Abby Hillinger
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Extract from Except after Being
It was 11:58 pm when Gabriel pulled in front of the suicide hotline. After he turned off the ignition, overheated and cranky with him after the commute, he clenched his jaw. What a crappy drive. Students had been everywhere in Boston tonight, thrusting themselves in front of cars and screaming at each other to hurry up. He’d kept seeing people he knew, people he’d wanted to forget. There was Bill from his sophomore Statistics class, leaving Sunset Bar and Grille while Gabriel sat at a stoplight. Gabriel had helped that C-average fucker through midterms and he got flipped off when Bill nearly collapsed on his hood. Then there was Sarah from junior year, the biggest two-week mistake of his life, on the corner of Commonwealth Ave and Market Street. She’d kicked his front tyre four times when she saw him and spat on his windshield. And dear old Mackenzie, the girl saving herself for marriage when they dated before screwing half of their dorm. She’d called his name across the street and nearly caused a five-car pile-up as she ran to his window.
After so many touch-and-go’s, his brakes were like Old McDonald’s farm with a slam-slam here and a squeal-squeal there. He wished he’d named his ‘84 Volvo so he could apologize. Something feminine, but not overtly girly. It was strange to think he’d had this car for almost four years and he hadn’t named her. She was his first car, a good chunk of his high school savings, but she had no true identity besides being his chauffer and occasional trash can. His various addictions had shed their skin and left their shells in his back seat. Cellophane from CDs and cigarettes. Subway and Wendy’s wrappers. Paper coffee cups, some not completely empty. Plastic Cheetos and Doritos bags. Even when he did the monthly clean out, a smell lingered. Two or three air fresheners hung at a time from his rearview mirror, depending on their intensity. Right now, there were two, but only because they were Pine-Fresh and that smell in excess gave him a headache.
His keys fell between the seatbelt and emergency break and Gabriel, cursing multiple times, tried to fish them out. He was swearing too much lately. Like most bad habits, it distracted him from other things, and like most bad habits, it went hand-in-hand with other ones. Insomnia was his current worst habit.
He hadn’t slept well in a long time. It didn’t matter how tired he was. He went through a period of different remedies, like over-the-counter sleeping pills or decaf coffee instead of regular. He even stayed up for 48 hours straight, trying to get himself good and exhausted. Nothing worked. He lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, long after his eyes adjusted to the dark. He listened to the people on the streets and turned on his mini-fan when he wanted white noise. He played music. He read. He put on jeans and went for walks in the better-lit areas of the neighbourhood. Normally before sunrise, his eyes closed involuntarily. The last thing he’d see before he drifted off was his alarm clock, its red numbers telling him times he didn’t want to see. 4:41. 4:58. 5:17. 5:45. The latest he’d ever fallen asleep was 8:39 and Luke had woken him not even an hour later, getting ready for class.
Sometimes, in between classes, Gabriel sat on a bench near the campus front gates and watched people. He always had a book folded open on his lap, ready to be used as a disguise when people noticed him. See? The book, held in front of his face, said. I’m not staring at you. I’m immersed in this fantastic book about cognitive psychology.
When he was originally having problems sleeping, he people-watched frequently. It was a game, figuring out who slept ten hours a night, who never slept at all, who was caught in between - like him.