We say, how he could he do that to himself?
I couldn’t get back in time for the funeral, but I do a few weeks later. I meet mutual friends, we shake our heads and say we saw it coming and say we didn’t see it coming and we say jesus, and we say shit, and we say fuck. We say, how could he do that to himself?
What he did was set himself on fire. Politely in a dumpster, soaked in gasoline, he ignited himself and burned to death, like the Buddhist monk in the famous photograph, demonstrating not against a war but against life itself, though life must finally in some way have been a war to him, and if so one that he had clearly lost, and in losing refused to go quietly or let us have the peace of not knowing that as friends we had at some time and in some way failed him.
And we tell ourselves and each other that it wasn’t us reproached and he was one you couldn’t reach, and we blame the parents, because you can always blame the parents. And much of what we say is true, but hollow nonetheless because words in this case don't matter much: the problem is essentially physical and consists of the unwelcome presence in our midst of the charred and twisted remains of our old and dear friend.
