If someone knocks at your door in the middle of the night, it's probably trouble.

At first I thought the knocking was the phone ringing. Still mostly asleep, I rolled over in bed, picked it up and answered it. No one was there, of course. I reached over to my alarm clock next but no combination of pressing the plastic buttons put an end to the sound. Instead, I accidently knocked the clock off the bedside table. The crash of the device hitting the hardwood floor woke me enough to realize someone was at the door.

I looked at the clock. It was almost three in morning. Who the hell was at my door? I rarely had visitors at proper hours let alone in the middle of the night. My apartment was on the fourth floor of a building that lacked an elevator. Even friends didn't want to climb all those stairs.

I got up from the bed and walked down the hallway to the door. I felt a bit anxious. There was a break-in across the hall a few weeks before. I looked through the peephole. My eyes were blurry and I couldn't quite make out who it was. I cracked open the door, leaving the chain latched.

It was Ed Rossi, an old friend who moved into a first floor apartment a few months before. Ed's girlfriend Sarah found out he was cheating on her. She threw him out of the place they had together.

"Hank, what's up, buddy?" Ed said. I noticed a can of beer in his hand.

"It's three in the morning. What are you doing here?"

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, man, I ran out of smokes. Can I bum a one from you?"

"You woke me up for that?" I said. "Jesus! Why don't you go to sleep?"

"Sorry, I just need a smoke and I'll leave."

It took me a second to remember if I had any cigarettes. Wasn't I trying to quit? No, that was the week before. I looked around the living room for my cigarettes and not finding them, stumbled into the kitchen. I picked them up off the table and returned to the doorway.

"Here," I said, handing the pack to Ed. "Take a couple."

"You wanna have one with me?" Ed asked.

"No, I'm going back to bed. I have to work in the morning."

"Come on, just have one last smoke with me. I took a bottle of pills. I'm checking out."

"A bottle of pills?"

"Yeah."

I raised my head and paused for a moment. I was confused. "What are you gonna do now?" I asked, as if Ed had a lot of options. My sleepy brain didn't quite register that I was talking to someone who was in the process of committing suicide.

"I'm going to have a smoke and a beer and then, I don't know. Fuck it."

"But you can't do that," I said.

"Maybe I'll have enough time for two smokes. Sure you don't want to have one with me for old time's sake?"

"You should go to the hospital."

"No, I've had it. I'm done with all this Sarah bullshit. Thanks for the smokes." Ed turned and headed down the stairs.

I closed the door and walked back to my bedroom, still foggy headed as to what was going on. No one had ever told me they were in the process of committing suicide.

I laid down on the bed and thought about what Ed said to me. Did he say he took a bottle of pills to kill himself? Yes, that's what he said. My first impulse was to get up and do something to help him. But I did something Ed accused me of many times in the past--I hesitated.

[Read the rest of the story when the book is published in November.]

Copyright © Greg Halpin, 2010 All Rights Reserved