Night of the Rain

An evening in July 2010

I just got off the phone with a distressed friend. Lay down. Phone goes off. Let out a sigh when I saw who it was, but pick up anyway. She is also distressed. I can’t imagine how I got so unlucky be needed twice in a row for pretty much the same thing; she has yet to say it, but I know it’s coming, because I can hear her messing with the bottle of pills, so I start trying to talk her down. She tells me she is going to kill herself, and I have to restrain myself from saying, “I know”. Instead, I say, “Why?” to which she responds with, “You know why!”

I quietly nod to myself and feel stupid for asking, then go back to trying to talk her out of it. I knew she wasn’t going to, because I have lost count by now how many times we have been here. Her on the phone saying she’s going to do it this time, me telling her everything will get better with time. It was starting to get old. She makes sure I can hear her take the lid off the bottle of pills, and I mute it so she don’t hear me yawn.

Then she speaks. Her mouth is full. I can’t believe it! She really means it this time! I sit up and yell her name. She starts crying. Not forces little sobs to get my attention. Really crying. I start panicking. She hears my fear and apologizes for everything. I tell her she won’t have to apologize if she doesn’t do this! She says that she has to. I tell her she doesn’t. “If you love me, let me do this!” “ I love you, so I can’t let you!”

She goes silent, but I know she is still there because I hear her crying in the background. I know I can’t handle this on my own, so I 3-way Kathy (fake name) into this. I told her the situation, and she starts talking with her too. I know if anyone can help her, it’s Kathy. But ten minutes have gone by, and Kathy has made very little progress. Kathy tells her that if she does this, she’ll do the same. That seems to have a little bit of an effect. But now that I think of it, she had told me she doesn’t think much of Kathy. But what if I said that…

“Beth!” I say. She acknowledges her (fake for this post) name. “I live next to train tracks. If you do this….”

“No!” she cries. “Don’t do that!”

“Don’t make me!”

After a couple minutes, I loudly put my shoes on loud enough for her to hear me. I can hear her. When I open the front door, I am stunned to see that it is pouring outside. Anyone who has followed my Entries knows why I have a fear of getting wet. It triggers me. I slam the door and frantically try to talk her down. But nothing comes of it, so I let her hear the rain hitting the sidewalk outside and say, “I’m going.”

I stand at the edge of the rain and take a huge breath…..

……and take a step out into the pouring rain.

To get to the train tracks from my apartment, I have to first leave my apartment complex, which is really long to begin with, then go down to the end of the block, turn right, and go all the way down to the underpass., which is a few hundred feet away The tracks are right there through there. From my apartment to the tracks is maybe half a mile. I don’t remember much of the walk there. Mainly just images of my dad’s friend’s laughter and tossing me into the air, flashes of Beth crying and I think I remember hearing Kathy trying to get me to turn back. Next thing I knew, I was under the overpass and there was total silence except for the hammering of the rain and Beth’s crying.

“I’m there. Are you going to do it? There is a train maybe five miles out. I see the light. Depending on how fast it’s going, we have somewhere between an hour and five minutes. What happens now is your move. I didn’t even lock my apartment.”

I mute my phone as so Kathy can talk. Kathy begins saying some stuff, but at that moment, I seize up and drop my phone and land next to it.

I am four or five, my dad is holding me down in the tub because my splashing put out his cigarette

I am four, and my dad wants to drain the above-ground pool, but I want to keep swimming, so he holds down the sides until enough water is out, then flips the pool on top of me.

I am maybe five, we are at the creek where my dad goes fishing, and the fishing line snaps, so he has me go in and get it. I end up getting stung by something in the water. To this day I don’t know by what.

I am six, my dad and I are at the creek, and he hits me in the head to open a beer for him.

I am eight, and I fall into a deep puddle and start screaming. The kids around me start laughing and throwing rocks at me.

I am either seven or eight, my mom and I visit my grandparents and we all go to Corpus Christi. We are on the beach, and my grandpa wants to get a picture of the three of us. He is about to take the picture when the water from the ocean brushes my foot. I start screaming. My mom and grandma think I just don’t want to take a picture and start teasing me, and they try to hold me still. But the more they try to calm me, the more I freak out. They never realise the only reason I'm panicking is because we are standing in the water, and every time they touch me, it is his hands. It is his friends. It is the thing that stung me. I wanted out of there. I remember this one so well because my grandpa took a picture anyway.

This is a picture of the picture. I took it with my phone. You can see my mom

trying to restrain me and my grandma looking at me like I had lost my mind.

Kathy is still talking. I can’t hear Beth crying anymore. What happened? How long was I out? Kathy laughs. Laughs? I didn’t understand what she said, but I fail to find the humour in this. Beth laughs. What’s this? Kathy was able to do just as I had hoped she would. My phone beeped. It is a txt from Beth. It was obviously sent to both Kathy and I; “I won’t do it. But only for you guys. I love you!”

I feel a wave of relief sweep over me. I start jumping with excitement, but am knocked on my feet again as the train suddenly roars passed, taking me completely by surprise. I am ten feet away, but the horn was blowing and the entire area was pure concrete and steel. When the train passes thirty seconds later, I frantically apologize to the other two, but they are laughing to themselves about something. Then I remember; my phone is muted.

A few minutes later, Beth said she had to go, and then hung up. Kathy and I continued talking and were both full of energy because of the positive outcome of the events that had just came. Something else wonderful had just happened during that call.

Before I even stepped out into the ongoing pouring rain, I knew. I just somehow knew. But I was afraid to be alone when I found out if it was true. So I asked Kathy if she would stay on the line with me as I walked to 7Eleven, which was just on the other side of the overpass. I stepped out into the pouring rain, and waited for the panick to engulf me again, to suddenly be laying on the ground and it be hours later. But I made it to 7Eleven and I didn’t feel afraid. I was drenched all the way through, yet I wasn’t afraid. I bought some stuff at 7Eleven and Kathy said she had to go. So I made the trip back to my apartment alone in the still pouring rain…and made it back even more soaked, yet not panicking………….

That’s not to say that I am “over it”. I still struggle with it from time to time. Ever since I was little, it has come and gone. As I said in a previous Entry, I was in a swimming pool all summer in 2006. So I know it will come back full force again sometime in the future. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. But it seems to be at bay for the time being. All it took was a half mile walk through the rain.

[Update on 11 January 2018)

Unfortunately, it did come back. In the eight years between then and now, it's came and went twice. It's currently gone, but who knows if it'll come back again