LAST ACT
by Sean McGahey

Christmas Eve 1996

I can clearly feel the air in my room is warm & thick; my sweat glands immediately swing into action, beads of moisture pop out all over my body. Lying comfortably on my back with a couple of pillows underneath my knees and one behind my head. Breathing rhythmically and deeply in a relaxed manner. I Swallow the Effexor pills and visualize my feet, tense my toes, tense my feet, and then relax them.

Placing the 2-inch Braztech.357 Magnum barrel in my mouth.

A rush of blood surges to my lips against the blue carbon steel.

My hand sweats against the wrap-round rubber grip; in the background the last few chords of ‘Mandy’ fades away.

Squeeze the trigger.

CLICK...CLICK...CLICK

I put the gun down, visualizing my stomach, chest, shoulders, and hands and then relax.

At the end of the exercise, I should feel relaxed and ready to drop off.

I don't.

Six .38 Special rounds sit on the bedside cabinet.

Christmas Day 1996

Wake up, drink coffee, smoke a cigarette, and have a wash. Merry Christmas...Merry Christmas one and all! Unlike George Bailey, the man who received the greatest Christmas gift of all, I have a new Kiri Te Kanawa album...I need a bottle of Jack, maybe two...

Over the last 20 years the residents of New England have been putting up Christmas-lights, sometime around the beginning of December, people start coming down the street to see the displays. By mid December things get pretty crazy, with hundreds if not thousands of people strolling up and down the street at night.

I'll always remember trudging back towards Grandpa's old pick-up bathed in the colors of a fantastic sunset as light snow began to fall. At the time I was very young, but I still managed to help bag a beautiful perfect sized cedar with needles like razor blades that would shred the hands of any would-be decorators.

For as long as I can remember, up until I was about 17 years of age, I had to live with the guilt of losing my sister, especially around Christmas. My poor old Grandpa felt responsible, he was a very complex character, and so it doesn't seem so unusual that he committed suicide soon after the murder. Like the rest of the family he had some emotional issues, and as result nobody questioned his death.

My Grandma became agoraphobic; enjoying the sanctuary of her apartment, and pretty much kept herself tucked away.

Christmas Eve 1986

Pam had been chopping on some trees, when our dad told her to stay with Grandpa while he went about 200 feet ahead of us looking for a good tree. He returned and again reminded Pam to stay put. When he eventually returned half an hour had passed and they were gone. Father went back to the road where he found Grandpa wrestling with a Christmas tree at his pick-up. Beginning to panic, he asked where Pam was?

Grandpa replied, "I thought she was with you?"

" NO NO NO NO NO I told you...her...to stay with you!"

Father ran back up the hill screaming her name, no reply. Grandpa flagged down a passing motorist and asked, begged them to call 911.

After a few hours of snowfall the police eventually found what looked like footprints that exited the forest approximately half a mile west from where the pick-up was parked...she'd gone.

Darkness was falling as we walked back to our truck. I held my father's hand tightly and continued down the road.

Our pain ended six months later when Pam was found in wooded area behind a nature center of interstate 29. One Saturday afternoon a teenager, who was trying to track down a lost ball, stumbled across the remains.

Pam was too badly decomposed to determine whether she died naturally or was murdered. An autopsy was scheduled for the following Monday morning.

Pam was fully clothed, but not what Pam was wearing the day she disappeared? Lying on a mattress, the police reckon she had likely to have been dead since late May, which was only 3 months ago.

This is the second case of a body being found in the woods this month.

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DECOMPOSED BODY FOUND IN WOODS (newspaper clipping)

The County Sheriff 's Office is investigating Saturday's discovery of a decomposed body in a wooded area in the south of New England. A local teenager discovered the unidentified body while walking in the woods near a nature center at approximately 2:30pm. Because of the decomposition, investigators with the sheriff's office were unable to immediately determine the sex or age. The death is being treated as suspicious. The Medical Examiner's Office will conduct an autopsy in an effort to determine how the victim died.

________________

Two weeks later Sheriff George Clayman finally confirmed that the body had been identified as Pamela Portman. After a lengthy police investigation, a student originally from New York was sentenced to 25 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting five women and murdering 3 children, he wasn't convicted of Pam's murder.

Christmas Eve 1996

My roommate and I use a lot of LSD. For Paul it causes paranoia, confusion and at times hilarious panic attacks. I use it because it often blurs my own reality. I'm still watching out for the cruel twist near the end of this experience, where it seems, as I'm about to recover, only to discover that the whole ordeal has been a sham and I'm right back at the beginning. My shrink reckons I have a personality disorder and I avoid relationships and getting on with my life, as well as not showing much emotion, I'm not surprised! I'm emotionally drained.

With the amount of pills I'm on I should be in a coma, the one side affect I like the idea of is called retrograde amnesia...It helps you forget.

I've just swallowed two capsules of gamma-hydroxybutyrate or to you and me liquid XTC...In the background Johnny Panic and the Bible of dreams plays continuously.

Now breathing rhythmically and deeply visualizing my feet, hands, fingers, and toes...tense...now release Five .38 special rounds sit on _ the cabinet, the barrel pressed against the roof of my mouth...

Johnny panic

Johnny pa...

Four pounds and several thousand miles of interconnected nerve cells control every moment, thought, sensation and emotion that comprise the human experience, there are 12 thousand distinct varieties of neurons, trillions of supportive cells, a few more trillion synoptic connections, a hundred known chemical regulating agents, miles of miniscule blood vessels...wasted in one selfish irrational act of sadness...

© Sean McGahey
Reproduced with permission

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