One Last Thing Before I Go

deep weariness in him. Fifty years in the God business. He has seen some shit. And now this.
    “Do you want to die?” Ruben asks, not challenging, just wanting to know.
    “No. Not really.”
    “So what then?”
    He doesn’t want to answer, but he hears the words come anyway. “I’m just not sure I want to live.”
    Ruben closes his eyes as he absorbs this, then pats his son’s leg as he stands. “Fair enough,” he says. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He moves slowly toward the door, then turns back around. “If my vote counts, I just want to be on record as saying you should have the surgery.”
    Silver watches him leave, feeling a fresh wave of shame and guilt wash over him. He is a good man and a good father, and I am neither, Silver thinks, wondering, not for the first time, what sort of quiet death his father dies every time he looks at him.
    * * *
    For the record, he only ever attempted suicide once. And it wasn’t really an attempt, as far as these things go, more of a flirtation really, a brief dalliance with the concept. This was not long after Denise had kicked him out, and a year or so after Pat had quit the Bent Daisies and gone on to fame and fortune without them. He had no family, no home, no money, and in desperation had just crossed a line he swore he would never cross, and played a bar mitzvah with the Scott Key Orchestra. During the band’s scheduled breaks, he drank heavily from the open bar, and then somewhere between the Electric Slide and the reprehensible butchering of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” it became clear to him that he had fucked up his life beyond repair.
    He considered jumping from a bridge or slitting his wrists, but neither method seemed foolproof, and both carried the risk of painful failure, and he’d had just about enough of that, thank you very much. And even if he owned a gun, he wouldn’t have trusted himself with it.
    So, that night, after the gig, he sat on the floor of his still unfurnished apartment, put the Bent Daisies on his iPod, and began washing down over-the-counter sleeping pills with a half-finished bottle of Hennessy. At some point, he heard himself singing along loudly to “Rest in Pieces,” and that’s the last thing he remembered until he woke up thirty hours later, his face glued to the wood floor with congealed puke that had hardened like cement. When he finally managed to sit up, he discovered two things: he had shit his pants while he slept, and he had lost the urge to kill himself. It took him a half hour to crawl to the bathroom and get into a shower. Suicide is difficult, but it’s nothing compared to the morning after.
    * * *
    You lie in a hospital bed for long enough, you start to feel unqualified to walk. Not being qualified for much else, he’s not about to let that one go. The linoleum floor is jarringly cold against the soles of his feet, but the air-conditioning feels like a cool breeze on his thighs and ass, exposed where the ends of his flimsy hospital gown don’t quite meet. He stands still for a moment, taking stock. Everything feels creaky, but no more than it does when he climbs out of his own bed every morning.
    His blood catches him off guard by spurting out of his wrist in a graceful arc when he pulls out the IV needle, painting a small red slash across his hospital gown before he can clamp his other hand onto the hole. Who knew there was so much life in him? He pulls a piece of gauze from a drawer and presses it against his wrist. After a moment, it sticks there.
    He pokes his head out of the room and peers down the corridor. They are all gathered in a waiting area at the end of the hall, sitting and standing around two long couches and an easy chair. His perfect brother Chuck’s perfect wife, Ruby, has arrived, and is now waiting on Elaine as if there’s an inheritance at stake. It’s an ungenerous thought. Ruby has never been anything but kind to him, and it’s not her fault that kindness is just a different category of poison to him.
    “The gang’s all here, huh?”
    “Hey, Jack.”
    He has come up quietly behind Silver, waiting to be noticed, a favorite maneuver of his. “What a clusterfuck.”
    They look down the hall at Silver’s ex-wife and her fiancé, his pregnant daughter, his perfect brother and sister-in-law, and his aging parents. They are all here because of him, but they all seem to be getting along just fine without him. History has shown that people generally