Suicide Forest (16 page)

Then, last month, Mel and I had been at
dinner for my birthday when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the
unlisted number and answered it, thinking it might have been my
parents. It turned out to be Shelly, calling me out of the blue. I
hadn’t spoken to her for years, so I excused myself and was gone
for ten minutes. I admitted to Mel who it was when I came back. Mel
went into a mood, and the rest of the evening was ruined.

“Can we drop this?” I asked tiredly.

“No.”

“You think I’m having some trans-Pacific
affair?”

“I want to know why she’s calling
again.”

“How am I supposed to know? I didn’t
answer.”

“Tell me the truth, Ethan!”

“She called me on my birthday. And she
called me tonight. Twice. That’s it.”

“Has she messaged you?”

I glared at Mel. What did she know?
Obviously more than she was letting on.

“Have you been going through my phone?”

“It buzzed last week,” she said. “You were
in the shower getting ready for work. You were late because of
Becky’s party the night before. I thought it might have been Mr.
Kurosawa wanting to know where you were. So I checked to write back
for you. Do you want me to tell you what I read?”

I knew what she would have read.

“You don’t understand,” I said simply.

“Yes, I think I do.”

“You don’t know anything!” I shook my head.
“I can’t believe you went through my phone. Do you go through my
emails too?”

“I told you why I checked it. And don’t try
to turn this on me.”

Neil cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should
go for a walk.”

“No, stay,” I said. “I’m going.”

I got up, grabbed a flashlight, and
left.

No one tried to stop me.

I
didn’t bother
following the string. I simply walked off in a random direction, my
anger trumping my delusory fear of the forest. Ghosts and bears
were the last thing on my mind right then. I was playing over
everything that had just transpired and cursing myself for how I’d
handled it. Eventually I found a large rock and sat down on it. I
could see the campfire in the distance, a small orange glow.

Shelly.

Christ.

Although
my
parents’ farm was only a twenty minute drive from UW Madison, I had
chosen to live in residence during my freshman year to gain the
campus experience and to meet people. I joined Kap Sig the
following year and lived in a small room on the third floor of the
sprawling frat house. Nevertheless, the nonstop drinking and
partying had left my grade point average in danger of going
negative, so during the summer before my senior year I moved into a
two-bedroom apartment with a non-frat friend.

On the day I’d met Shelly I’d been in the
convenience store across the street from my building. Shelly
entered not long after me, wearing dark sunglasses, a breezy summer
dress that revealed ample cleavage and long legs, and two-inch-tall
clogs. She passed behind me in a cloud of perfume. I watched her
for a moment while she went to the freezer and contemplated ice
cream.

Suddenly George, the store-owner, blurted,
“Ethan, come here! Come quick!”

I joined him at the cash. A mother duck had
entered through the store’s front door, which was always propped
open in the summer months, followed by four golden chicks. They
were zigzagging all over the place, seemingly with no purpose or
care.

“They must be from the river,” George said
excitedly. “Somehow they got lost and came here.”

I opened the bag of potato chips I had
selected earlier and tossed a few chips on the floor. It was a
feeding frenzy.

“Good idea, Ethan! Grab some bread too!”

George knew publicity when he saw it and
called
The Capital Times
. A reporter and a photographer
arrived ten minutes later and took pictures of the event. Shelly
and I got talking and exchanged phone numbers. Later that evening
we met for a drink. Two days after this we went to another bar.
Over the weekend, dinner, and on the following Monday, a small
festival in a park. Within a week of meeting her it became clear to
me that we were dating. I didn’t know how I felt about this. Shelly
was a lot of fun, but come the new semester in September I wasn’t
sure I wanted to be the boyfriend of another sorority girl. I’d
dated a few in the past and knew what it entailed: parties,
cheese-and-wine soirées, parties, formal balls, parties,
semi-formal balls, more parties. Basically everything I was trying
to distance myself from.

Nevertheless, I became comfortable in the
relationship, and after Gary died in December, Shelly was
supportive and helped me through the next few months. We graduated,
got jobs in Chicago, and moved in together. Everyone thought we
were the perfect couple—everyone except for me. I felt trapped.
Restless. I felt like I was playing at being somebody I wasn’t. The
air kisses, the expensive fashion, the cocaine that went around as
freely as grass did in college—none of this was me. I wasn’t ready
for any of it. Then Shelly began talking about getting married.
That’s what made up my mind. I had this image of working at the
same company, socializing with the same people, doing the same
silly stuff in ten years’ time—only then with kids—and I decided I
needed to get away.

I had a few thousand dollars saved, enough
for a decent holiday somewhere, but I wasn’t looking for a couple
weeks in the Caribbean. I wanted a reboot. For whatever reason
India had sounded like a good place to start. It was cheap and huge
and I could easily lose myself there for a year. Problem was, I
would need some kind of work, and the only jobs available for
Westerners were call center managers, which I was neither
interested in nor qualified for. I switched my focus to Asia and
found that English teachers were in high demand.

It was the best move in retrospect,
considering I never would have met Mel otherwise. After only a
couple months in Japan, the pain of Gary’s death faded, I was in a
much better place mentally, and with each passing day, with each
passing year, my old life ceased to exist.

But, of course, the past always has a way of
catching up with you.

To
say I was
surprised when Shelly called me on my birthday a couple weeks ago
would be a gross understatement. We hadn’t communicated once since
I’d left Chicago. So when she said, “Hey, Ethan! It’s me! How are
you?” I had no idea who it was. I went along with the conversation
until her voice clicked. She asked me how Japan was. The food, the
culture. Had I met any Japanese girls? To that last question I
answered no. I should have mentioned Mel. If I had, that would
likely have been the first and last call I received from Shelly,
and I wouldn’t be in the dilemma I was in tonight. Regardless, I
didn’t. It hadn’t seemed like any of Shelly’s business.

I remained on the phone as long as I did
because I kept expecting her to drop some sort of bomb. Like a
friend had died. Or she was pregnant. But ten minutes later she
said, “Good talking, Ethan! I have to run. Stay safe.” And just
like that the surreal conversation was over.

A few days later she sent me an email, a
rambling three or four paragraphs in which she explained she was
thinking about me a lot lately, our time together, and some of the
things we had done. She never came out and said she wanted to get
back together, but the implication was there, which I found bizarre
considering I was half a world away. Did she think I was going to
fly home—or she fly here? She ended with, “Missing you. Love,
Shell.”

I cringed, because this was the message Mel
would have read. What would she have thought? And why hadn’t she
said anything to me before now? Had she given me the benefit of the
doubt? Had she been waiting to see if I got another message?
Obviously she had been keeping watch on me. Perhaps waiting to
catch me in the act, just as she had done tonight…

With these thoughts in my head, I started
back toward camp to sort things out.

I
was so focused on
avoiding the trees and branches and holes in the dark I didn’t see
the red glow of a cigarette ember until I was less than ten feet
from it. The person was sitting at the base of a tree. I couldn’t
make out any more than an inky silhouette, but who else smoked
aside from John Scott? I was preparing to give him a wide berth
when Nina said, “Ethan?”

I went over to her. She had her knees pulled
up against her chest. And it wasn’t a cigarette in her hand. The
smell was green and skunk-like.

“Hey,” I said.

She held the joint out for me without a
word. I considered for all of one second before accepting. I hadn’t
smoked pot for years; it was almost as hard to get in Japan as
mushrooms. Nevertheless, I decided it was exactly what I needed
right then to unwind.

I sat down across from Nina and took a long
drag. She hadn’t mixed the marijuana with tobacco, for which I was
grateful. I held the smoke in my lungs until a tickling in my
throat told me a coughing fit was about to commence, then I
exhaled, slowly, evenly.

“Where’s Ben?” I asked.

“He went to the tent to lie down.”

“How is he?” I passed the joint back.

“He is okay.”

“Is he still…?”

“Tripping out? It is his own fault. I told
him not to eat too much. He is greedy.”

“You were there when they ate them?”

She nodded.

“Where did John Scott find them?”

“By a tree trunk. Ben, this happened before,
you know.”

“Recently?”

“At the full-moon party in Thailand, there
was this mushroom bar. We went there with some friends, had
mushroom milkshakes. But you have to go down this very steep and
narrow staircase to leave. There are no railings. It is dangerous
actually. Ben got scared and could not do it. We joked we were
going to leave him in the bar. He started to trip out.”

“Why would he do them again?”

“John Scott said the mushrooms were mellow.
He would be okay.” She took another toke and passed the joint
back.

I inhaled deeply. “Can I ask you something,
Nina?” I said.

“You can ask me anything you want,
Ethan.”

“Why did you and Ben want to come to Suicide
Forest? It’s not exactly a tourist destination.”

She seemed to contemplate this. “Ben wanted
to.”

“But why? Just for the hell of it?”

“Ben…he knew someone who committed suicide.
The person was very close to him.” She shrugged. “He became
obsessed with suicide after this. He watches movies about it, reads
books, everything. I think he wants to understand it better,
understand why people choose such a fate. So when he heard about
this forest, he wanted to see it for himself. See if it would…help
him to understand. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“What about you, Ethan? Why are you
here?”

“Because you and Ben invited us.”

“You do not have any secret obsession with
suicide?”

I hesitated. “No,” I said. “No
obsession.”

“I see. So—what are you doing out here?”

“You mean in the woods?”

“Yes, by yourself.”

I forgot that Nina had been away during the
phone incident.

“I had a fight with Mel.”

“When?”

“Forty-five minutes ago or so.”

“Do you always walk alone in the forest
after a fight?”

“There weren’t too many other places to
go.”

“You have been with your girlfriend for a
long time?”

I found it odd how she referred to Mel as
“my girlfriend.” She knew her name. I wasn’t calling Ben “her
boyfriend”…or was I? I couldn’t recall. My thoughts had become
foggy.

I offered her what was left of the joint.
She shook her head so I stubbed it out.

“Well?” she prodded.

“What was the question again?”

“How long have you been with your
girlfriend?”

“About four years.”

“You are American?”

“Yup.”

“I have never dated an American.”

I blinked.

“I have dated a German, Italian… Hmmm, and a
Greek. No Americans.”

I started giggling—quietly. I didn’t want
the others back at camp to hear.

“What is so funny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you are high.”

“I think so.”

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“Have you dated an American?”

“Yeah, I’ve dated an American. Mel’s
American.”

“Oh, I see. Who else? What other
country?”

“None,” I said.

It was Nina’s turn to giggle.

“What?” I said.

“You are a world virgin, Ethan.”

“A world virgin?”

She nodded.

I guess I was.

“Hey,” I said. “I was wondering. You
mentioned you had a bad experience couch surfing. What happened? I
mean, if it’s personal or whatever, you don’t have to tell me…”

“No, I can tell you, Ethan. It is in the
past.” She appeared thoughtful, as if she was working the story out
in her head, or at least how to begin. She said, “I was in
Pakistan, going to India. A couch surfer in New Delhi said I could
stay at her place. I thought it was a single woman, but it turned
out to be an entire family. Her husband and their four children.
The place was small, but they were very nice people. They cooked
for me every day.”

“Curry?” The thought of vindaloo beef or
butter chicken made me realize how hungry I was. I could have done
with a large pizza right about then.

“Yes. I ate so much. It was all vegetarian.
Very healthy. I was only planning on spending a couple days in
Delhi. I wanted to go to Agra, and if I had time, Jaipur. But I was
having such a good time with them I ended up staying an entire
week.”