Towards the end of my first year in college, my neighbor decided to kill himself.  Normally, I respect the decision to end one’s own life.  From time to time, I’ve even been tempted to help the person along, if they’ve irritated me enough.  But this one was different.  In particular, the poor timing of the attempt irritated me to no end, leading me to do something I have never done before or since: stop a suicide attempt out of spite.

Let’s set the stage, shall we?

The star of this particular show we’ll call Jerry, who lived in the same suite as I during my freshman year at Duke.  Jerry was a fencer, apparently a pretty good one.  Unlike the football or basketball team, Duke wouldn’t let someone in just because the coach of the fencing team wanted him.  The fencing team only got one “freebie” person each year, and Jerry was theirs.  I don’t know much about fencing, but Jerry seemed like he would be well cut out for it: a scrappy, diminutive guy who naturally looked a little bit like a weasel, a bit like “The Sherminator” in the American Pie movies.

We met on moving-in day and failed to hit it off.  After I asked him whether there was any chance that Olympic fencing rules would be modified to allow participants to carry a shield, Jerry looked at me like I had three eyes.  I didn’t care for this, and we never talked much after that.  Still, we were polite, all the way up until the bitter end.

Jerry’s problems likely stemmed from his failure to adapt to college life.  He was far from home, and apparently did not enjoy himself very much.  He made it through the first semester, but the second really sapped the joie de vivre out of him.  Jerry became a recluse.  His roommate, who was an awesome guy, complained constantly that Jerry’s personal hygiene habits had degenerated and that he did nothing but sleep all day.  Eighteen-year-old males are notoriously poor at recognizing internal crises.  As the lone child of two clinical psychologists, I should have known something was rotten in Denmark, but I was focused on more pressing matters, like exploring the rapidly-expanding frontiers of computer porn.

Things continued to go downhill as finals approached.  Jerry had lost his circadian rhythm; that is to say, the periods he was awake no longer followed a 24-hour cycle.  He few exclusively on delivered pizza (from Domino’s, a certain symptom of self-loathing).  His roommate told us he had altogether stopped going to class.  Finally, the shit hit the fan.

Jerry may have been depressed, but he wasn’t stupid.  He realized that he was going to fail all his classes, lose his scholarship to a top ten university, and otherwise initiate a series of events that ended with him working in a drive-thru liquor store.  To his credit, Jerry devised a plan based on the discovery of a clever loophole in the rules of the university.  Everyone knows the myth that you receive a 4.0 for the semester if your roommate dies.  What everyone doesn’t know is that you can get an entire semester of grades wiped from your record if you withdraw with a severe medical condition.  After playing this card, you could come back with a clean slate, probably even keeping your scholarship in the process.

The simple way to do this would have been for Jerry to drag his ass to the student health clinic and mumble something about being depressed.  After all, anyone who looked at him could see something was wrong.  At this late date, however, claims of mental instability became increasingly dubious as others got the same idea and tried faking malaise.  Hell, I even considered it once or twice.  Getting out of a report card full of Fs at this juncture would require a grand, spectacular gesture… like a halfhearted suicide attempt.

Let me say at this point that I believe Jerry planned what happened next.  To be fair, I do not know this for a fact, but I believe this was – at least partially – an elaborate attempt on his part to escape the consequences of a semester of complete entropy.  That said, here’s how it went down:

The night before finals, Jerry began his end game by proceeding to get piss drunk.  He then barricaded himself in his room and sent a text message to a female friend one floor below that he was planning on killing himself with sleeping pills.  Within minutes, the dorm’s resident advisor (RA) was notified.  The RA was a nice guy, a divinity school student named Chauncey, but he was – pardon my bluntness – a complete pussy.

Jerry’s room was at the end of a suite accessed through a long narrow hallway.  My room was situated immediately adjacent to Jerry’s, our perpendicular doors separated by only a few feet.  It was about 1 AM and I was in my room, writing a paper that was due in seven hours.  The first inkling that trouble was brewing came in the form of frantic thudding from the hallway.  I opened the door to see Chauncey banging furiously on Jerry’s door.  Rather than call the police or other trained professionals, Chauncey had come to investigate what was going on for himself.  Like many religious officials, Chauncey seemed to frequently confuse himself with a trained therapist, and I watched as he impotently pleaded through the closed door to Jerry’s room.

“You have so many reasons to live in God’s kingdom.  Jesus will love you no matter what happens.  Just don’t hurt yourself!” Chauncey cajoled.  His only answer was a high ululating wail from the other side of the door, as Jerry launched into a fit of genuine human anguish.

“Dude,” I said, “lay off the ‘God’s kingdom’ stuff.  All the religious crap is making me want to kill myself too.”  To his credit, Chauncey bagged the proselytizing and called the cops.

The police arrived a few minutes later.  The campus was in full-blown study mode for finals, and – judging from the numbers of officers who soon congregated in the hallway and in my room – there was apparently precious little to occupy campus law enforcement other than Jerry’s personal Waterloo.  There was even had a negotiator, a low-rent version of Samuel L Jackson, who alternately threatened and coddled a still-histrionic Jerry.

The commotion did not agree with me.  Focusing on delineating the cultural significance of the Circus Maximus in Roman culture was difficult with a constant cacophony of radio traffic, foot traffic, and Jerry’s inexhaustible feminine weeping providing ample distraction.  Things came to a head when I looked over from my computer to find two of the campus cops rummaging through my mini-fridge. 

“What the fuck are you doing?”  I yelled.  ”Those are reserved for real policemen.”  They gave me a withering look, but closed the door.  “I’m counting those diet cokes,” I yelled after them.

Since it looked like the situation isn’t going to resolve itself any time soon, I decided to order Chinese takeout.  “Want any?” I ask two of the officers still in my room.  One of them makes a questioning face and makes a sound that could have been the beginning of “from where?” before his partner answers for both of them in the negative.  To kill time before it arrived, I headed out into the hall to hunt down the police negotiator.  Jerry had ceased communicating, and was now playing Enya at an unreasonable volume.  This had drawn a crowd, leading the police to cordon off the hallway from curious onlookers.  By virtue of my room’s location, I was smack dab in the middle of the crisis zone.  The officers in the hall had been joined by what appeared to be Duke’s version of a SWAT team, and the negotiator and the SWAT members were huddled midway back in the hall.  I nudged my way into the huddle.

‘Who are you?” asked the negotiator.

“I live here,” I said offhandedly.  “Listen guys, is there any way we can move this along?”

“We’re trying to develop an entry strategy,” said one of the SWAT guys.

“But he’s just one guy,” I said.  He’s drunk.  All you have to do is cart him off.  Honor will be served, you’ll look good, and everyone walks away happy.  What, do you think he’s gonna be in there waiting to stab you with one of his sabers.”

“Wait,” the negotiator interrupted, “he’s armed?”

“Probably.  He’s on the fencing team anyway.  But those things are really dull, and you have guns and bulletproof vests.”

One of the team members turned away and announced into his radio “All units be advised, subject is heavily armed with sword or other long-bladed weapons, and is considered capable of applying deadly force.”

Oh was this ever escalating quickly.  Perhaps as a reward for my diligence, the negotiator let me in on a little tidbit of information: “The main problem is that it’s too dangerous to get through the door.  If we can’t go in fast, safety will be compromised.”

“Why don’t you just knock it down?” I asked.

“We… err, don’t have that equipment on site.”

Aha: Campus police pride.  They didn’t want Durham PD taking this over.

“Here’s a thought, why don’t you get a room key from maintenance?”

An odd look crossed the negotiator’s face before it went totally neutral.  “We’re investigating several possibilities.  Why don’t you head back in your room and let us work?”

I walked around the corner, out of sight, but lingered for a moment to confirm a suspicion.  Sure enough, three seconds later, the same officer who radioed the “subject is armed and dangerous” dispatch called for “someone in the facilities department to get up here with a key for [Jerry’s room number].”  I am now unofficially solving the problems of an independent college campus police force.

Fifteen minutes later, the key shows up just as the deliveryman with my food arrives.  He was detained at the police cordon until I yelled down the hall “It’s OK, he’s with me.”  Amazingly, they let him through.  As this is happening, about 8 guys from campus SWAT pack the narrow hallway around the door wearing helmets, vests, and about half of them have guns drawn.  One of them has a standard-issue room key, which he slips into the lock with the dexterity of a cat burglar.  They’re about to go in strong, when the delivery guy starts forcing his way through them to get me my Dragon Spice Noodles, all the while yelling “’scuse me! ‘Scuse me!” in broken Engrish.

The SWAT guys are pissed.  They’re yelling “get this guy out of here!  He’s ruining our operation!” at the delivery guy, who doesn’t speak English well enough to realize what’s going on.  I’m paying the deliveryman and laughing so hard tears are streaming down my face as the group went in strong.  I was not privy to see the takedown firsthand, but I did hear Jerry emit a particularly girly wail, followed by several of the officers crying out “watch out for the swords!”  After a few minutes, Jerry was led out in restraints, half naked and smelling like a gin factory.  This odor did not deter a very overstimulated Chauncey from flying out of an alcove and embracing Jerry as he wept and said over and over “Let Christ heal your heart.  The journey begins now.”

“Still with the Jesus stuff, Chauncey?” I said, shaking my head.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty.  One of the cops couldn’t keep his mouth shut and told everyone what happened when they went in: Jerry had been lying on the floor, wearing only his underwear (tighty-whities, the officer solemnly reported).  In one hand, he had a bottle of house vodka, and in the other he had a blunted saber, which he was apparently using to adjust his stereo volume when they went in.  At some point, Jerry had pissed himself, leading me to believe the wails we heard stemmed from painful chafing rather than emotional angst.

This takes nothing away from Jerry’s total dedication to escape the jam he had gotten himself into.  For the very low price of his entire dignity, he got a get-out-of-jail-free card for his transcript.  He spent a few days in Duke’s suicide watch program, eating pudding and not wearing a belt, before going home with his parents.  Understandably, he never came back to school.  Campus police remained wretchedly inefficient, with a single shining forte in writing parking tickets.  And I got my Chinese food, which tasted like musty compassion.  And MSG.