"especially at breakfast" and "hancock suicide, chicago, december 1994"

Janet Kuypers
C.c.andd@eworld.com

Deep South v.2 n.1 (Autumn, 1996)

especially at breakfast

mom was always cooking things, eating the
strangest things, especially at breakfast.
some mornings, felling especially groggy, i'd
walk down the stairs to find mom eating a
plate of cold pigs' feet. only my mother.

hancock suicide, chicago, december 1994

so me and the guys
were just taking a break
from the construction

on the hancock building.
you know they've been
doing construction work

there, right? they put 
that big wall up around
the block, the tall

fence, and they've been
doing remodeling stuff.
well, i had been working 

on some tile work and
we were just walking
around the building, me

and three other guys,
walking kind of like a
square, in formation,

sort of, and i'm at the 
back and i stop and step 
back to check some of

the grout work, so i just
kind of lean back while
standing still. well, one

of the guys says he heard 
it coming, like a big rush 
of air, like a whistling

sound, but much heavier. 
i didn't even get a chance
to look up, though one of

the other guys did and
saw it coming a split second
before it happened. and the

next thing i knew there was 
this loud cracking sound
and i felt all of this stuff

hit me, like wet concrete
thrown at me, but i didn't 
know what the hell it was.

and i opened my eyes and looked
down and i was just completely
covered in blood

and there was just this
heap of mass right in front of
me. it took a while for me

to realize that a woman jumped.
she hit the fence, her head
and spinal cord were still 

stuck on the fence and the
rest of her was just this red
pile right in front of me.

the police had to take all of
my clothes. every inch.
they say she broke through the

glass at the fiftieth floor, i don't 
know how, that glass is supposed
to be bullet proof or something.

and the one thing i noticed was
that she covered her head with
panty hose, in an effort to keep

her face together. funny, she
was so willing to die, but she
wanted to be kept in tact. i know 

i won't hear about this on the 
news, they try to downplay suicides, 
but other violence is fine for them.

and they say she was handi-
capped, but then how badly, and
how did she get the strength

to break the window and throw
herself out of the john hancock
building? she must have really 

wanted to die.

it really hasn't sunk in quite yet,
seeing her fall apart in front
of me like that. i don't think i'm 

ready to think about it yet.