about the future—a better job, finding someone, getting married, eventually moving out of the city, having kids, growing old, maybe grandchildren someday. 

Those things might never happen. Maybe I don’t want them to happen.

My co-workers are so annoying. Petty. Office politics. I want to scream. I want to die.

Nancy always changes the subject whenever I bring up something serious. I hate her.

I don’t hate her.

I hate her.

I’ve hardly dated anyone since Bill. No one since I got the belt back. Funny. I haven’t even thought of other men. Have I fallen in love with a dead guy? Or maybe just with death.

Nancy said it takes courage to live. As if life were some horrible burden. Is that how Nancy thinks of it? Is that how everyone thinks?

That was so embarrassing. I can’t believe I was crying at work. I didn’t even know what to say to Paul. Just get back to work.

It’s Friday night. I should have gone out with Nancy. No. I shouldn’t have. I turn off the TV.

I go to the drawer. I take out the belt. I turn off all the lights. I crawl into bed. I smell the leather. I press the buckle to my chest. I wrap the belt around my neck. This is what it must have felt like. I’m frightened, but at the same time, I feel powerful, as if now, holding my life in my hands, this is the only time I’ve ever been free to choose anything.

I pull the belt tighter. Choke. I tear it off. I jump out of bed and flip on the lights. What was I thinking? This isn’t like me.

I go through the apartment, turning on every light I have. I look in the corners. No hidden assassins. Just me.

Reality. That’s what I need. Not some stupid fantasy about death. I’ve seen death. It’s ugly and terrible. It left a pale, lifeless body hanging in my bedroom.

I stand on the chair and pull the blue sheet down from the ceiling. I stare up at the metal hook. It stares back.

Am I ready for this? I move the chair beneath the hook. I hold the belt in one hand, and with the other, I reach up and touch the hook. I already knew I could reach it. I’d gotten him down.  I just wanted to know what it would feel like.

Death. This is wrong. Embrace it. Scared. I wish I could have somebody here with me. While I make the choice. It makes sense now. Why Bill chose that evening. It wasn’t about me. He just wanted to not be alone.

I couldn’t do that to somebody. Not after what I went through with the police. I couldn’t put someone else though that.

I wrap the belt around my neck. I realize—for the first time in my life—there’s nothing I can’t do. Absolute freedom. More than anything else. To die. One last act of beauty.

I reach the end of the belt up to the hook. I touch it. I could do it. All I have to do is make the choice. Weakness. I might regret it. People I’ll never meet. Things I’ll never experience.

What would I miss? Getting a dog? Learning to ski? Going to Costa Rica? There’s nothing left I want anymore. Bill cured me of that. All I want is one last thing.

I pull the belt tighter around my neck. As exciting as this is, it hurts. What will it be like? What if I slip and fall from the chair by mistake and hang myself without making the choice? What if I want life in the final moments, but it’s too late?

Pain. Physical pain. As much as I want this, here, with this belt, I know the pain. The pain will be too great. I’ll regret it. My fingers go limp. The leather falls from my hand.

Why couldn’t I do it?  Am I really this weak?

Nancy was wrong. It takes courage to die. The cowards are the ones who keep living.

Bill. He did what I couldn’t. I love him. I love him like I’ve never loved anyone before. I hate him.

I go outside. It’s late, but it’s Friday, and people are still out on the street. I look in their faces. Cowards. They’re all cowards. And I’m one of them.

I take the belt to a thrift store. At least I’ll be rid of it.

“Would you like a receipt?” the woman behind the counter asks.

“No,” I say. “Just take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

“This is a great belt,” says the woman. “I might keep it for myself.”

“Do,” I say. “I hope you get more use out of it than I did.” I turn around. I walk out the door.

---

James Armstrong has had stories appear in THEMA, Gargoyle, Bryant Literary Review, and other publications. His plays have been performed nationally and internationally, including by Detroit Rep, the Secret Theatre in Queens, and Actors’ Theatre in Santa Cruz. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and of American Renaissance Theater Company.