Sunrise Part I: Shock
The aurora of my true existence occurred when I was asleep. David Michael Bacon Jr. ended his own life, at 11:58 PM on Sunday, September 20, 2015. In that moment as he laid on his bathroom floor bleeding out from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, I was here at Hotchkiss almost 800 miles away in contented oblivion.
When I woke in the morning on that Monday, September 21, I followed my normal routine of waking up late, rushing to shower, rushing to brush my teeth, rushing to get dressed, and checking my phone as I rushed out the door. When I checked my phone that morning the bubble instantly collapsed around me. In an instant everything had changed. I had lost the first person I ever opened up to, the only person from home I kept in touch with, the first person to be totally accepting of who I really am, and my best friend. I broke down and fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn’t comprehend the news. I asked myself, how could this happen? Why did he do it?
I would later find out that he had been caught in the midst of an act of teenage rebellion, stealing a candy bar from a gas station on that Saturday. Knowing David, this was intentional. He wanted to attack his austere father, a police officer himself, by demonstrating a cool, calm unwillingness to follow the rules. Instead of being disciplined in the ways of the law and it being such a small town, the gas station attendant called his father and explained the scenario. His father picked him up, drove him home and commenced what I imagine to be the most intense, hurtful, and utterly soul-crushing lecture of their relationship. He had disappointed his father, and more importantly embarrassed him in front of the whole town. Without a doubt, Mr. Bacon would not take lightly to such an event. I can only speculate as he had no communications to the outside world after he got home, but my best guess is that this continued for the next day and a half until David could no longer take it. It was his only way out.
When you Google his name, followed by “Plymouth,” (the name of our town) so as to avoid getting results for a 1940’s actor who ironically also died a sudden, tragic death, you’ll find lists of his accolades, descriptions of his faith, and local news articles detailing how his high school football team was dealing with the loss of their teammate and star player. But what you don’t see anywhere is why he did it. You won’t find anything detailing how he felt in the moments before, days before, or weeks before. I had last communicated with him the day before, briefly after the candy bar incident. He texted me three simple sentences, “I miss you. Don’t worry about me. I love you.” He didn’t respond when I asked him what was wrong. Although I noticed this, I didn’t take offense; David was the type of kid who didn’t say anything if nothing needed to be said. I assumed everything was fine. However, in hindsight he almost definitely needed to say something more, and the fact that he didn’t rips me apart everyday. I could’ve blown up his phone with calls and texts, I could’ve helped him withstand the verbal abuse of his father, I could’ve helped him fend off the feeling that his whole world was falling apart, I could’ve consoled him in his moment of need, as he had done for me so many times before. I blame myself for the death of my best friend.
