The whole room fell silent. Tom and I stared uncomfortably at our tabouli. I tore off a corner of my pita bread and tried to introduce a topic that might engage us long enough to ignore the sobbing from the table behind me. "Yeah, so, anyway, my training was today, like I said, and I'm sure I'll figure out later that I got more out of it than it seems."
"And he just stopped and he said, 'I don't think it's anybody's fault that he jumped off a bridge. I don't think he was in his right mind.'"
Tom was staring over my shoulder at the spectacle behind me. He shushed me. "Brian, I can't hear what she's saying."
"Well, the last time he called me was that day when we were going to pick him up from Rutgers. He said he didn't feel like coming home that weekend, that he felt ill. He said he wanted to reschedule. So we planned on a different weekend, he said he loved me, and that was the last time I spoke to him.
"You know what? I refuse to believe that someone I knew for twenty-three years could have been hearing voices. But that's what he said. So, I guess, on that last night he spent six hours in the rain listening to God's voice tell him to kill himself."
I shifted my chair around into the aisle so I could more easily see. Everyone else in the restaurant was staring, concerned looks on their faces.
"Oh, and his father! Humph! I told him, no I begged him, I said, 'get down there and get him some help. He's your son, Bruce. Your son for god's sake. Let's lock him up because he's hearing voices and I think he's on the marijuana. Let's get him the help he needs.' But he's as much of a deadbeat as he always was. He just wouldn't... He didn't do a thing.
"I mean what was I supposed to do? I did all I could. I tried to get him help and that makes me the control freak that causes people to�No thanks. I think we'll just have our check�jump off bridges. That's what it makes me I can tell you."
They made their way to the door. "What are you on? That's what I used to ask him. And that last time he finally said he had tried the LSD but only once and he wasn't doing anything that hard core anymore. That's what he said. But he wouldn't take my help. I'm too much of a control freak, I guess."
As the door swung shut behind them, the sounds of forks on plates and ice in glasses slowly made themselves known again.
"So, yeah," I said. "Today was my first day of work."
Posted at 2:24 p.m.
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