by Sean McFadden
Trigger warning:
This story contains mental health issues including suicidal ideation. If you are struggling, please know you’re not alone. And help is available. Just reach for it.
In the US, call or text 988, or visit https://988lifeline.org
In the UK, call 0800 689 5652 or visit https://www.spuk.org.uk/national-suicide-prevention-helpline-uk
Nolan took the Doran Plaza elevator to the forty-first floor, walked past the gym entrance, slipped out the roof-access door, scribbled a quick note in his day planner and marched up to the ledge, where he dropped the day planner on the roof, placed one foot on the lip and looked down just before jumping.
He once took the Doran Plaza elevator to work every day, but a year ago the boss’s nephew had taken over Nolan’s job as junk mail tracker.
Things weren’t going swimmingly for Nolan as of late, either. He’d lost several temps gigs in the past months, and they hadn’t exactly been demanding posts. He couldn’t handle the pressure, and most times he answered the phone his voice squeaked like a twelve-year-old’s. Just that morning, he’d gone into his two-day-old job as receptionist at a busy advertising firm, picked up the day planner he’d forgotten at his desk and quit before the office opened.
Things were moving forty-one stories below in the Prudential courtyard. Ants. People. Everywhere.
He went from quitting the job straight to a coffee shop, where he downed four double espressos and considered if this was the only course of action, and it was.
He went from goodbye note to postscript: “Dad, you were right. I should have learned a trade.” He avoided addressing anything to Sherri out of fear that writing her name down might change his mind from doing what he needed to do to finally stop feeling.
Part of the plan involved no drinking and no drugs. Coffee only. Keep a clear head. Now he could see he might land on someone. Or splatter them.
No part of the plan involved that.
Nolan took one foot down off the lip to better balance and stood there, stock still, waiting for the crowd to thin. There was no railing, just wide-open space over Chicago. He watched a seagull fly by and was startled when the bird passed in front of a figure standing in a corner window across the courtyard. Nolan squinted. Someone was watching him from another building. A black man in a black suit held the drapes open and was staring at him. Unless it was a mannequin. Stupid place for a mannequin if that was the case.
No. It was a person. Nolan checked over his shoulder to see what the guy was looking at before realizing he was the highlight today, and he’d never meant to be on stage. Feeling so exposed brought the acid to his throat. He glared back, hoping to make the man in black uncomfortable, but that had no apparent effect.
Nolan was pissed and felt violated. As personal a moment as life allowed, and this bastard had the temerity to watch. The drawback of doing this in public sank in; Nolan hadn’t planned on an audience. But Sherri couldn’t be the one to find his body. The cleanup had to be left to the pros.
The drapes moved. The man shifted positions, then pulled the curtain back to where it had been before. Nolan was hoping his imagination was messing with him, but no, his spectator was real and was getting comfortable. Making popcorn. Nolan almost understood. “If this guy’s going to do a header off that very roof, that won’t be the moment my back is turned.”
The plaza was still filled with people. Nolan could make out someone pushing a baby carriage. Beautiful. It would be just like him to land on a fucking baby. How fitting that his last act on earth was monstrously selfish? If waiting on the edge meant avoiding infanticide, he could wait.
Sherri would move on in time. Not coming home to find his body would help speed that along. She’d find someone else and buy her dream house, no one would ever have to walk the dog again–Nitwit would run around their fenced-in backyard. She’d be happier without Nolan, and she deserved to be happy. Stop thinking about her, he thought.
***
The bottom fell out three months back. Oscar had summoned his adult children to a vacation in Maine to declare, ‘By now you’ve all had a chance to meet Mitzi. Well, guess who’s getting married again?’ Seven weeks after their mom’s death was callous even for Oscar.
His sister-in-law Diane decided she and Kevin were leaving early and pulled Nolan aside to fill him in on family affairs first.
“You need to stay in touch more. Your father also got a horrible diagnosis, something called ‘mesothelioma.’ I’m sure I’m mispronouncing it. No cure, so, he’s marrying his nurse, I take it? I mean, your mother is barely cold, pardon me, but now Oscar and some bottle-blonde ‘Mitzi?’ Poodle name. Poodle haircut. Where’s she even from? We don’t trust her. What else? Jerry and Rosa are getting a divorce, so he’s looking for a place to live, yeah, I know. The boys. Ugh. They’re so quiet. Your sister Melissa kissed her psychiatrist, or he kissed her, so…no, I wish I was. That’s a whole…God…oh, and you should ask Kevin about his prostate yourself. In fact, promise me you will before we leave. See what happens when you don’t stay in touch? You wake up in a Woody Allen film. Better hope it’s one of the good ones.”
Once given six months to live, his mom had fought for twelve years, and wasted away to sixty-two pounds. Nolan’s relief was overwhelming when she died–her excruciating pain was over. He didn’t scratch grief for a moment. If anything, he was unnaturally buoyed for seven weeks feeling her right there with him. He carried on a constant inner dialogue with her, going so far as thanking her for red lights turning green on his approach, which was suddenly happening ninety-nine percent of the time.
But after the wedding announcement, as he and Sherri were getting ready for bed, Nolan heard a 1920’s jazz clarinet playing out in the yard. He recognized it as a farewell solo from his mom:
“Too Woody Allen for me, kiddo. And I don’t like the blonde. Off to meet God.”
Certain that Colleen was leaving with this one parting joke–Woody Allen in coastal Maine, a nod to staying in touch more–he called Sherri over to listen. The next morning, they asked around, and nobody else had heard Sidney Bechet or Bix Beiderbecke. No parties, according to the owners. To Nolan, lack of proof was simply further proof of her door slamming.
By the time Nolan and Sherri got home, he was different. With his mom’s presence missing, his stomach was in freefall. He didn’t feel safe. Opening their apartment door in Chicago, Nolan got the crushing impression that home itself had shifted in their absence.
Someone or something had gotten inside while they were gone. Nothing was missing, nothing moved, but his guardian angel had split, and a bad presence had taken advantage and rooted through their lives, burrowing in.
The downward spiral increased in speed. Green lights now turned red as he approached. For the next three months he was exhausted but barely slept, no longer smiled, and hardly ever spoke to Sherri. He burned through jobs and became convinced their neighbor was spying on them. The creep in question was a Bruce Lee fanboy who barked at his enemies through his courtyard window. His “enemies” were mostly women in the building who had turned him down. He was crazy enough to have planted bugs in their intercom while they were away, so the narrative fit.
***
The wind blew Nolan’s hair, making his forehead itch. Amtrak horns were the only city sounds to reach so high. The curtain moved again in the building across the way. The busybody was restless, but still stared across the courtyard at him. Down on the ground the bugs all moved at the same pace.
***
Hidden cameras were his next concern. In the smoke alarm, perhaps. He left them up, but only because taking the smoke alarm apart would be crazy. Then he suspected his miserable life was being broadcast on cable-access tv for the whole neighborhood’s amusement. He and Sherri couldn’t afford cable, so he couldn’t prove his theory, but it was all over the faces of people on the sidewalk. They knew about his failures as a man. He was pathetic.
He would pull Sherri into the bathroom, turn on the faucet and whisper his surveillance theories, then admit to how stupid they sounded, how insane. Then he’d circle back and insist he felt they were true and couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. Although he knew they were nuts. He’d never been paranoid before, but when he allowed logic in, he saw textbook paranoia. As dopey as it sounded when he tried to explain it, in his heart, he believed the surveillance to be real. Eventually, he only spoke to Sherri in the bathroom or out on the sidewalk. He’d make their damn cable-access show unwatchable. No dialogue.
White vans stalked him, sometimes driving past while he walked the dog. One was usually parked in front of their building, or somewhere else on the block, like just around the corner. They were broadcasting. Which was ridiculous, he knew in his core. And yet he also believed it, more than half the time.
He lost one temp job after another. This morning, he decided he couldn’t handle the stress of answering the phone at a busy ad firm, so he rescued his day planner and quit. He was unemployable and always would be. Any happiness he had once felt would never return. The change was permanent, like when his sister Melissa’s brain changed in her early twenties. He wasn’t cut out for constant battle, like Melissa or his mom with her bouts of cancer. He was cut from a different cloth. To make the torture stop, there was one option, and he was looking at it.
And that son of a bitch was still looking at him. How do you get that job? Corner office, everything’s a view, and you can stare out the window all day. Nolan checked around. No one else was watching.
I’m not today’s entertainment, you evil prick. Just…STOP!
Nolan scowled at his watch. An hour had passed. He leaned forward and looked down at his shoes, then shifted focus to what lay beyond. There were still plenty of people walking in the plaza, and no signs of letting up. He glared at the man in black one last time, then took a deep breath, picked up his day planner, ripped out and stuffed the note into his pocket, and walked back inside to the elevator.
Out on the sidewalk he threw the note in a garbage can, lest Sherri find it. Couldn’t even kill himself right.
He rode the el home, fell into the chaise lounge, and stared at nothing. Years passed until Sherri burst through the door and dropped her keys, leaving the door open.
“Thank God you’re here! I left work. I’ve been going nuts. I knew something was wrong. I told Harmon I had to leave. You’re not at work. Did they fire you? Never mind. That’s…are you okay? What’s…what are you looking at?”
He didn’t move.
“Nolan.” She knelt beside him and put a hand on his knee. He flinched and looked over.
Her eyes were panicked. She would tell him later that his eyes looked empty–that he looked empty.
“I knew…The way you said ‘goodbye’ this morning was wrong. Tell me what you’re thinking…what’s happening with you…can you try…for me? Just try…Nolan. Try.”
He laced his fingers. She’d never let up–too stubborn. She deserved to know what he almost did. He saw she was crying.
He whispered, “Quit that job. Went over to where I used to work on Michigan Ave. Up to the roof. Wrote a note. There were people down there I could squash. This one guy wouldn’t stop staring at me. Came back…here.” He closed his eyes. Saying so much had drained the battery entirely and he was flat.
“You wrote a note. On the roof. Okay…Okay. This is non-negotiable. You need to see someone, sweetie. A professional. Today. This is too much for me to handle. We need help.”
‘We?’
Okay.
He nodded, and she jumped up, closed the front door, and pulled out the phone book. She got busy telling and retelling and retelling, eventually speaking with the right person at Ravenswood Hospital, who put her in touch with a community mental health program. That evening she practically carried Nolan to their shabby office, where they were still turning on harsh fluorescent overheads as he and Sherri walked in. Nolan found it pathetic he was their only patient.
He met with a profoundly serious older woman in black named Gottlieb, whose eyebrows and line of questioning were flat and intimidating and made him shrink down in his chair. She recommended he check himself into a psych ward and he crossed his arms and whipped his head back and forth. She brought him a pill and some water, explaining that she didn’t keep meds in her office but had access to a few pills for emergencies and congratulations, tonight he qualified.
Initially, Nolan only shook his head “yes” or “no,” so it was a long night, starting with medical history and intake questions between Dr. Gottlieb and an underling named Tom, plus Sherri and himself. Nolan could open up a bit to Tom, who had crow’s feet and kind blue eyes, so when they were alone at one point, he confided that Dr. Gottlieb was intense. Tom smiled and didn’t disagree.
Gottlieb came back for a one-on-one.
“Tell me more about your sister Melissa.”
“Sybil?”
“Are you serious?” Her black eyes bored into Nolan, who frowned.
“Sybil?” the doctor repeated. “Your sister’s been diagnosed with genuine multiple personalities?”
He shook his head. “Joke. Bipolar. Schizoid? Depends.”
“You were joking. Sybil, that’s good. Very good. Have you ever been diagnosed bipolar or experienced a manic episode?”
He shook his head. “Wish. Just tired.”
Back and forth they met in different wood-paneled rooms with drop ceilings. After another strained discussion with Tom, Nolan sat back down with Dr. Gottlieb for a third one-on-one. Sherri had helped fill in the blanks and the doctor was now open and chatty, suggesting Nolan might have been depressed for longer than he knew. She went on about how grief is a strange animal, always unique and unpredictable, and how overwhelming grief gone unprocessed might be an added culprit. She said it was a tiny lateral step from feeling good attention from his recently deceased mother to feeling bad attention from a disturbed neighbor. She explained that paranoia can be a symptom of severe depression, but that a proper diagnosis was going to take time. She said that perhaps the only thing that might have enabled Nolan to ride the elevator back down to earth was an angel in a window staring at him until he felt too self-conscious, because self-consciousness was the only language Nolan was speaking anymore. She used so many words, yet they all cut through his fog. Perhaps it was the pill, but he felt better already.
Dr. Gottlieb checked her notes. “I’d like you to help me better understand something if you could. Toms brought to my attention that you think I’m ‘intense.’ No one’s ganging up on you. We work in tandem. It could help my approach if you were to say a little more about that.”
By then she undoubtedly knew he was incapable of clarifying much, but she smiled and arched her eyebrows, and she had white animal hair on her black cardigan, and he could tell that she cared and wanted to get better. Nolan looked down at the worn carpet, took a breath and started to explain what was wrong with her.
About the Author
Sean McFadden studied fiction writing under Charles Baxter at the University of Michigan, crashed in Chicago, and washed up on a hurricane-prone island in Florida, where he drives a taxi and polishes “Make Time Count,” his time-hopping novel-in-stories about getting loaded and staying sober in millennial Chicago. Chapters are in Drunk Monkeys, The Write Launch, The Lakeshore Review, Dunes Review, After Happy Hour Review, The Spotlong Review and forthcoming in Bare Hill Review.