I Saw A Suicide
The year was 2005. I lived in the historic Askew Saddlery building in the River Market area of Kansas City, Missouri. At this time I lived by myself and was a workaholic. I think I had 3 jobs at once.
“Yes mom, I’ll bring potato salad to the potluck on Saturday.”
I was vacantly staring out my apartment window as I talked to my mom on the phone about what I’d be bringing to the upcoming family outing. My mind was quickly getting bored. Mundane details, so many boring conversations I’d had so far in my life. When would the boring conversations end? Ughhhh….
Then a male scream out of nowhere filled my ears.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
The man’s horrible scream arrived two milliseconds before I saw a body pass in front of my apartment window on its way down to the pavement below. All I can remember about his body were his brown pants. He wore no shirt.
My mind struggled to make sense of the body that had just flown down in front of my window: “What movie are they filming in the River Market?”
Then it hit me: a man had just committed suicide by jumping off of my apartment building. I saw it. I heard it. There was no movie. This was real. My brain struggled to accept the fact that I had just witnessed the last moments of a life.
Hearing the man’s scream was way worse than seeing his body fall down to the ground. That scream still haunts me. I know what suicide sounds like but I’m not sure what his scream meant. Was his scream a plea for help? Did it mean he’d changed his mind in mid-air and wanted to live? Or was his scream just pure fear? Or pure pain from a tortured life? Whatever made him jump off my building was bad, very bad, I thought. That scream was the sound of a tortured soul.
I told my mom what had just happened then I ran out onto the fire escape stairs as I called 911. I told them that a guy had just jumped to his death. They wanted to know if I knew him. “No,” I said.
I looked out at the dead man lying in the parking lot. He had blonde hair and was a little overweight. Blood was streaming out of his body and mixing with the rain that was pouring down. He made no noise and his body was motionless. I continued to watch his dead body lying in the parking lot as the rain streamed down. I knew I should feel afraid but I wasn’t. I’ve always had a slight feeling of numbness in place of real emotions. I’m this way even today. Sometimes I feel I’m just watching me live life instead of actually feeling real emotions.
His pain was over. But his scream was the thing that still rang inside my head. His scream symbolized the pain of being alive when the soul had already died.
Suicide.
There is a fair amount of suicide on both sides of my family.
My cousin blew his brains out when he was 18 years old. His mother ended up having to clean up the carnage in his bedroom after she found his body strewn all over the place. I always felt bad that he died this way. His name was Carey.
My father attempted suicide by hanging when I was 21 years old. Luckily the buckle broke when he was in mid-hang and he survived. I’m so glad he lived to see his granddaughter.
My other cousin on my mom’s side killed himself by inhaling gas fumes. His wife found him dead inside his car in the garage.
But I try not to dwell on the suicides. At least, I don’t do it anymore. When I was 16, though, I remember wanting to die like some of my idols, Diane Arbus and Sylvia Plath.
Diane Arbus was the greatest photographer who ever lived. To this day I feel awful that she killed herself.
The dead man and I were alone in the darkened parking lot. It was just the two of us. It was still raining.
I quickly grabbed my camera and took a few shots of the man’s body lying in the bloody rain. I felt guilty about this but did it anyway. I made sure no one saw me, though.
Right after I took the photos, a few people from the apartment building came out to look at the dead man lying in the parking lot. Then the ambulance, detectives and firetrucks came. They threw a white sheet over the man’s body, then a detective found me.
The detective asked me a long list of questions and studied my face carefully when I answered each one. It was nerve-wracking. His strangest question was, “Do you have any idea why the victim’s thumbs and pinky fingers are missing?” “No,” I answered, shuddering inside. Immediately, I imagined all the possible reasons his thumbs and pinky fingers might be missing. It was gross what my mind came up with. After the questioning was finished, I politely told the detective I would be going to get some cigarettes. He shot me a harsh look and said I would be doing no such thing. He said I was not free to go anywhere yet. I was still a suspect in the case.
I felt guilty for taking photos of the poor guy who just killed himself.
After more questioning, it was determined that I was innocent and that this man had indeed committed suicide. I left to get cigarettes. My nerves were sore.
When I returned, I started asking my neighbors if they knew who the dead man was. A young guy told me he worked as a waiter at the Cup and Saucer. He also knew that the dead man’s boyfriend had just recently died of AIDS and the dead man also had it. He said the dead man was afraid he might die of AIDS soon, too.
I don’t know what I did with those photos.
Leah Stephens writes under the pseudonym, Stellabelle. She just published her first book, Un-Crap Your Life.
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