When I think about suicide – not that I think about suicide – I don’t think about how I would do it or what I would put in the note, but how would I write the note. You see, my handwriting is so bad, that people wouldn’t be able to understand it? “Why did he kill himself?” “I don’t know, I can’t read his note.” But if I didn’t write a note, what would I do? Put it on a computer? I mean, that seems cold, man. Yeah, okay of course so is putting your neck in a noose but still… and if I left it on computer, what would I call the file? “Note” or “suicide?” Is “suicide” seven letters? Oh yeah, I guess it would fit. Or would I, keeping up with the times, do a suicide video? You know, a nice up-tempo imagistically pleasing “life is shit, I’m in a pit” kind of video. Or would I do it all on film? I mean it’s more expensive, but it just looks better. Makes your eyes look better. Sure it costs more, but what else am I going to do with the money? Can’t take it with you. And what would a budget on a suicide video be? Could I apply for a grant for such a thing? And if I did, how long would I have to wait to hear back? You know… and maybe if I could get a grant for doing a suicide video I wouldn’t even feel like killing myself in the first place.

Vigil. I don’t know what a vigil is. I have some idea, though, that it involves candles. The lighting of candles, the making and breaking of eye contact, sad shrugs and words that aren’t like “Hmmm,” “Ahhh.” I’ve never been to a vigil. I’ve never been to a funeral. Well, I’ve been to some bad parties that people said reminded them of funerals. But there was no corpse unless you count the food table. The closest thing to a funeral? Three turtles I flushed down the toilet in 1972. A vigil isn’t even a funeral. It’s like going to a drive-in with no screen. It’s sort of like the people that aren’t even invited to the funeral. And I’ve never been at a party that people said reminded them of a vigil. You know, another dead party that was bigger and better than this littler, dead party. Nope, not a vigil, funeral or a wake.

We all get through life scathed and unscathed in our own ways. Growing up, I owned four Toyotas that were in a total of fifteen crashes, but never a vigil.

The bluest skies I’ve ever seen weren’t in Seattle. The greenest hills I’ve ever seen weren’t in Seattle. When I arrived in that coastal town there were only shades of grey. I arrived in Seattle ninety minutes prior to the vigil. I hate to admit it, but upon arrival, for a selfish, confused instant, I thought the attention might have been about me. The same way I felt when I saw the kids who lined the hotel lobby in Winnipeg. I had thought to myself, “Oh great. I’ve gotta go through a gauntlet of hockey-jacketed teens flanked by their folks holding pens. Screaming “Bahaaa my pen.” They did not return my fake smile. They were there for the “King”. The “King” and the big L.A. Kings bus that pulled up minutes after our van. The hockey players got out, suits on, broken noses and last came Gretzky – little, long hair, alone and powerful…like Mother Theresa must have looked in her thirties. Our Seattle van driver told me a good place to eat steak and that he’d driven “Kurt” on New Year’s Eve and he was really messed up. But they always say that. Whoever they drove anywhere ever was really messed up, which really means that they probably were quiet and serious. I could just see two girls in a Seattle suburb, if Seattle has suburbs, I didn’t know, I had just landed. I hadn’t even eaten my steak. I could just see two girls in a Seattle suburb. “What are you going to wear to the vigil?” “Well, black of course.” “Well, what would he want me to wear?” In my room, I just stared into the distance. Okay, alright…I watched T.V. I was torn between my own sleep and going down to the square. I just didn’t know if I was in the mood to see beautiful seventeen year old children in dreadlocks, white hippies celebrating dark death.

Cynicism is my whiskey. And I had a few. So, are the other guys gonna get a new singer? Robert Plant could use a job. I guess that Courtney Love album just sold about 2 million copies. Would the square be full if he had simply slipped on a small hotel soap, banged his head, gurgled his tongue, and gone? What if he wasn’t a beautiful, blue-eyed, black-hearted, blonde boy? What if he was Aaron Neville. Would they hold the vigil in the square? Or in a smaller room, somewhere in the hotel? The “Ocean View Room” perhaps.

Don’t get me wrong. Someone sad and crazy had done something hideous and left a lot of stronger people behind. There was not a lot else to be said.

And the next day, I went for a run along the ocean… well, along the asphalt path along the ocean. And twenty minutes in, I stopped beside some wood, you know, planks. That someone had made to spell “Bye Kurt.” I took a breath, looked up at Seattle and wondered what didn’t he see. And if I’ve ever been to a vigil, I guess that was it.