Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cleaning After Teen Suicides for the Super Rich

Cleaning for the super rich requires anonymity and a desire to look like a regular old guy, ask no questions, enter by the back door, and refuse to look about; not only do I look like a fat, ugly, old guy, my vehicles are dirty, greasy and styled by dints from bumper to bumper, crown to boots. My peculiar crime scene cleaner's style has gathered a following of rich clients for my practice -- groupies, I gather.

There was this teen suicide administered by three attorneys, no parents or guardians. Each attorney explained that he was an "attorney" and gave the clearest instructions for this operation. The first telephoned and did not discuss money. It and everything else would follow in its own way. He said that I already asked "too many questions" and that there were no more question coupons available for this job, if I chose to take it.

My mother always told me to "keep your mouth shut!" so I followed her wisdom into this operation. I followed the first attorney's orders without hesitation or equivocation once I understood that this was no ordinary client. Once on the scene, the second attorney escorted me from the driveway to the back door, onto the shiniest black marble floor -- EVER, and upstairs to the teen's room. "In there," he said and left.

The third attorney's directions ricocheted off the walls, floor and Tah-Mahal-like ceiling as I walked down the stairs. Once on the first floor, he approached me, raised his right hand as if to shake, and said, "Here." He handed me the biggest wad of five-hundred dollar bills that I have ever seen or will see again. Honestly, I had never seen a five-hundred dollar bill until that moment. "You were never here," he said.

Heaven knows that I love cash! The cash's significance testified to the fact that I was never really there, as I come to recollect. I swear that I was never there. Besides that, I could never remember how to get back there, if there really was a "there," once the address was deleted from my GPS. Talk about beautiful homes! This guy's front door probably weighted more than my first car, a 1967 VW.
I left by the back door, by the way.

I know that these words taunt anyone sick enough to read my grubby, sadistic thoughts, but I need to get these things off of my chest from time-to-time. Heaven knows that I really do. I really am a caring and sensitive guy. Suicide is never humorous. Teen suicides are inexplicable. But I mean, gads! A tiny rich kid shoots himself in the head with his 22 caliber rifle because he had a bad day, Richard Cory-like:

"In “Richard Cory,” the focus is not on “why” the suicide did what he did; it is on the mystery itself. Certainly, the people who admired Cory because of all he possessed personally and financially did not expect such an act. To them he seemed to have everything worth living for, while they struggled to put food on the table."

A mystery hovers above the suicide itself, above the "why" he did it, sort of like a hot-link lighting up when a cursor hovers over it. There's an unfulfilled expectation embedded in the lit link, but it leads nowhere, no answer to the mystery of it all, beyond the "why" a rich guy commits suicide. Is it possible to have a mystery beyond the "why" of suicide? Cory had it all. Good looks, charm, wealth, white teeth, "a gentleman." The poem's narrator tells us that he had everything to live for and others little of the same.

Regressing, this kid's bedroom was almost as large as my living-room, dining room, and kitchen combined. It's not about "power and wealth" I used to say. (Now I'm honestly not sure what's going to come out of my mouth or finger-tips!) There's something wrong, but I guess it's part of the mystery of a rich kid's suicide.

Then there's this last one, which I won't dwell on. I can say only that I am glad that I am child-free. I would not be able to handle a son or daughter's suicide. I'll never know how the parents felt about it because I never saw them. This operation wasn't quite as detached as the above because a "friend" filled-in as the responsible party.

Frankly, I would be embarrassed to live next to this guy; not embarrassed for me, but for him. How much of everything "just so" and "perfect" can a human being add to their life? This guy's home wasn't cluttered with books, computers, and cats like mine. No, it was basically sparse with a computer room housing the who-knows-what. "Clean" would be an understatement. Me, I could not even begin to pronounce the names on the cars in his garage, all parked upon a polished concrete floor.

Always I remember to say a little prayer for the deceased teens, whether or not they are rich or not so rich. I do not recall cleaning up after a poor kid's suicide, as a matter of fact. I don't recall cleaning after a gang homicide, which is a form of suicide. (More on this later.)

I do recall that I feel a special pity when cleaning after a teen suicide. It is June, by the way, and I have not cleaned any teen suicides this month. Two years running I cleaned after teens committed suicide because they failed to graduate with their peers. What is it that hurts so much; what is it that gnaws away at their insides, what is it that sends them to self-annihilation? So many, most people in the world, have so little to eke out life day to day no matter what tomorrow threatens.
They go on, some with tumors bulging from their necks, arms, or face. Some exist with goiters, others without teeth, and many without corrected vision, and many without limbs. So many have perpetual pain.

In the USA, teen suicides seem to occur when the victim is too short on experience, too shallow with knowledge, and too naive to develop a mental schematic of the world beyond family, school, and church.

I will return to my Hume exercises soon. I think that returning to the academic approach to suicide is in good order after all these years of neglect. It seems that I need these exercises because cleaning suicide scenes and not really thinking about the mystery of it all is a bit shallow on my part, to say the least. I suppose that suicide is society's mystery of mysteries.

eddie evans
suicide-cleanup.com

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