Because Toby Wasn't There

Roger’s toes slid over the roof of the bank building as he approached the leap to his death. Although he had fantasized about suicide many times, he had yet to take the final step. Now with his feet dangling from the roof as the sun rose on this early spring Monday morning, he considered the seriousness of what he would try to do, if only he had the guts.

Minus the time he spent in the service as a barber, most of Roger’s life had been one boring job after another. And without personal relationships, he ate and watched television. Daytime TV was his passion. Art Linkletter was his idol. Back in 1961 Roger rode a Greyhound bus for 3 and a half days out to Hollywood, just to sit in the audience of “Art Linkletter’s House Party. As a child Roger would feign illness as often as possible, just to be able to stay home and watch House Party. When it came to being sick, Roger could always count on Mother to understand and put him to bed. Even without a temperature. A “severe” stomachache just short of needing an ambulance would almost always garner Roger a free pass to bed for the day. In his life of disappointments, victories such as this were treasured and savored.

Not without a pain in the ass. Father, who had no jurisdiction in the case of whether or not Roger stayed home, nevertheless had the duty of rolling the tv set into his room before leaving for work. And although Roger understood once he was in bed that Father could not force him out, he still had to withstand the evil eye that Father most willingly gave as his commentary on the whole thing. Not said, but so loudly thought, Roger could hear what Father’s eyes spoke as he slowly rolled the portable set into his bedroom. “You dirty, lazy, son of a bitch bastard” was just the beginning of Father’s eye’s resentment of his son’s luxuriating in bed as he went off to ten hours of labor repairing ancient plumbing in city building’s. “I’m gonna come home dirty and smelly and exhausted, while you dirty rat bastard lays there like some crippled fag”. Father’s eye job on Roger would slay him and make him pull the covers up over his head until he heard Father’s car drive away. But it was never enough to shame him into changing. Not just Art Linkletter, but Bob Barker, Queen For a Day, not to mention the soap operas that he and Mother shared later in the day. Perhaps that explained her liberal attitude on stomachaches. She wanted a companion to share the daily trials of Young Doctor Malone et al.

It was only about seven in the morning now. Feet dangling as Roger sat on the bank’s ledge with a picnic lunch. He did not expect to spend all day there, but if lunch time came he wanted to eat. Yet, as he sat there, he began to drink in the unreality of it all. Why was he there? Was he ready to end his life? Roger felt he was perhaps unable to continue to live, and now he was to see if he was indeed able to die. To kick off. To slide from the eleventh floor of this old bank building, and face the unknown quantity of a hard death on a cement sidewalk.

After Father left for work Roger would typically nap until the “I Love Lucy” reruns came on at eleven. Breakfast would necessarily be light since a severe stomachache of his type would allow only perhaps tea and toast. Only when Mother would run out for errands would Roger toddle down to kitchen to load up on breakfast goodies. Foods that would conveniently fit in his robe pockets, such as bread, peanut butter, handfuls of cereal, and cottage cheese, were brought back up to his room, his chambers, his bed as throne, where he would thrust them down his throat before Mother would return from errands. Comic books at easy reach, the television only a foot twist away, Roger nakedly ruled the house. His dreams were, he thought, that of any boy. Of one day staying home all the time, and having a permanent television in his room, to avoid killing blows of Father’s eyes when he would otherwise normally roll the set in. To be completely sequestered with his own icebox, tv, regular comic book delivery, and of course Mother’s companionship when the stories came on. As he drifted off between shows, Roger dreamed of this perfect life and how he might achieve it.

It was nearly eleven now, and no one had noticed Roger’s legs dangling from the ledge. No cops, no secretaries on break, no other suicides on other buildings had noticed Roger on the Bank’s roof. He thought now how lucky it was he had packed his lunch. What good is suicide, unless someone sees you before the fact, and tries to stop you. Roger wanted that of course. He wanted some real meaning to his life, even if it was only the few seconds he would be airborne before the eyes of downtown.

Joe Postove