Loud Love, Chapter 1

It was late August in Western Washington, and the light cloud cover let the sun warm the earth to a comfortable temperature. A plane flew from left to right, and hundreds of feet below it and thousands of feet closer, a seagull traversed the same trajectory, like a 3D shadow that formed before the light had a chance to cast it. 

It was a perfect morning to be alive. 

Conversely, it was an excellent day to die.

I sat in my car, chain smoking and just listening to the noise of the world. My phone was turned off and had been for the last hour. I didn’t want interruption. I just wanted my body to start shutting down from all the pills I had just taken, with my wife yelling through the bathroom door that she was calling the police if I was being unsafe.

I opened the door, brushed past her and said,  “Go ahead, I’m already dead.” And I left. 

Now I was watching birds and planes fly while I waited to die.

“Sad, no one would get to hear my dying poetry.
  Am I being droll?
   I don’t care.” - Jeremy Baker on the day of his death.

I had parked at a strip mall not a mile from my house. It was strategic. Already crowded and surrounded by shrubs, I could park away from the road and be hidden. I figured that no one in their right mind is going to storm off after torching enough pills to take down an elephant and park at the Popeyes down the street. Maybe I wasn't in my right mind, but I balanced that equation with one simple fact. 

I wouldn’t be caught dead at Popeyes.

I thought of my kids, and how the actual number of them had been a topic of discussion amongst members of my family for a long time. Seven biological children, aged 2 to 25. Plus stepchildren, ex-stepchildren. Ex-ex-stepchildren. I always put the number somewhere around thirteen, and apologized to myself for whoever I left out after.

My oldest two, they would mourn. But they’re in their 20s, and let’s face it, everybody gots to go sometime. The younger kids were already struggling with my divorce from their mom. At least they wouldn’t have to watch me collapse. My heart ached over the thought.

I watched the horizon, the foothills of the Cascades in all their late summer splendor. I wondered if it would change colors before I did. I wondered if time would bend just enough to let me go unnoticed. I had always figured lung cancer or emphysema would have done me in.  Every time I tried to quit, I ended up in the hospital with something weird. First time, appendicitis. Second time? They don't even know what it was. My body tried to digest itself in a metabolic tantrum of lactic acidosis without cause or warning.

The 3rd and final time (today notwithstanding) my blood pressure ran at 253/188. Pancreatitis. I should have stroked out, but somehow my body just responds well to near death. For a long time after each hospital stay I found life extra idiosyncratic. Maybe I never went home from one of those hospital visits, and the life I was living was a coma induced dream. Nightmare? I don’t know, all I knew is that you can only have the same recurring dream so many times before it forms a part of you. You can only have “what the actual fuck” moments so many times in a day. What’s it called when you have deja vu about the feeling of deja vu you’re feeling right now?

I sat there for about 20 minutes or so, smoked another last cigarette, and watched the clouds form and disappear. That was me, just a little rain cloud, formed and reformed until the shape was lost in the nothing. I considered the fact that being conscious of now meant I was still alive. Every moment crept closer and closer to the last one. I wondered if I would see time slow to a stop before my eyes closed for the last time.

If I am conscious of this moment, then I must remember this moment when I die. That means my soul must carry on, right?

For a while, I’d been a pastor. When the twins were 2, I decided to go back to school and get a degree. After a religious moment on a middle-school roof, I decided on seminary. I got involved with a prison ministry right after starting on my Masters. For five years, I would go to the prison two-three nights a week and minister to the men in there. Then, in 2020, after the orange guy lost the presidential election, I was unceremoniously “fired” by the ministry for being a liberal. The next day, the first case of Covid was detected in the US in Everett, Washington, where I lived. The ministry was shut down and I took it as a sign that God really just wanted me to stop being a pastor.

A woman parked next to me. I closed my window as she got her kids out so they wouldn’t have to smell my third final cigarette. It must be getting closer to lunch time, and Popeyes was getting busier. I could feel the tug of sleep and realized that I had been there for two hours.

It was probably safe to check my phone one more time. Internally I wondered if there was hope left in me that someone would find and save me, but I squashed that pretty quick after reading the messages that had accumulated while it was off. Message from my Dad asking what’s happening. Message from my mom telling me I needed to answer her right now. My neighbor told me to stop fucking around and that he was gonna punch me in the face when he saw me. An image formed in my mind of that guy at my funeral, having to be carried off after punching my corpse in the coffin. 

Shame too, because he likely represented a pretty high percentage of the total attendees. 

No one was going to be coming to my funeral unless they hated me enough for taking my own life.

The woman and her kids returned. I listened to her corralling them like little sheep and start her minivan before driving away. My phone beeped. Another message from my wife telling me to please not be dead. I lit one more last cigarette and beamed inside that there were only five left.

A female voice came through the open window.

“Mr. Baker?”

I sat up and looked at the side view mirror. A sheriff’s SUV was parked behind me.

“Jeremy? You have a lot of people worried about you. I’m going to approach the vehicle now.”

Well… shit.

As the deputy walked up, I noticed another squad car entering the parking lot from the far side. “Having a rough day, huh?” She offered a thin smile but I couldn’t help noticing that her hand was on her taser. “How are you feeling?”

“No offense, but I was hoping to keep this private for a little while longer. I’m kinda sleepy. I know you’re doing your job, but maybe come back in 15 minutes?” The second squad car came parked behind me but stayed in his cruiser.

“Yeah, sorry Jeremy. That’s not really how this works. You don’t have any weapons or anything I need to worry about do you?” Her hand was still on the taser, but she was softening. 

Why do good people have to go around ruining the worst days of our lives?

“Look you seem like a really sweet person but this is not how I saw this morning going.” Flick, Flick. Another last cigarette was lit. 

“Jeremy, I’m officer DeLaney. I spoke with your wife a few moments ago. She’s pretty worried for you.” Ugh. I shouldn’t have turned my phone on afterall. I still had my doubts that I would make it to the hospital.  

Maybe they’d have to use the paddles. 

I would be shocked if they did.

“Hi officer DeLaney.” I was doing my best to sound cheerful. But truthfully, I was plenty irritated. “You found me because I turned my stupid phone on, right? Just like the movies.” 

I  took a long, disinterested drag of my cigarette.

DeLaney pointed to the main road. “No, actually we did try to find you by your cell phone, but it pinged out towards Oak Harbor.” She turned back to me directly, not wanting to be distracted for too long.” I just left your house when I saw your car in the parking lot. I guess I found you by luck. Can you reach out your window with both hands and open your door for me? It’ll make this a lot more relaxed.”

I opened the car door as she asked. There was a small mound of butts growing just below. In my head, I watched the cartoon version of the cop walking up to a disheveled dying man’s car with a self-generating ashtray piling up outside the car. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so disappointed. “You’re not gonna ticket me for littering are you?”

Officer DeLaney smiled and took a step back so the door would not bump her as it opened. “No, I think you’re probably going through enough right now. I do have an ambulance on its way to take you to the hospital, though.”

My head was lightly swimming, and I was barely treading water. I was into the third hour of my death. The pressure of dying was meeting the pressure of being discovered, and my mind was the eddy that reality was swirling into. DeLaney’s counterpart got out of his car and started walking over looking like he had better things to do with his time. He introduced himself as Sergeant Something-or-other. I really wasn’t paying attention. When he started asking me how I was doing and how I was feeling I realized that it must have been a training all first responders went through. How to Approach a Man Intent on Dying, Part 1 – Be Friendly. 

When he was done introducing himself and gauging my status, I replied to DeLaney’s question.

“What happens if I don’t wanna go to the hospital?” I pointed out to the Cascades unfolded in front of me. “I mean, I feel like this is my spot. Dying in an ambulance lacks romanticism. Dying in the hospital is so cliche’.” I gave her a thin smile of the only hope I had left. “But if you wanna just hang out for a while…”

Sergeant Imimportant spoke up. “Well, that’s not really how things work.” 

I’m getting the sense that I don’t really know how things work. 

He continued. “If you say you’ll go to the hospital, our involvement stops there and the hospital takes over. If you refuse, then yeah we have to arrest you for your own safety. That’s going to be no fun.”

There was tension between Delaney and Sergeant Toogoodforthisshit. Delaney stared at me, biting a corner of her lip while he spoke. I wondered if they had been lovers at one point until one of their spouses found out and forced them to break it off. Delaney had no wedding ring or even a mark on her finger that showed she wore one outside of work. Sergeant Slaughtermyperfectday’s finger was ringless too. But you could see the outline of where it was. A white band of skin on an otherwise tan finger. 

You might think I am jumping to conclusions, but I had an uncanny knack for reading people and circumstances. Great party trick, but nothing I could make a career of. 

My mind flashed to the Terminator. Come with me if you want to live. And then 13 year old John Connor says Na, I’m good, you freak.  

If only a future me could materialize and tell them “NO LET HIM FINISH! HE ENDS THE WORLD IF HE KEEPS LIVING!” 

Instead, an ambulance materialized with lights flashing, crowding in with the two police cars and the steadily growing group of onlookers. I must have looked like an overdose they were responding to. Or a medical emergency. 

Oh… Right.

“You guys are totally killing my vibe right now.”

The paramedics walked up. They must have taken the same de-escalation training. How to Approach a Man Intent on Dying, Part 2 – Make Sure They are Medically Stable Even if Mentally They are Not. Maybe if I just kept them gabbing long enough I would just fall out. I’d be a blip on their day that they’d forget about tomorrow. Time is an illusion anyway.

I opened Facebook on my phone and wrote a two word post. “I’m sorry.” 

What was I sorry for? At the moment, it seemed like I was apologizing for failing. This wasn’t a cry for help or attention, so why was I receiving both in spades?

Between the paramedics and the officers, I was “helped” to the ambulance. My death was turning into a soccer game. It should have been over 10 minutes ago, but there was bonus time to play. If I died in the ambulance, would they still send a bill? I didn’t have any cash on me, so I tried to pay-off the paramedic in back with me by offering my garishly bright orange Crocs in exchange for him letting me slip out the back door. Whether it was because he couldn’t morally do it, was worried about losing his job, or maybe just because he had an iota of fashion sense I will never know. But he turned my offer down. 

His loss.

When we got to the hospital, they took me into a room in the Emergency Department. If you live long enough in a certain area, and you do enough in your life to warrant it, you’ll likely end up in the ED for something or other. I had been in this room before. Three times.. Once with appendicitis. Once with a mystery disease. Once with pancreatitis.  Always the same room in the emergency room. 

It had been over 3 hours since I downed the pills. I was feeling a certain kind of way about it. I swore to God that if this didn’t kill me, I would have my vengeance against him – likely in the form of a lot fist shaking and cursing. If God is capable of feeling human emotion, I was going to give him first real taste of “shit dude, my bad.” 

The first in a long list of people I did not want to engage with came in then. A short plump-faced little nurse with ink and piercings who gave off a very distinct “I’m a cool mom, but not that cool” aura. Not what you’d call an air of authority.

“Hi Jeremy, I’m Dotti. I’m gonna be taking some vital signs and we’ll be drawing some blood. How are you feeling?” Her voice was chirpy like a startled songbird.

I weighed my options here. Physically I was fine. If I told her how I felt emotionally, I’d spend the rest of my life in a jacket with extra, extra long sleeves. 

Saying I felt “fine” seemed smug.

I didn’t want being smug to be the part of me that passed on. 

“This isn’t how I saw my day going.”

Dotti handed me a gown.

“Bathroom is down the hall. Don’t lock it or security will come” Oh there it was, the no-nonsense side. I knew she looked and sounded like chunky pixie, but you don’t become an ED nurse without a little shut-the-fuck up in you. I grabbed the gown and made my way to one of the bathrooms. 

It seemed a lot dingier than the last time I was here. Also, my blood pressure being so high that time had me hallucinating quite a bit. Apparently, I had propositioned the poor triage nurse when he tried to put the EKG nodes on last time. 

I had my wallet, my keys, three cigarettes and a lighter in a crumpled pack, and a green and gold guitar pick with Fender inscribed in black. A pair of orange crocs, khaki cargo shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt. No underwear (I always adhered to not being caught dead in dirty underwear. Life hack, if you never wear underwear you never have to worry about it). I was sure that even the people who hated me enough to attend my funeral would have not buried me in this.

But I could totally see them demanding I be cremated in it. The orange rubber would melt to my feet before we both became the same ash. This was worse than the bride not showing on your wedding day.

Stupid grim reaper.

I walked back to my room. The equally dingy sign above my room seemed like it was illuminated wrong. Like shadows wrapped in light, then buried in another layer of shadow. Everything had its own fuzziness. Not a glow, but like an afterimage of a glow. The little dart of light you see in the corner of your eye but when you try to see it with both eyes, it disappears. 

Dotti was busying herself around the room. You would think that they would just have kits for this kind of thing. All the tools and wires and nodes and whatever all in one handy, convenient clear bag. That way they wouldn’t have to build the whole damn thing from scratch. It’s not that I’m impatient (which, generally I am) but I was kinda still trying to die here. How to Approach a Man Who Is Intent On Dying, Part 3- Work harder, not smarter. I surrendered modesty and got myself on the bed with my back end flapping in the wind.

Dotti took my blood pressure first. I had mixed feelings about it being 107/67. That’s the best my blood pressure has been for at least a decade. Probably only half of what I was hoping it would be. 

While she was drawing blood, a petite woman with glasses came in with a clipboard. Admin or social worker. She introduced herself and her voice was thin and weightless. She needed me to fill out some forms to complete checking me in. 

I skipped the depression questionnaire. Filling in all those sad-face bubbles felt like checking chord boxes on a song I didn’t want to hear again. 

D minor: the saddest key.

Speaking of feelings, I was feeling a bit peckish.

When I was finished signing my life away, I asked “Since I’m officially checked in and my suicide seems less and less likely to be successful l, do ya think I could get some lunch?” 

Dotti chuckled despite herself, but the other woman wasn't sure how to respond.

“I -uh, I will ask the doctor. He should be here in just a minute.” With her clipboard clasped in her hands, she slipped out the door. Her presence was nothing more than reverb now.

“I think you freaked her out.” Dotti was still filling vials.

“Sorry, this is my first suicied. Didn’t think my death would take this long.“ I winced in my response to her withdrawing the needle from my arm. “Obviously I need practice, and my day wasn’t the best to start with.” 

She taped cotton on my booboo with a Hello Kitty Band-Aid.

“I am kinda hungry, though…” The sound of my own pulse echoed in my veins along to the syncopation of the beeps in the room. I wondered which was guiding the other.

The cabinet door clicked shut sharply as Dotti finished the tools of her trade away. She stood up, sighed, and asked “So, what are you hungry for? Salad? Fish? Burger?”

I gave her my best smile, although I cannot say for certain the effect was what I intended. “Burger please. No American cheese. That stuff will kill you.”

She left and I was alone with the beeps and the ringing in my ears.

I got up and closed the curtain. For good measure, I turned the light off, and briefly considered sticking my tongue into the orange power outlet. Why do hospitals always have orange power outlets, anyway? They must have got them the same place I got my crocs. I grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. South Park was on and I didn’t change it.

The enormously loud silence didn’t last long enough. The doctor came in grimacing after an hour. How to Approach a Man Intent on Dying, Part 4 – Delivering the Bad News. I’ve never seen such a hawkish nose in my life. Dotti trailed behind him, along with a new woman in a stiff business formal whose clipboard had its own clipboard.

“Hello, Mr. Baker. I’m Doctor Ashley.”

Fuck my life. That means he has two first names. 

Never trust a man with two first names.

Especially if one of them’s a woman’s name.

“Hi, Jack. I’m Jeremy.”

We both blinked at each other long enough to throw his script off. He recovered, adjusting his tone from clinical to careful and conveniently breaking eye contact. “You’re… very fortunate to be alive, Mr. Baker. Based on the toxicology results, the levels of medication you ingested would typically produce profound hypotension, bradycardia, central nervous system depression—possibly leading to coma, respiratory failure, or cardiac arrest.”

He looked at me like I should already be in the morgue. 

“Lucky me.”

“Your blood pressure was textbook normal. No arrhythmias. Liver and kidney panels? Still within functional range. Frankly, none of it makes physiological sense. We’ve had pharmacology consults looking at the labs. One of the nurses thought the equipment was malfunctioning, so we reran it. Same results. You’re stable. But based on the amounts we extrapolated from serum concentrations, you shouldn’t be.”

There once was a man from Idaho
How many pills he took we just don’t know
According to the labs
He should be on a slab
But here he still sits, too stupid to go..

He paused, giving me the space to say something profound. I took a long breath, nodded sagely, and said “Did I mention I’m kind of hard to kill.”

Dotti smirked without making eye contact. The business formal woman didn’t flinch. Ashley, of the two-first-name tribe, gave me the kind of look you reserve for a patient who just became a case study. 

He’s going to be a herald in the medical community, the double-first name doctor who discovered an anomaly.

Ashley scribbled something on his chart. Probably: Patient displays inappropriate affect. Possible brain damage. Or worse, sarcasm disorder.  He cleared his throat. “We’ll be running additional tests over the next few days—EEG, full metabolic panel, possibly a cardiac MRI. Just to be thorough.”

Translation: We have no idea what’s going on, so we’re gonna run the diagnostic equivalent of throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping one strand spells ‘Jesus.’

Dotti finally stepped forward like she’d just remembered she had feet. She placed a firm but gentle hand on my shoulder. It was the kind of touch reserved for toddlers and bombs. The business formal woman still hadn’t moved. Her suit looked like it was made out of negotiation contracts and sensible shoes. I wasn’t convinced she blinked on her own.

Ashley nodded toward her. “This is Ms. Kettering. She’s here from Behavioral Health Services.” 

“Hello, Mr. Baker. I’m the caseworker assigned to facilitate your voluntary psychiatric commitment,” she said, voice smooth as vinyl laminate. “You’ll be transferring to Swedish Edmonds once the paperwork is complete.”

Voluntary. 

That’s the word they use before they make it not.

“Do I get a fruit basket with that?” I asked.

No response. 

Guess that means a punch card is out, too.

Dr. Jack Ashley handed Dotti a folded page. “This is his updated treatment plan. Observation here, then transfer. Psych evaluation pending.”

She nodded. Clipboard Woman didn't.

Ashley turned back to me. “Is there anyone you’d like us to contact?”

I thought about that. About the one face I couldn’t let go of even when I tried to let go of everything else. “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

He nodded like that was an answer. It wasn’t.

Dotti brought food about half an hour later. The burger was good, but not I just cheated death good. More like the first burger off the line at the grade school cafeteria good. And it wasn’t even that I cheated death.

I invited him to dinner, let him pick the wine, and then took him for everything he had.

She asked if I needed anything else. 

I didn’t.

At 3:11, Marie texted. I love you. Please be OK” 

“OK” is such a relative term. In that moment, I read it not as comfort, but as a translation. Please tell me this isn’t my fault. Please say I’m not the reason you tried to die. I didn’t want to fight. The last two days had been all fight.

I sent back two texts.

-I’m getting committed. Can you let my boss know I might not be at work Monday.
-Guess I still got bills to pay if I’m waking up tomorrow.
That was the entire exchange.

I’ll spare you the mundane texture of the next five hours. I spent a good chunk of that time just trying to understand what this was.

What I was.

The doctors were struggling to figure that out too. Every time I would leave my room for a test, I would get back hoping there would be a notification on my phone.  No one else called. No one else texted.  Not that I’d know what to say if they had. I assumed everyone was waiting on me to be stable enough not to detonate mid-sentence. 

Maybe there is no death. Maybe life just… keeps going. Maybe you don’t age. Maybe your whole story happens in a fraction of a second and time is just a rumor.  Maybe consciousness is a glitch that flashes long enough for us to remember ourselves—and then let go. Maybe we’re episodes of a show. But not a good show where child actors grow up and evolve into adults playing characters they’ve earned.  Maybe we’re SpongeBob. He never ages. Never changes. And when it’s over, it’s over.

The last thing you were is the only thing you will ever be..

So what did that make me?

Suicide is always perceived as a selfish act by spectators. But from the mind of someone trying to end their life?

The act is selfless.

So when it turns into the clusterfuck I found myself in, the perspective changes.  Now it’s not just selfish. It’s cruel. Cruel to make them worry. Cruel to make them face the mirror of what their role in your life really was. Free will and determinism go hand in hand. My free will is your fate, whether you like it or not. And if fate gives you the finger and blows raspberries in your general direction, then yeah—

It was selfish.

Cruel.

Pointless.

No matter how you slice it, no one will understand if you try to tell them  Hey, this wasn’t my fault. It should have worked. The doctor already said so. I shouldn’t be here. 

The fact that I am still here hurts me a hell of a lot more than how me trying to leave hurt you.

Clipboard Woman came back around 8:00 to go over the discharge paperwork with me.

Have you ever looked at the After Visit Summary on a suicide attempt?  Not that I recommend trying to procure one on your own—obviously, results may vary—but if you did, you'd find the word sardonic written in all caps with full emoji adornments.

Diagnosis: Acute Emotional Distress.

Sounds like a warning label slapped on unstable Tupperware: Do not microwave while sad. I didn’t need a summary. I needed a translator. My after-visit summary should’ve just read Didn’t die. Seems disappointed.

Two paramedics came in. They gave me a set of red scrubs to wear instead of a gown, and this time I got to ride in a wheelchair to the ambulance. They were good enough to let me smoke a cigarette before we left. That was nice of them.

Once we arrived, they brought me by gurney through registration. They took me down luminal halls to an elevator, followed by more luminal halls to a locked door and a window-checkpoint for letting people in and out.  The charge nurse went through the paperwork with me again (more frowny faces) and then took notes as I told her how I was feeling. 

I was feeling like I would really just like to go to bed. Not only did I fail to die, I failed to even have a near death experience. I didn’t even get a nap. Just an MRI and a Hello Kitty band aid.

She and another nurse escorted me to my room. After giving me a rundown of what to expect the next day, we got to do the strip search. It was super awkward, made double so when they asked me to pull my pants down for a second look. I would have chalked it up to protocol, but it didn’t feel like that. The clock on the wall showed it was midnight. 

After they left and turned off the light, I laid down and cried myself to sleep.