.orgJacklynn Blanchard
Waterloo Sunset
On the day that Beverly left me for Stan, I swallowed 25 aspirin and waited to die. Beverly had been my wife for 12 years. We had married very young, both recenlty graduated from high school, where we had been sweethearts. I had known nothing other than her, and she nothing other than me, as far as I had known. Of course, now I knew she had known Stan as well, a fact that I found rather alarming, considering that Stan is my brother, 5 years my junior. She told me, in a timid child's voice, that she did not love me anymore and did not want to continue with our charade. I told her, surely I had no idea what she was talking about. Our marriage was no sham to me. She looked at me with clear azure eyes and with three simple words she took away my will to live. "I love Stan." On that day, my house no longer was my home, my wife became my brother's lover, and I no longer knew who I was.
After several hours of lying with my cheek pressed against the cold bathroom tile, I concluded that the aspirin was not doing what I desired. So, consequently, I would be in need of another plan of action. Upon concluding I did not care much how I died, I decided to jump off the overpass. This way either the pavement or a car would end my wasted life. Solemnly I drove my car to my final resting place. I parked my car and walked to the overpass. It was eerily deserted for a Friday night. From there, I stood at the edge of the overpass, looking over at the cars passing rapidly on the road beneath. I watched the headlights come and go, imagining which black rubber tires would bring me solace. I envisioned the reactions the unsuspecting occupants of the vehicle would have. I wondered if they would scream at the sight of me swiftly smashing to the ground, or if I would catch them by surprise. I wondered if they would notice at all.
After an hour or so, I decided I would need to make my grand leap into infamy soon or risk losing out on the mystique the darkness lent my pending death. As I lifted myself up onto the cement barrier and prepared to plunge into the Lethe, I heard a phantom screech.
"No!" The voice cried. "This is mine!"
I turned with a jolt, to discover a slim young brunette woman standing on the opposite side of the overpass.
"You!" The young woman shrieked, her finger extended accusingly at my chest.
I stared at her, my arms folded reproachfully, as she sprinted across the overpass to where I stood. Who was she to tell me that I could not end my life?
With a desperate heaving breath she spoke. "You can't kill yourself today, I'm going to! I've had it planned all week. This is the first time my mom's had a date all week! This is my first and only opportunity and I won't let you ruin it!"
I stood there, dumbfounded by this young brash girl dressed in a crisp red waitress uniform.
"Excuse me?" I uttered gutturally.
"You heard me. Today is my day! I've planned it perfectly and you can't fuck it up! If you're so hell-bent on killing yourself today, go swallow a bottle of pills or a shotgun or something! Just get the fuck off my overpass, and I don't mean by jumping!"
My eyes darted to her black nametag embossed with white print. I smirked at the chipper name so in contrast to the little tyrant who stood before me. It read "Julie."
"Listen, Julie. I don't know what kind of teenage problems you seem to be dealing with this week, but my wife left me for my little brother so I feel that my situation is more dire than yours, and thus, I feel I should have the rights to the overpass this evening."
She stood directly parallel to me, arms on her petite hips, and glared.
"What makes you think my problems are so teenage?" She raised her hands and furiously made air quotations around the word "teenage," as if to emphasize my ingnorance.
"Clearly you are no older than 20, therefore I feel your problems would reflect your age."
"How dare you! My problems are unsolvable! If they weren't why else would I be here? If they were so teenage I would be at a slumber party with 'Muffy' and 'Lindsey' venting about how my boyfriend never buys me roses, not on an overpass with you!"
Her point was made and our opportunity was lost as the sun pierced the horizon.
"Well I guess that neither of us can end it tonight. You've have spoiled the opportunity for us both."
Julie pressed her lips together tightly into a duck bill and scowled.
"I did no such thing! If you weren't here fucking up my plans to begin with then none of this would've happened!"
"Fine, whatever." I dismissed her irritably and walked back to my car.
For the next several weeks this became our ritual. No matter how early in the twilight hours I arrived at the overpass, Julie was either already there or would interrupt just as I was about to jump. We would argue over whose life was more miserable, and once morning shattered our suicidal dreams, we would both stomp off to our unavoidable destinations, dejected and irate.
On the sixth consecutive Friday evening, I did not know much more about Julie than I had when we first met. She was nineteen or so, a waitress at a local diner, she lived with her mother who appeared to be an alcoholic floozy, and was apparently suicidal. I did not know why she wasn't in college nor why she masochistically lived with her sadistic matriarch, however, I did spend many hours analyzing why her doomed life had led to her suicidal tendencies. I wondered if she had attempted to end her life before or if she was driven to this finally after years of contemplation.
I was fond of her, in a twisted sort of way. I liked how she knew my inner turmoil because it was her own. I imagined what it would be like if we had met under different circumstances. If perhaps our lives had gone in different directions and we had been given the opportunity to be happy. Maybe we might have been soul mates. I dismissed this though, remembering that love was the reason I wished to end my pathetic life in the first place.
This particular evening Julie was in the most peculiar of spirits. She seemed to have reached some grand solution she had waited her whole life for and was in no temperament to quarrel with me. She quickly pulled a slip of paper out of a pocket in her khaki trench coat, and proceeded to hand it to me. Scrolled in delicate feminine handwriting it read, "For nothing now can come to any good."
"Have you ever read Auden before?" she posed innocently.
"Certainly. That is my favorite poem of his. It is untitled you know."
"That's what makes it the best, Terry. It requires no introduction." The way my name rolled off her tongue startled me because she had not called me by anything, besides the usual epithets. I felt no need to bother asking how she had come across my name. This mere gesture of compassion, of humanity, was enough for me. And in that moment, I realized that if I was to die, and I had every intention of doing so, I did not mind if I died with Julie. For from our ending we shall begin.
In retrospect, there was little that could have been done. When my feet stepped off the overpass, Julie's hand in mine, I knew that there would be no other choice than the one we had just made. This would be our final choice and I suppose the most poignant. This was the moment that I would die, hand in hand with a stranger whom I knew nothing about except for her first name and the fact that she too wanted to die. And this, our final hurrah, our grand defeat, would be our Waterloo, except our river was made of tar and when we crossed we would be neither safe nor sound in any conventional sense. And as we gazed up at our Waterloo sunset, we were in paradise.
Jacklynn is a freshman English major at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is a grammar Nazi, bleeding heart, type A personality, who is a sucker for charity and stilettos. She has a razor sharp wit and a close relationship with sarcasm and irony. She fills her time with obscure music, books, and movies. She hopes to one day be a cynical writer in New York City.