4 Suicide by Sudafed

I drove to a truck stop in Las Cruces and read the affidavit over coffee. What a shocker! Every one of those crackheads in Clark County had fingered me to take the heat off themselves. I saw my life pass in front of me—my children, my family. I thought of how they would suffer when I was arrested. Dad would be pissed. My kids would be ashamed.

I considered running for British Columbia. I was still a Canadian citizen, and Canada didn’t have the death penalty. But I knew I couldn’t trust my dispatchers to find me a load that would take me that far north. They were working with the cops.

I thought about taking the Greyhound, but that would give the cops three or four days to intercept the bus and grab the only guy that was six-foot-six.

I looked through the window and saw a uniform in a sheriff’s car monitoring the truck stop. I knew why he was there. I had the same feeling as when I murdered Taunja Bennett. I was marked as a murderer.

I went into the shop and looked for a quick poison. They had some strong stuff for flushing radiators, but I wanted to die, not just burn out my throat. I got a package of twelve-hour Contac and sixteen Extra Strength Tylenols. I already had Sudafed and a bottle of Anacin in the truck—maybe forty pills altogether. I bought a bottle of mineral water to wash them down.

As I walked back in my truck, I noticed that the deputy was still there. I was afraid he’d revive me and pump my stomach. I had to do this right, and not act suspicious.

I crawled into the sleeper, pulled off my boots and closed the curtain. I started to write a suicide note but changed my mind. What would I say? That I was a poor misunderstood kid who never had a chance? At forty? I thought, Who gives a shit anyway?

I shook the pills on the bed and stared at them for a long time. I thought of the good times I’d had in my life. But the bad stuff kept getting in the way.

I knew I had to swallow the pills fast or I might chicken out and end up dying by electrocution or hanging or rotting away in a prison cell for the rest of my life. I gulped the pills and laid back on my pillow. After a few minutes my head began to swell and my eyes felt like they were popping out of my skull. Then I dropped off.

 

When I woke up it was still nighttime. I pulled on one boot and opened the window. I stuck my hand out and felt a cool rain. If I could feel rain, I wasn’t dead.

I made it across the parking lot and stumbled into the men’s room. I looked like something that crawled out of a septic tank. After I took a leak, I went back to the truck. As I started to climb in, a fist reached through the sleeper curtain and punched me in the face!

I’d gotten into the wrong truck. It was a Prime Trucking semi, parked for the night. A shaggy-looking driver dragged me toward the office by the arm.

I nearly fell on my face when we got inside. I couldn’t think straight. A couple of deputies came and asked me to identify myself. I wasn’t even sure of my name. After a while I explained that I took a couple of sleeping pills and that the next thing I remembered I was getting punched. In my confusion I’d climbed into the wrong truck.

The deputy asked to see my logbook. I told him that I’d spent six hours talking to detectives on a bum rap and they’d taken all my stuff. I said I was fed up with answering questions.

The Prime driver was a good guy and declined to press charges. The deputy took my keys and told me to sober up. He said I could collect them in the morning at the truck-stop security office. The subject of suicide never came up.

 

It must’ve been 3:00 or 4:00 A.M. when I swallowed the rest of my pills and passed out again. This time I slept till noon. The parking lot was nearly empty. The Prime driver had gone. There was a smelly whitish mess on my comforter and I realized that I must’ve been upchucking the whole night. My dad was right. I couldn’t do anything right.

After a few cups of coffee I checked in with my boss. He said the cops had released their hold on me. I reamed him good for setting me up at the Fairgrounds. I told him the cops had taken the tarps and it was his own fault—don’t bother billing me for the loss. He gave me a half-ass apology and told me to head for Phoenix for another load.

 

As I drove west, I thought how hard it is to kill a human being. I snapped that Shasta woman’s neck three times and she was still alive to lie about me. I had to use all my muscle to finish off some of the others. Now I couldn’t even kill myself.

I swore I wouldn’t botch it again. What went wrong? My stomach must’ve got too much too soon and threw it all up. Tonight I’ll cut back a little on the dose. Just enough to go bye-bye.

 

At the last truck stop in New Mexico, I ordered a steak and asked my waitress if she liked necklaces. She showed me a cheap little thing around her neck. I gave her my new sixty-five-dollar gold necklace as a tip.

She said, “Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me.”

I said, “Where I’m going I won’t need this.”

The other waitresses clustered around. I said, “I’m on my way to jail. I’m facing eight life sentences. Or maybe the gas chamber.” When I drove away, they were watching my truck.

At a truck stop at Exit 378 in Arizona I bought three bottles of nonprescription sleeping pills. I climbed into my coffin and swallowed them all. I was upset and forgot my own advice not to take too many or I’d throw them up.

 

The next morning I woke up groggy and angry at myself for still being alive. I didn’t find out till later that you need prescription stuff like Seconal and Amytal to do the job. I always hated drugs. I didn’t know the subject.

In the distance I saw Chiricahua Peak, ten thousand feet high. I could climb up to the snow line and let hypothermia do the rest. Death by freezing was like going to sleep.

But first I wrote a letter to my brother:

3-24-95

Hi Brad—

Seems like my luck has run out. I will never be able to enjoy life on the outside again. I got into a bad situation and got caught up with emotion. I killed a woman in my truck during an argument. With all the evidence against me, it looks like I truly am a black sheep. The court will appoint me a lawyer and there will be a trial. I am sure they will kill me for this. I am sorry that I turned out this way. I have been a killer for 5 yrs. And have killed 8 people. Assaulted more. I guess I haven’t learned anything.

Dad always worried about me. Because of what I have gone through in the divorce finances, etc. I have been taking it out on different people. We pay so much of child support. As I saw it I was hoping they would catch me. I took 48 sleeping pills last night and I woke up well rested. The night before I took two bottles of pills to no avail. They will arrest me today. Keith

I walked up to a mailbox at the next truck stop and stopped dead in my tracks. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. If I mailed that letter there would be no turning back. My gut told me to rip it up.

I dropped the letter in the slot.