What Dreams Fell Flat

I had a friend who tried to commit suicide. We had one of those friendships where we wouldn't see each other or talk to each other for a year or so, then we'd run into each other some Saturday afternoon at a deck party or while he was bartending and we'd start hanging out again. Going to the library. Going to dinner. Getting his phone calls at 2 a.m. when he was really drunk and needing a ride somewhere. Golfing. I think of him every time I go over a wooden bridge in a golf cart and mutter, "Who's that trap, trap, trapping on my bridge?"

We'd drifted apart again for a while when I got a phone call from him. He'd recently gotten out of the hospital. He'd tried to cut his wrists. He wanted to hang out and do normal stuff, vainly struggling to stay away from the bar scene that he loved to troll so well.

"Wanna go to a movie?" he asked.

"Sure. Name the place."

I picked him up. I never knew him to actually own a car. He must have, at some point, since he eventually fled the state while on probation for drunk driving. But during this period of time, he was pedestrian all the way.

He told me the name of the movie. I'd seen commercials but didn't really know what it was about. Robin Williams is okay but not someone I'm dying to see in every movie that comes out. I mean, "Patch Adams"? I don't think so.

We get to the theatre. We're not talking too much. What does one say to someone who just tried to cut their wrists open? Does one criticize the attempted suicide's methodology? Since everyone knows that, to do it right, one must cut vertically, not horizontally. Does one ask the motivation of the potential suicide? Or does one simply discuss politics, religion and one's take-home wages--all more comfortable subjects of conversation?

We might have caught dinner first. Then we went in. Grabbed a seat. The lights went down. The curtain came up.

"What Dreams May Come" starts.

Had I known that the movie was all about the hell someone is sent to after committing suicide, I like to think that I would have discouraged him from going. I don't know that I would have been successful, but I would have tried. Unfortunately, I hadn't watched E! enough to even know what the hell the movie was about.

About two-thirds of the way through the movie, I turned to him. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

"I just want you to know, " I whispered, "that you're the one that picked this stupid movie."

He winced. "I know. I'm sorry."

"You should be. Not only is it in poor taste, considering. More importantly, it sucks."