Chapter 30 — Final Call
By the length of the shadows closing in all around, I realized that I must have been sitting there for more than three hours. What had to be done, I had to do now. I got up and walked over to my window and looked outside before closing the curtains. There was a silver-white moon hanging just over the mountains, and for a moment, I couldn’t remember ever seeing something so beautiful, as if both of my eyes were tapping my brain on the shoulder. But I was afraid to even say anything. I didn’t know what might happen. I might break out into tears.
I started thinking of Virginia Wolff, then Sylvia Plath. I wouldn’t mind walking “head on into the deep end of a river,” but sticking my head in an oven—a fucking oven! God sakes, you’d have to be crazy, or brilliant, or was there a difference? Then there was Michael Hutchence and Ian Curtis, a snakeskin belt and a washing line, and they never needed to leave their apartment. I had a leopard skin belt of my own that I learned long ago how to tie into a noose, but the thought of me gasping for air would just bring back memories of asthma attacks that I had as a child. Or then there was John Bonham, not my favorite but my brother liked him. I could drink the entire bottle of tequila, pass out and ugh, choke on vomit. Or maybe I could pull an Elvis in the worst case of “here I sit all broken-hearted” in fucking ever! Goddamn you, Trey, there you go again making me laugh! Or Ron, or Roger two “wild and crazy guys” reenacting old SNL episodes while stuffing their pie holes full of pizza and Jolly Time popcorn. But my end would need to be different from theirs.
“Oh happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust and let me die!” I started to laugh until I started to cry, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the water, now and again, dipping my hand under the faucet, making sure it was perfect. I carefully added some of the fragrant beads that I got at Lotions and Lace that I’d wanted to give out as a present but for some odd reason decided to keep them, and a cup full of lavender salt. Minutes later, my whole apartment was filled in sheathes of fragrant balloons.
I picked up my glass and a bottle of meds—enough to kill a fucking horse—and set it down on my sink under the mirror. Then I started taking off all of my clothes and just let them fall right down to the floor. First the dress, and then the bodysuit—my God, why was I wearing a bodysuit? Shit, Pam, you’re making this hard! As I began stepping over my panties as they lay on the ground sitting on top of my feet, I remembered I still needed a knife. Or I could get one of my pizza cutters and rake my wrists in a vertical ribbon—four on each side just to make sure, like I was cutting a pizza, an orange-red river of blood spilling down from each arm—but at the last minute I decided to go with the knife. As the water got to the halfway mark, I began humming a song that I had learned when I first got into acting, the one from A Chorus Line. I used to always cry when I sang it, so now I just stuck with the humming, then at some point—mid-chorus I think—I said, “fuck it,” turned off the water and started to sing louder and louder as if I no longer cared that my neighbors were hearing the voice of a dead girl.
Kiss today goodbye the sweetness and the sorrow Wish me luck, the same to you but I can't regret What I did for love, what I did for love Look, my eyes are dry The gift was ours to borrow It's as if we always knew And I won't forget What I did for love, what I did for love Gone Love is never gone As we travel on Love's what we'll remember Kiss today goodbye And point me toward tomorrow We did what we had to do Won't forget, can't regret What I did for love What I did for love what I did for love And I won't forget what I did for love (Kleban and Hamlisch, 1975)
“Oh, God, forgive me! God, please forgive me!” I pleaded as I pushed the faucet back into the wall and started to lower my body down into the water. “Shit, still too hot! I’ll need to give it a few more minutes, fuck, what do I do, what do I do?” I began asking myself, as my heart beat so loud in my chest I was afraid that the neighbors would hear it—tha-thump… tha-thump... tha-thump… Then I grabbed a towel, held it around my waist, and walked into my bedroom.
“Pam, we’re waiting.” I could hear their voices again through the vapor, stirring the water, calling my name. Then, for some crazy reason, I picked up my phone and dialed the number to the Crystal Cathedral—Rrring, rrring, rrring, rrring, rrring, rrring, rrring… “fuck it!” I thought as the voices grew louder and louder. “I’m coming!” I shouted to no one in particular, but the ones that I knew were impatiently waiting.
I tried calling one more number and by the time I got to ring number seven, I decided that like the Prophets of Baal in the days of Elijah, God must have been asleep at the switch, or like Jesus when he was asleep on the cushion as the waves crashed all around their boat and the disciples were certain that they all would drown. Well, I’m drowning! I’m drowning now and nobody cares! Right before I finally gave up and set the phone back on the receiver to mingle my blood in the angry white foam, somebody actually picked up the phone. It was the voice of a middle-aged man who sounded much younger, but it may well have been the voice of an angel, and for a moment, the only voice I could hear didn’t belong to those in my room, or those in my head, but the one on the phone.
“Calvary Chapel Prayer Watch, how can I pray for you?”