Suicide King

I shot myself.

Sometime in March 2006. Not sure of the exact date, but I’m pretty sure it was March. I remember time by relating it to movies. I can remember in startling detail where a saw a movie and who I was with. And in this case I know I had already seen Revenge of the Sith about a year before. And that came out in 2005. So when I tried to kill myself the following year that’s how I know it was 2006.

I used a Glock .40 caliber pistol. Serial number on the barrel was CRF 404. I bought it at a sporting goods store in Tallahassee in the late 90s when I actually feared for my life while delivering shitty pizzas to even shittier neighborhoods.

Anyway, in that spring of 2006 in Portland, Oregon, I damn sure left a suicide note for my then best friend and put a round right through my gut. Left side of the abdomen because I was shooting with the right hand. I was going to go for the head but I chickened out at the last second. Metaphor for my own life, right? Turns out I missed the vital organs so after I realized I made the biggest fuck up of my life and called 911 I had a fair chance and didn’t bleed out. I’ll spare you the details, but it was a shitty experience and I spent 2 weeks in the mental health ward. I’m told it was the same hospital where they filmed One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Not sure if I’m supposed to wear that as a badge of honor or not.

While I was there I had a few calls from family members at a pay phone in the ward. My mom telling me I should maybe go live with my dad for a while, and my dad saying maybe I should come down to California. Seems like both of them wanted to pawn me off to the other. My parents’ relationship is probably the number one thing that fucked me up since I was six years old, so who knows what I was supposed to make of this.

My best friend and his wife visited me in the hospital. They were good friends and I was the best man at his wedding. This was one of the last times I saw either of them, and flash forward to years in the future: they don’t talk to me anymore. I don’t blame them. I’m a liability.

The one phone call I remember the most was my sister. She broke down even more than I did and I could tell she was in tears. She said, “I just want you to be happy.” We didn’t grow up together, so it really made it that much more poignant when I realized that my actions had hurt her. Of all the moments in my life I don’t think I’ve ever felt as bad as when I heard her crying on the other end of the phone.

After I got out of the hospital I was homeless for a few weeks. About a month in total as I remember it. I grabbed my most important possessions and abandoned the rest to drive down to my grandparents’ house in Salinas where my dad was still freeloading. I remember him yelling at me because he demanded I go with him to some bar to hang out with his friends, while I didn’t want to. Because I was scared of interacting with people. Also I’d just shot myself and tried to remove myself from this Earth. He stormed out. I told my grandma that it was time for me to leave. I got in my truck and left. It was the last time I ever spoke to either of them. Grandma Hosford passed away shortly after this. My dad died 10 years later in 2016. We never spoke in that 10 year span. I was too furious to reach out and he probably didn’t know how.

Ironically I got the news while watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens with my mom in Philly. I say “ironically” because Star Wars was the one thing my Dad & I bonded over. He took me to see Return of the Jedi on opening day May 25, 1983 and it was arguably the best moment of my childhood. To quote Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam: “Oh how quick the sun can drop away.” I associate Star Wars with my dad, but I remember the first movie I ever saw in theaters was The Empire Strikes Back with my mom. Can you be any more fucked up as an 80s kid in a broken home?

So after the .40 cal event. 10 years later, where am I? I’ve got a great job. I own a house, which is weird because  I was homeless living out of my Ford Ranger for a while until my mom took me back in. I activated the G.I. Bill and Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation, and went to school in Florida at UCF. Eventually I ended up with a degree in accounting and got a great job with the IRS in Philadelphia. I chose that city because my sister lived there. She got engaged while I’d been going back to school and I figured a change of pace would be good for me. And it would be awesome living near a family member who understood the ins and outs of a broken home.

After I moved to Philly my life started to get on track. There was a good 2 years where I didn’t socialize and just adapted to having stability in my life. Eventually I met some folks thanks to the Internet. I have a few good friends to this day dating back to 2013 when I decided to leave the past behind and see what was out there. Guarantee a few of them are reading this story. And to quote my favorite literary character Roland Deschain: Thankee-sai.

One of these friends, a lady... I call her “Bartendress” for the same reason that Charlie in Always Sunny referred to “the Waitress.” She understood my mental health issues. It was the biggest weight off my shoulders knowing that somebody understood. That’s all I needed. Someone to understand. I’ll probably never talk to her again because people go their separate ways and I’m a burden that people would probably prefer to forget. But I will always be grateful that she was an ear when I needed it most.

And although my old friends have lives of their own and we don’t communicate anymore, I do have a few select awesome folks that I met since I moved to Philly. We don’t talk to each other on a daily basis because that’s how it is in adult life. But we’re all there for each other when we need someone to listen.

I consider myself a minor character in everyone else’s story. But since I live my life my song lyrics and love 90s rock, here’s my favorite Alice In Chains chorus that I feel is relevant to this story. If you read this far you’re a champ. Thanks for sticking around.

“You my friend

I will defend

And if we change, well

I’ll love you anyway.”

B.H. Hosford

July 14 1976 - ??