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  “What was?”

  “The hardest part,” she said, her fingers toying with the glass of bourbon as she stared vacantly at the table, “was that we never knew why he did it. There was nothing wrong between him and my mom, nothing at work. I mean, we weren’t rich, but they were doing fine. We never found out anything. He just… left.”

  Her phone chimed. “It’s Peter again,” she said, checking it. “He’s on Illinois time, so when he stays out drinking I get calls an hour later than I should. The joys of a long-distance relationship.”

  “Just pretend you’re asleep,” I offered.

  She looked at me under raised eyebrows. “He’s jealous enough as it is. No need to rile him up.”

  I raised my bourbon. “Thanks for drinking with me.”

  She lifted her glass and clinked it against mine. “To secrets.”

  After taking a final sip, she rose and walked around the corner. I watched her glass across the table, listening as her footsteps receded before ending altogether with the sound of a door closing above me.

  CHAPTER 5

  February 22, 2008

  Garrison, New York

  I pushed open the door and Laila rushed inside to get out of the cold, tossing her purse onto the unmade bed. Locking the door behind me, I set the key card on the side table and looked up to see her removing her coat to reveal a deep violet dress that ended at her knees, exposing calves toned from frequent running.

  She asked, “What are you looking at, Rivers?”

  “Just enjoying the view.”

  “The balcony is over there if you need a view. You’re just objectifying me.”

  I walked to the sliding glass door and gestured to the eerily bright moon that shone across a clear black sky. “Gala ball, luxurious hotel accommodations, and a full moon… I’m not doing so bad as a boyfriend, am I?”

  She sat on the mattress and leaned down to unfasten the straps of her heels, exposing a generous portion of cleavage. Her electric green eyes watched me as she took off one heel, then the other.

  “What can I say?” she answered. “If we weren’t already sleeping together, tonight would be the night.”

  “And look at the bright side,” I added. “That’s one less West Point banquet we have to go to.”

  “Your school does love its formal events. You know what we do at Ohio State when the seniors have a hundred nights until graduation?”

  “No, what?”

  “Nothing. But you guys turn it into a three-ring circus with distinguished speakers and everything else.” She stood and turned away from me, then looked back over her shoulder. “Now unzip me, Cadet Rivers.”

  “Gladly.” I stepped forward and pulled the zipper down the small of her back, breathing in an intoxicating mix of hairspray and perfume as I slid the straps off her slim shoulders and kissed her neck.

  She leaned her head back, resting a cascade of curled blonde hair against my shoulder and looking up at me between dark eyelashes. “Do you need help taking off your nutcracker jacket?”

  I looked down at the thick, wool uniform top that was lined with three vertical rows of brass buttons under a short, stiff collar.

  “They call it Full Dress Gray. And no.”

  “I like my name better.”

  I placed my lips next to her ear and whispered, “Just because it’s more accurate doesn’t make it right.”

  The sound of her phone ringing interrupted the moment.

  “Shit,” she said with a sigh, “it’s probably Mom.”

  “Why is she calling at midnight?”

  “I don’t know.” She hastily pulled a single strap over her shoulder with one hand while reaching for her purse with the other. Fishing out her phone, she looked at the display and froze.

  “What the fuck do you want?” she said, bringing the phone to her ear.

  Then she stood perfectly still for ten seconds. Fifteen.

  I stepped forward and rested a palm on her shoulder, but she flung her arm back to throw it off.

  “Fuck you,” she said into the phone receiver. “You were the worst mistake I ever made, you piece of shit.” Then she threw the phone against the mattress and pressed herself into my arms, sobbing.

  “It was him,” she cried.

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s drunk. But he said…” She trailed off into tears.

  “He said what?”

  “He said Dad killed himself because he was ashamed of me, and that he was burning in hell—”

  “Babe, I’m sorry.”

  “I just—I need a minute, David.”

  “Take all the time you need.”

  She pushed away from my chest and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I listened to her sobs as I walked to the bed and picked up her phone, then entered the number of the last call into my own phone before turning hers off and setting it back down on the disheveled comforter.

  Then I walked toward the sliding glass door and stepped into the frigid night, pulling the door shut behind me and casting another glance at the bathroom before dialing. I walked across a thick carpet of undisturbed snow to the balcony railing, waiting for him to pick up as I looked across treetops that ended below a stretch of gleaming Hudson River punctuating rolling hills, the entire landscape shrouded in white and glowing under the moon. The line connected after three rings.

  An intoxicated voice said, “Who’s this?”

  “Hello, Peter. I’m David Rivers.”

  “What’s up, douchebag? Figured I might be hearing from you.”

  “You figured right.”

  “Is this where you threaten me?”

  “Why would I threaten you, Peter?”

  “Because you don’t want me calling your bitch. But I had her first.”

  “She’s changing her number tomorrow. But I’m not. And I promise you, Peter”—I reached up to my throat with a thumb and forefinger to pinch open the stiff uniform collar—“you can call me anytime you like.”

  “You sound like a faggot. Tell that whore her dad got what he deserved.”

  “Because he killed himself?”

  “Like a fucking coward.”

  “Peter, after what’s happening here tonight, I think you should strongly consider that option yourself.”

  “You don’t know me, pussy.”

  “I’m starting to get a pretty good idea. Killing yourself would be the most honorable thing you can do.”

  “No, that would be beating your fucking ass like you deserve for stealing my bitch. But I’m over it.”

  “Are you?”

  “You know what? Fuck you. Have fun with the whore, and tell her she’s never going to forget me because I was the best she ever had.”

  “I don’t think I’ll forget you either, Peter.”

  “Whatever, douchebag. You think I’m scared of you? You want to meet me like a man, I’ll give you the address. But I’ve got guns, and my friends have guns, too, so if you come out to Illinois, tread lightly.”

  He hung up.

  I placed the phone in my pocket, inhaling sharply. Then I released a long, slow breath into the freezing air around me, watching it turn into a cloud that, for a fleeting moment, blocked the distant hills from view.

  CHAPTER 6

  April 6, 2008

  Garrison, New York

  I crossed the parking lot through a light drizzle, glancing beyond the fence to where the terrain dropped off toward the water. On a clear day, the view would have extended all the way to Storm King Mountain, but a thick blanket of morning fog hovered over the landscape, revealing only intermittent glimpses of vibrant green trees beneath a sky the color of shale rock.

  Walking under an overhang, I passed three doors before stopping at our room. I passed the cardboard tray holding two large cups of coffee to my left hand and slid my right into my pocket, fumbling for the key card. I inserted it into the slot, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

  Laila was facing away from me, zipping
her duffel bag on the bed.

  “You’re up early,” I said, tossing the key card onto the side table and setting down the tray of coffee. “We don’t have to check out until noon.”

  She turned to face me, her eyes teary and bloodshot.

  “What happened?”

  “This is what you’ve been doing after I go to sleep, David?” She jabbed a finger toward the corner of the room, and I saw my laptop open on the desk. “You told me you were doing fucking homework!”

  “Laila, I don’t know what you read but—”

  “There’s close to a hundred pages there, David. Half are about almost killing yourself with a parachute, and the other half are about wanting to kill yourself with a gun.”

  I walked toward her, but she threw out her hands. “Don’t fucking touch me, David. I can’t handle this after my dad. I can’t handle it.”

  “I never meant for you to read that.”

  “That’s all you have to say? Do you know what it’s like when someone you love takes his own life?”

  “I wish you hadn’t gone through my computer, Laila.”

  “We’re done, David.” She grabbed her duffel and strode past me toward the door.

  I whirled around to face her and yelled, “You think I want to be this way? You think I asked for this? That I don’t want to be normal? I didn’t get to choose, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do except write about it. You think I don’t know how this ends for me?”

  “We all get a choice, David,” she whispered. “But I’m not going to be here when you make the wrong one.”

  Then she turned and walked out the door, letting it slam shut behind her.

  I took a deep, surging breath and held it as I raked a hand across my scalp, then made a fist and slowly exhaled. I lowered my hand, walked to the desk, and sat across from the computer. The cursor was still blinking at my last entry from the night before.

  It always angers me to hear people talk about suicide being a selfish act.

  Here is what it’s like: you’re locked in a telephone booth with a huge man who is endlessly dragging his nails across a chalkboard, the shrill sounds choking out everything else and making your blood curl, driving your mind to the breaking point. You can’t plug your ears, you can’t tell him to stop; he is a deaf blind mute and he’s not going to quit unless you make him. Just as you’re cocking your fist back to punch him in the face, family members, well-wishers, and pundits from the street run up the sidewalk and pound on the soundproof glass of the phone booth, screaming, “DON’T HIT HIM! That would be a selfish act!”

  You’re goddamn right it would be a selfish act. What else would it be? Why else would you do it—for someone else’s approval? Who are these people to tell you what not to do, when they have no idea what you’re hearing? They—them, the rest of the world; it’s completely irrelevant whether they are biologically related or not—are going about their happy lives, content with their TV and their social media, on their way to the house or the office. Those people on the outside have never been trapped in the booth. They have no idea what you’re hearing, what fills your mind every passing second against your will, and they’re trying to pass judgment on you because your act will negatively affect their happy lives—they might miss a sitcom over it, they might be unable to sleep. How dare you inconvenience them?

  What about your family? Family has nothing to do with it. They’re not in the phone booth; they’re outside in the open air and peaceful tranquility and sunshine. They may think they can understand what you’re hearing because they can see you through the glass, but they don’t. They’ve never been inside the booth, and they never will. Occasionally, one of those people on the outside will make some attempt at suicide. They will statistically regret it at some point in the process, and far more of them survive than die. If they live, they will spend the rest of their lives talking about “how close they came.” They will feel like they’ve been given a second chance, they will thank a god of their choice for their newfound strength. They have never been in the booth, either.

  But the passers-by on the street will point to them and say, through the glass, “See? See how selfish that was? We could have helped them cope with that difficult issue if only they’d TALKED TO US!”

  The people who have been in the booth, trapped in the enclosed space with that horrible noise, who have cocked their fist, if only for a moment, even if they haven’t thrown that punch yet and even if they never will, have an understanding with each other. They may never speak it, and their families—the ones they’re supposed to not throw that punch for—probably have no fucking idea they’re even in the booth in the first place.

  The truth is, it would and should be a selfish act. Because no one on the outside hears what you’re hearing and understands why you want to punch this guy in the face to make him stop. Every significant choice in life is a selfish act, so why not in death?

  If you haven’t experienced it, you will never understand. If you have, you will. It’s that simple. That is the price of being able to describe it—you have to experience it. It is like drug users getting high in order to see the other side. They pay the money and endure the medical and legal risks to catch a glimpse of it. Except, with the darkness, the glimpse you catch isn’t euphoria or bliss or hallucinogenic inspiration—the other side you see is a terrible, dark, twisted world, and you can’t get out. You didn’t even choose to go in the first place. You did nothing different, but your surroundings started to look a little more distorted each morning, and then one day you woke up and you were there.

  Drug users come out of their journey knowing what an acid trip or a heroin binge feels like. People with the darkness come out being able to write descriptions of the things they saw and felt, things they couldn’t possibly have begun to imagine had they not been there. Or, they might not come out at all. They might never leave. Even though you never wanted it, the darkness is addictive; it is a drug that chooses you.

  The darkness is very hard to break and will most likely require an intervention from the outside, although in most cases the “intervention” doesn’t know it’s intervening—it might just be accidentally providing a distraction. The intervention may be a person or an event, and you don’t have the power to summon it. It might come and it might not; you might be saved and you might not.

  Some return to the outside world and can speak of what they felt inside the booth, and some never return at all.

  * * *

  Jackson set his beer on the table between us and glanced out the window toward the Hudson River marina that was obscured by rain in the evening twilight. Other drinkers had just begun flowing into the Front Street Bar in Newburgh, though Jackson and I were on our third round before the house lights dimmed in anticipation of the post-dinner influx of customers.

  “It’s not that fucking bad, man,” he said over the classic rock blaring from ceiling speakers.

  “Jackson, she was perfect.”

  He waited for a laughing couple to pass our table before responding, “How long until you graduate?”

  “A month. You know that.”

  “And how long will your next deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan last?”

  “A year. Maybe more.”

  “You think a girl like that is going to stick around? For someone like us?”

  “Probably not, but—”

  “If she hadn’t read your shit today, she would’ve done it eventually. Valerie got into my emails by hacking my password with a program she bought for forty bucks. You have any idea how graphic my emails are? With how many women?”

  I pushed my bourbon aside. “I never cheated on Laila.”

  “No, you’re just a suicidal, alcoholic writer. That’s probably worse.”

  “She didn’t know that.”

  “I’m not knocking it, man. Welcome to the machine. Neither of us wants to grow old, and neither of us will. Stop stressing over it. You might bounce on our next jump, anyway.”

  “Let�
��s do the power tower tonight.”

  “Even if the winds weren’t too high, which they are, it’s pouring outside.”

  “The rain is supposed to stop later.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I don’t know much about electrical arcing, so I should probably do some research, but you want to climb next to 470,000 volt live wires in heavy precipitation with no moon? Maybe it’s better to wait.”

  “I bet Nick would do it with me.”

  “Gay Nick or Cowboy Nick?”

  “Cowboy Nick.”

  “He’s leaving for a Norway trip tomorrow. Good luck.”

  “Drew, then.”

  “His canopy is still being repaired from the church jump.”

  “We could do Ma Bell—”

  “David, do you remember the last time you didn’t listen to me?”

  I turned to look at the aquarium stretching the length of the bar, the fish and coral shifting color under the tank’s undulating lights. “No.”

  “Not only are you not always right, you’re usually wrong.”

  “You can’t bring up the loops every time you want to make a point.”

  “I can, and I will,” he said defiantly. “I told you to loosen the closing loops on your BASE rig so you wouldn’t have a pilot chute in tow. But you wanted to listen to your precious manufacturer recommendations.”

  “All I knew about you at the time was that your financial portfolio consisted of cocaine and prostitutes. Of course I listened to the manufacturer—”

  “And then on the Harlem River tower, you almost towed into the fucking ground before your chute opened. I turned to Ryan and said, ‘Dude, he’s going in,’ and had time to say it before your pins popped.”

  “The loops were a mistake,” I shot back. “We’ve discussed this.”

  “You were allowed to be pissed about Sarah because you’d been with her for eight years. How long were you with Laila, eight months?”

  “You saw her, Jackson. She was perfect.”