years ago.
Jayshree had stopped crying. In an eerie, calm voice she said, “Sanjay, you’ve ruined my life.” She paused then said, “I loaded it.”
Jaya blinked hard. “Mom…”
Jayshree ignored Jaya and kept her eyes fixed on Sanjay.
“Stay out of this, Jaya,” Sanjay growled. He glared at Jaya, poking his right cheek out with his tongue.
Meanwhile Jayshree tapped the muzzle on her temple and said, “Still think I can’t leave you?”
Sanjay snickered and said, “You can’t. Now give me the gun. Admit it, Jayshree. You don’t have the guts to kill yourself.”
Does Dad really think she’s bluffing?
Jaya’s eyes veered back to his mother.
Her eyes were wet again. She loosened her grip on the gun. She gave Sanjay a gapped-mouth stare. Then she whispered, “You’re heartless.” She dropped the gun onto the sofa and walked into the kitchen.
Jaya breathed a sigh of relief. His mother was safe. She began a binge. Jaya knew a purge would follow. But at least she was still alive.
Sanjay disappeared into his den, leaving the gun behind. Jaya sat down and picked it up. He flipped it over, examining the frame. It was heavier than he’d expected. He turned the barrel to face him and looked into the opening.
He thought about Kurt Cobain. He’d supposedly shot himself the same year Jaya was born. Jaya shuddered and lay the gun on the sofa with the barrel facing away from him. Why did Kurt do it? Had things gotten so bad in his life that music wasn’t a remedy anymore?
Music was still Jaya’s only medicine. It really was the best thing in his life. And on the bright side, now he had an entire separate room for his music. When he considered the cost of converting one of the spare rooms into his guitar room—walls painted a deep crimson color and lined with his equipment, including six electric guitars, three acoustic guitars, several amps, speakers, tuners, picks, straps, and a pedal board—gratitude unfolded itself like a map. It pointed Jaya away from Sanjay’s intolerant, judgmental views and redirected him to Sanjay’s unquestioned funding of his son’s musical addiction. Well, his daughter’s musical addiction, as his father saw it.
Sanjay didn’t bat an eye at paying for anything related to Jaya’s music. “I wish my parents had the money to let me do a hobby. I would’ve loved to learn sitar,” he told Jaya the day the painters finished the last coat of crimson. “Now you have an entire room to play your guitars.”
Jaya hugged his father. “Thanks, Dad,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
Sanjay patted Jaya’s back. “You don’t have to say anything. I know this is a fun pastime for you.” He pulled away and pointed at Jaya’s hair. “Just like all this short hair nonsense is some kind of American teenage phase.”
Jaya opened his mouth but then decided against trying to convince his father that his guitar playing and hair were more than temporary diversions in his life.
Sanjay would never have encouraged or funded Jaya’s guitar habit if he knew that his investment indirectly allowed Jaya to donate to the Hawaii Homeless Shelter.
Jaya got the idea to help out at HHS after overhearing Sanjay at one of their parties awhile back. Whiskey in hand, Sanjay had boomed, “I want to get rid of those lazy native Hawaiians in the neighborhood. Those homeless squatters only want handouts.” He’d thrown back his liquor then sneered, picking lint off his Tommy Bahama aloha shirt.
Jaya’s fists clenched. His father was wrong on so many levels. For one thing, the native Hawaiian “squatters” weren’t really homeless. Technically, they were houseless since they were occupying land that was originally their home. Land stolen from them by non-Hawaiians and resold over and over for profit. And Jaya didn’t know what kind of “handouts” his father was talking about. As far as Jaya could tell, the native Hawaiians were making do with what they had and with what they could get from the land and ocean. Something that would’ve been way easier if they had access to all of their land the way they did before the arrival of James Cook.
Of course Sanjay would never see it that way.
His father’s disturbing comments kept Jaya awake all night. He spent the hours thinking of a way to cancel out his father’s ignorance. By morning Jaya had figured out what to do. He’d commit to performing music in Waikiki to earn money for his new cause—donating to and volunteering at the Hawaii Homeless Shelter.
And for the last six months Jaya hadn’t missed a single weekly shift.
His parents had no clue about the busking or shelter work. Then again his parents basically had no concept about him at all. To them, their “daughter” was an unappreciative troublemaker who wanted to torture them by acting like a tomboy. “At least your grades are good,” Jayshree muttered the last time she lectured Jaya about his hair and clothes.
His parents didn’t realize that Jaya kept his grades up out of respect for how much money they spent on his tuition. Something that many of the other students at Manoa Prep didn’t seem to concern themselves with. Seemed to him that most of those kids felt entitled to their expensive education whether or not they made use of the learning opportunities.
Jaya groaned. He suddenly felt spent. He thought about the Nirvana song he’d been playing earlier that day. Drain You. Though he’d expanded his musical repertoire to writing, playing, and singing his own music and lyrics, it was still Nirvana he turned to more than his originals. He sang the first verse to himself. Millie popped into his head.
Jaya flinched. Four years later he still felt a twinge of emptiness when he thought about Millie. She would’ve loved his new Martin acoustic guitar, the same kind Kurt played in Nirvana’s MTV unplugged performance.
Hey, wait a second…
It occurred to Jaya to name his Martin acoustic Millie. It was a perfect name. Guitarists named their guitars all the time, so why couldn’t he? Plus since Millie had left him to marry the lead guitarist of a Nirvana tribute band, what better name for his Nirvana tribute guitar?
He decided to go play some Nirvana on his Millie. But when he pushed his hands onto the sofa to get up he felt the cold polymer of the Glock. He shivered.
You don’t need much of a suicide plan with a gun. It’s simple—point and shoot.
Jaya had never devised a plan to take his own life. But there were many times he wished he were dead. Or that he’d never wake up. If his parents knew that, would they have hidden the gun? Would Jayshree have insisted that Sanjay lock it up? Would Sanjay have taken it upon himself to lock it away without being told?
As it was, Jaya and his mother were well aware that Sanjay kept the gun and bullets unlocked in his den. In the top left drawer of his desk.
Jaya shook his head. It was stupid to have the gun lying around in a house where both a mother and son were thinking about death. He should go toss it.
No.
He wanted to keep his options open. What if he needed a quick way out?
