Sniffing Model Glue Again.

I want to make you as lonely as me so you can get, get addicted to this.

On the day my Father died, I jumped off a bridge. In fact, I jumped off of that bridge at least ten times. Maybe twenty. The number isn't important, but the fun I had jumping off of it sure as hell was. God damn, that was a fun day.

I was fourteen years old. I had long hair which hung down past my shoulders and hadn't yet started to bleach itself blonde from the sun as it would do when summer fully kicked in. I hadn't had my first shave yet, and my "Marmite-stache" was a stunner. It was wispy and soft and, I imagine, looked suitably ridiculous. I was fit and lean, but a robust 68 kilograms for my still-to-grow 5'7" frame. My skin was blemish-free, minus a few cuts and scratches that are part and parcel of growing up beside lakes, rivers and streams, and having an adventurous streak. I was just a kid, on the cusp of finishing my third form year.

The reason we were jumping off the bridge was that we enjoyed it. It was good, clean fun. We'd started jumping off the bridge - the old railway bridge, but now converted for foot-traffic - the previous summer, when we found that swimming in the Waihou river was fun, but it was more fun when you entered it's murky waters from six metres above. We floated down and checked the depth, and cleared any hidden debris from under the surface. After scrambling up the bank and running back onto the bridge, we clambered over the steel railing and looked down at the river sliding past us on its way to the coast. My older brother and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and jumped.

And so it was that we found ourselves doing the same the next year. It was still only spring - early November - but it was warm and we'd been swimming in the river for the past couple of weeks. My big brother wasn't with us, though. A couple of months earlier he'd had a violent punch-up with my Step-Dad, which I'd stepped in to break up. It was my Brother's fault, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Neither of them were violent guys, but my Brother's behaviour had become too much and it spilled over into a fight. Despite being younger and smaller than both my Brother and my Step-Dad, I got between them and pinned my Step-Dad against the wall. With my other arm I threw my Brother out of the way and eventually calmed everything down. But the damage was done. As a result my big Bro was now staying in Rotorua with our Grandmama to give our parents, and himself, some space to sort their heads out.

It was me, Michael and Paul on the edge of the bridge that day. It was the three of us that jumped and yelled and laughed the day away in a deluge of youthful exuberance. They were my brother's age, and the year ahead of me at school. I always had several different groups of friends, and when it came to the business of drinking or smoking pot, it was invariably easier to lay hands on contraband whilst hanging with older dudes. However, today was a little different. I was slated to spend the night - it was a Saturday - at the party of a classmate who was a good mate of mine. So at about 3pm that afternoon, I said goodbye to the two older guys, jumped on my bike and rode up the hill to our house to get my shit together.

When I got home I cooked two packets of two-minute noodles in the microwave. I hadn't eaten all day and I was particularly hungry after a day spent down at the river. I wolfed them down whilst watching some sport on TV. It might have been motorsport - which I hate - but I can't remember exactly. No one was home at our place. Mum and my little brother had gone to Rotorua to celebrate my Grandmama's birthday, and my Step-Dad had gone to work that morning and was to head to Rotorua for the party after he knocked off. I was due to be picked up by a classmate and his parents on their way to the party at about 5:30pm that evening. Yeah, we were kids and parties kicked off early.

After I finished the noodles, I switched off the television, put my bowl in the sink and went into my bedroom. I pulled out a porn magazine that I had stashed in a box of junk under my desk. I sat down on my bed and leafed through the pages, read a few of the blatantly fictional "Real Life Reads", and generally got myself better acquainted with the female anatomy. Yeah, I was looking at porn in my bedroom when my Step-Dad arrived home unexpectedly from work at 4pm, or thereabouts. I don't know what it is about this memory, but I'm still ashamed about it to this day. It's stupid - I was fourteen, still coming to grips with puberty and adolescence in general, and I was also aware of not going to a party with "a loaded gun" (you never know when you're gunna get lucky with a girl, y'know) - but it still gets to me today.

They say the most sensitive part of a person's body when they're whackin' off is their ears, to make sure nobody busts in on them. Well, I heard the front door opening so I chucked the magazine back into it's place and went out to see who it was. No one was supposed to be home today.

My Step-Dad was carrying his work bag and had an odd look on his face. He looked directly at me and asked if my bags were packed and ready to go to Rotorua. I told him that I wasn't going, that I had already arranged to stay home and go to my friend's party. "Well," he said, "you'd better pack them, but come sit down first."

I didn't know what to think. I quickly retraced the last couple of weeks in my mind to see if I'd done anything to land myself in trouble, as I was sure I was about to be reprimanded for some sort of bad behaviour. I'd pinched a bottle of my Mum's wine a few weeks earlier, but I'd been busted, it had been dealt with and no damage was done. I couldn't think of anything else, and I was bemused. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Just sit down first," my Step-Dad replied. He is a naturally reticent sort of chap, but a good man. He loves my Mum and us kids deeply. He's gruff, doesn't talk a lot, and being fourteen years old we didn't have a helluva lot to say to one another most of the time. We got on well, we just didn't talk much. "I've got some bad news. Ah, your Dad's been in a car accident."

"Oh, ok. How bad was it?" My first worry was that he had friends or other people in his car, and that they might be hurt. I guess being so young I couldn't fathom the fact that something could have happened to my Dad himself. In my head he wasn't mortal. He was My Dad.

"It was as bad as it gets... Your Dad's dead, mate."

Those words smacked into my head like I'd been hit with a left hook from David Tua, who was due to fight Lennox Lewis in a couple of days for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. I was pole-axed. It was stupid, but the first thing I did was stand up and say, "Oh, I better go ring Winston and tell him I won't be able to make it to his party then I guess..."

I've never known my Step-Dad to be an overly sensitive or emotional man. I know him a lot better today then I did all those years ago, but even now there's no way I think of him in that way. I guess he's just a thoroughly decent, loving human being. Only he doesn't show it very often. "Just sit down for a minute, hey? No need to rush to call your mate, just sit down a while."

My head was a whirl; a hurricane of confusion. I broke down. A tear ran down my right cheek, and then the proverbial dam burst. My Step-Dad got up from the seat opposite me, sat down beside me and took me in his arms. He said nothing, just a Father there for his son when he needed him, despite the bizarre circumstances. I can't fathom how difficult it must have been for him to have to break the news to his Step-Son that his biological Father was dead, but he handled it with a maturity and understanding that I will always love him for.

I don't know how long I cried in his arms for. It could have been ten minutes, it could have been an hour. Time didn't work properly. Eventually my Step-Dad got me up and I rang a few good friends to let them know what had happened, and to tell them I wouldn't be around for at least the next week. He also told me to pack a bag with whatever clothes I could get together quickly, but to make sure I put in some formal stuff for the funeral. He was practical but gentle, and I packed on auto-pilot.

As I went to pack a white shirt into my bag I noticed a speck of red on the collar. I looked closer and saw that my right hand was cut and badly bleeding. I glanced around the room and there were several holes in the walls and one of the bars on the framing of my bed was bent. There was blood on the walls and on my clothes. To this day I can't remember punching anything. I must have been in a perfect sort of rage and anguish. My mind wasn't working as it should, but I'm glad that my memory didn't file this away. It must have been ugly. Two knuckles on my right hand were swollen and split, but I felt nothing. I was incapable of letting pain in, and unable to process any lucid thoughts. And I still didn't know it was suicide.

This fairly important matter came up when my Mum rang just as we were ready to start driving down to Rotorua. I don't remember much of the conversation, or how I took the news. All I remember is that as soon as I heard my Mother's voice, I bawled like a kid. I talked with my brother and he gave me some strength. I don't know what two boys - aged fourteen and fifteen - say to each other over the phone after just hearing of their Father's suspected suicide. A situation like this should never happen in the first place, least of all to kids so young. But happen it did.

As we drove the familiar country roads towards Rotorua, I knew my life was changed and that whatever happened in the coming days, weeks, months and years, I would never be the same again. Little had I known - as I jumped off the bridge earlier that day, feeling the thrill of the wind rushing past my face - that it would be my last day as a child. Armistice Day, 2000, was the day my innocence died and I became a man before I was remotely ready for it.

..................................................................................

I needed to write this down, audience. I needed to get it off my chest, and I needed it in print whilst I was capable of getting the words out, and before I forgot completely the events of that day. I'm sure some of it is inaccurate, but this is the way I remember it. My Step-Dad didn't call me "mate" when he broke the news, either. I'm just keeping my anonymity. This is only the very beginning of the tale, and I am going to try and write the rest down at some stage. This might take a while, or it might all come out in one go, I can't be sure.

I am not ashamed of what my Father did, or the way I subsequently reacted. It was irrevocably selfish, stunningly short-sighted, and cowardly as fuck. It is the single worst thing that has happened to me, my brother, and most people in my family. It has led me down the road to being what and who I am today, and I would instantly change it all if I could. However, you misty-eyed beauties, we all know that is an impossibility, so I feel like I should at least get it out and onto a page. It feels to me, at this early stage, that it might be a good thing for me. It can't make things worse than they've been this year. But I have at last dipped my toe into the water of writing about what happened, and the water feels inviting enough. We all know that taking the plunge can be a much different story, so let's all hope for the best.

So this caps off a long day. Enjoyable enough. Good visits from great people. Brief time spent in a secret hiding place that Freckle and I go to when the world gets on our case. Also a brief conversation with Esther/Estar. Good kid, that one. I hope that everybody's Christmas preparations are going well. Mine have involved me buying no presents, helping my Mum arrange furniture and lift heavy things, and looking forward to a quiet day. Since 2000, Christmas has been a much less enjoyable time for me, coming so hard on the heels of November. I find it usually takes me a good few months to come right after November, although this year this never eventuated and things got drastically out of control. Let's pray for good company, good food, nice beer and warm thoughts of people far away or gone. Come to think of it, that is asking for a perfect day, and those don't come around very often. Let's just pray it doesn't piss with rain.

Who is the last person you think of before you drift off to sleep at night?