curtains

Rest in peace? I should be so lucky. To date I've had more failed suicide attempts than sexual conquests. Which in itself is reason enough to try again. I've tried every method ' from the high wire drama of bridge jumping to the anonymous leave-taking of pills. And every single try's been thwarted by friends or goddamn do-gooders. Understand. These are not cries for help. I am genuinely committed. Just monumentally unlucky.

My life was an error of casting. Of that I'm sure. I'm not melancholic or bitter about it, and I always make a noble stab at enjoying it. But when an escape exit winks I respond. And hope that my card will be returned to the pack for another, classier hand.

Now, however, even my wardens are having the bad grace to die. Shouldering the casket ' Geoff, father-of-three, once gave me mouth to mouth' I'm inspired to get strategic. That or risk the indignity of being the only pole bearer with coffin envy. Colleagues are cooing their condolences and Jenny breaks free long enough to shoot me a look that says if there were any justice it would be you Rob. Don't I know it Jenny. I resolve ' if for her alone - to get it right this time. Later as the crudités come round, I make a decision. I determine to eat myself to death.

So it lacks a certain grace. But it's brazen. The idea that the life affirming act of eating will actually be a slow but conspicuous lumber towards suicide. It charms me. Plus it has the added bonus of letting my poor, beleaguered friends off the hook. Which, looking round - tired now and marked by the years - is way overdue. They didn't ask to be cast in the Swat team role. And while they were tending yet another of my graceless car-wrecks one of their number quietly took his leave. Still singed from my latest encounter I, the death fantasist, watch as my vital, 42 year old friend is lowered into the ground. The irony is not lost on me. I owe it to my friends, their continuing health and to cold, starched Geoff to get focused.

That evening I draw up my programme. I figure it will take me eight months at the outside to reach life-threatening, organ-stopping obesity. It's going to mean some serious fund pooling and coupon cutting, but I'm sure I can get it down to six or even five on a disciplined regime. Allow alcohol and I could cut that time clean in half. But the biblical bluntness of gluttony appeals. That and the fact that the missive that finally does you in will inevitably be something ordinary. Like a chicken nugget.

I look down at my physique. I'm winning already. At 5'11 I'm 190 doughy lbs with the promising beginnings of a stomach and various bumps and dips where muscles once lived. I decide if I'm to do to do this right, it's got to be base and it's got to be ugly. Which is how I come to be sitting stark naked, on the cold linoleum of a Brooklyn apartment forcing down another Choc Full O Nuts from a box I bulk bought from a scout in the stairwell. It's a strange memorial to a good, dead friend. And the last thing in the world I expect Geoff would have wanted. But you don't choose your friends. And mine, I felt, had frog-marched me into this most undignified of exits.