Googing Gone Amiss
By Gene Aronowitz
Frank Foster was enrolled in a writing workshop and was preparing a piece of flash fiction about a man named Gary, who was described as deeply in debt and remorseful about a failing marriage. He was thinking about ending his life. Among his options, Gary thought a sleeping pill overdose would seem the most comfortable and the least messy for his family.
Wishing to be as authentic as possible, Frank searched the internet for the number of pills taken at one time that would be fatal to an average-sized man. On one of the sites suggested by Google, he learned that 20 capsules of at least 3 milligrams of any over-the-counter sleep-aid should be fatal. “For ease of ingestion,” the blog post said, “the powder from the capsules should be dissolved in eight ounces of water, wine, or juice and consumed within thirty minutes after starting.” Frank wondered how to transform these instructions into a plausible suicide narrative but decided to break for dinner and to work on the piece that evening.
He began writing a few minutes after finishing three slices of pepperoni pizza and a Caesar salad with two glasses of Chianti. He completed half a page when the phone rang. Never wanting to interrupt his writing, he let the call go into voice mail. After typing the first three pages, he printed the document and began to edit. A couple of minutes later, the phone rang again, but he, once again, let it go through. Satisfied with the edits, he retyped the draft and called a friend in his writing workshop who lived two blocks away.
“Hi, Tom. I just finished my piece. You got any time to go over it?”
“Sure,” he answered, “maybe in a half hour.”
Frank printed the three-page document, folded it, and put it in his shirt pocket.
Just then, he heard a knock on the door, and opening it, he saw two men, the smaller of whom said, “Hello, sir. My name is Allen Hoyt. How are you?”
Thinking the two men were Jehovah’s Witnesses, Frank said, “Listen, Allen, I’m sorry, but I’m swamped,” and shut the door. The knocking resumed. “What do you want?” he shouted.
“I just want to know if you’re OK.”
“Of course I’m OK. Leave now, or I’ll call the police.”
“I am a policeman,” the other voice said. “Please open the door.”
Not a chance , Frank thought, knowing that people frequently impersonate police officers to get access to homes. He grabbed his phone and dialed 911 but could not hear the answering voice clearly because of the loud banging on the door. The lock didn’t hold, and the door slammed open, hitting the wall.
Terrified, Frank ran into the bathroom but couldn’t lock its door because the police fficer pushed it open and grabbed him from behind in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides.
“Get the fuck off of me,” Frank shouted.
“Settle down,” the officer said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Frank kicked his legs violently, his heel connecting with the officer’s shin, and was wrestled to the floor.
“I smell wine on his breath,” the officer said to Allen, a police medic. “He may have already taken it.”
“I’ll get the stuff, Billy,” Allen said and ran out of the house. He rushed back, carrying a gastric suctioning device and a spray bottle. He forced Frank to open his mouth, jammed the sprayer into it, and repeatedly pressed on its rubber bulb. Frank felt as if his mouth was freezing. Then, the medic put a lubricated tube down Frank’s mouth, causing him to gag. The medic began the pumping and, not knowing what Frank might have taken, drove a Naloxone-filled syringe into Frank’s thigh and injected his arm with a powerful sedative. Billy took out his radio, gave the operator Frank’s address, said he needed an ambulance right away and asked that the closest hospital be notified about the imminent arrival of a drug overdose.
Frank lay on the floor, on his side, helpless, petrified though increasingly drowsy and unable to speak because of the tube still in his mouth. He heard a siren, a vehicle screeching to stop, the opening of a gurney, and then two EMTs speaking to each other while standing over him. They picked him up, placed him on the gurney, restrained him with large straps, and wheeled him into the ambulance.
When they got to the hospital emergency entrance, Frank was lifted off the ambulance gurney and transferred to another. An aide removed his wristwatch, went through his pockets, and took out some small change, a wallet, keys, and the three folded pieces of paper. “This may be the suicide note,” an aide said to Allen, now in a white coat and mask. Allen unfolded the document and said, “Oh shit,” as he read the story about Gary’s sadness and what he was planning to do about it.
