The Support Group by Diana Kathryn Penn

​Reader Advisory: Mature language, imagery, mention of suicide

Tired footsteps bounced off the steel stairway as they filed into the room with the rhythmic beat of a chain gang.  It was the basement of a local church.  The sign above the door read, “multi-purpose room.”   She wondered what other purposes it served aside from offering morsels of unrealized hope to the emotional vagrants who now timidly approached the refreshment table. 

A carafe of stale coffee, with an aroma that reminded her of her father’s anger in childhood, and rock-hard bagels sat in tempted poses next to a stack of paper napkins and Styrofoam cups.  She passed on the tainted nectar everyone else clamored for, and instead, grabbed a bottle of water from the iced cooler on the floor.

Gradually, as though one false step might bring down the building, they moved to the circle of chairs, standing in awkward silence, waiting for someone with the courage, to sit first. 

What the hell.  She sat, took a sip of water, and placed the bottle on the floor near the leg of her chair.  The others took her lead and gingerly sat, carefully cradling steaming cups of security and rings of petrified confidence.

“Welcome,” a white-collared man sang as he entered the room and sat in the only empty chair left in the circle.  “I am so glad you all decided to come today.  I want you to know that this is a safe space, and anything you share here today will not leave these walls.  As you may have noticed, we don’t do the nametag thing, and you aren’t required to announce your name, profession, or any other personal details about yourselves… unless you want to.”  He flashed a warm smile to the group, and took a sip from a bottle of water, which then landed gently on the floor.   “Who would like to start?” 

There was an exceptionally long, oppressive silence.  Cups moved from laps to lips.  Some set their cups on the floor at their feet while they pulled small bites from their bagels.  Hesitation hung in the space like branches from a willow tree, hovering in a gentle madness.

“Anyone?” nudged the coordinator.

A man in a tailored suit with mismatched socks pulled his cup from his mouth.   His eyes fell to the floor as he studied the painted lines of a shuffleboard court, where they remained until he stopped speaking.  “After we separated, I used to get excited about buying a house.  It’s part of why I became a real estate agent.  Every morning, I would get out of bed, take the dog outside, feed him, and then spend the next two hours drinking several cups of coffee, searching real estate websites, certain I would find my dream home.”  As he continued, his shoulders got lost a little more into the fabric of his jacket.  “I never wanted anything ostentatious, just something simple, small and manageable, brick construction – because long-term quality of life with zero maintenance is what’s most important.  My house would have a yard for dogs to run in, a deck big enough for a barbeque grill, and a table big enough so my friends didn’t feel crowded… but they’d crowd around it anyway, just for fun.” 

A small smirk escaped his lips as he took another sip of the stale courage.  “Never found it though, doubt I ever will.  Not even with all the houses I show other people every week.  Now, I just stare out the window, listening for the thunder, watching the rain turn to hail, if I’m lucky.”   He let out a defeated sigh.   “As I watch the storm, I imagine that the next gigantic gust of wind could rip the roof off the apartment building, decimating every brick and shingle; and I quietly curse myself for choosing to live on the first floor.  But the storms never last long enough, and the damned rainbow always peeks its way through in the end.  So, I just wait for the next one.  But it’s all wasted time.  Maybe it makes more sense to move to Kansas… go tornado hunting.”  He sank back into his chair, straightened his tie on his chest, and worked hard to evaporate into the background.

“Thank you for sharing,” said clergy man.  The others in the circle nodded with averted eyes, grateful real estate guy removed the burden of going first.  “That was a courageous start to tonight’s meeting.  Who would like to share next?”

“It was suffocating,” a woman in a pair of beige heels, tweed skirt, and white blouse whispered.  Her hair was pulled back in a tortoiseshell comb clip, showing off small silver infinity hoops dangling from her ears.  “My job never gives me any personal space, or privacy.  I used to fantasize about the idea of living alone like a crack addict craves the next high.”  She looked around the room, searching for sympathetic female eyes.  Two sets looked back at her with gentle, silent encouragement.  A third pair seemed to gaze right past her.  “Not just daydreams… serious fantasies, you know, like sex on satin sheets kinds of fantasies.”

One of the men snickered, hiding behind averted eyes.

Juvenile.

“Go on,” comforted clergy man.

“That idea of living every day without the frustration of someone else interfering with my time and energy…  without any negative requirements of me... that burden… lifted.”   She let go a wistful sigh, as if seeing an Adonis wraith.  “I imagined life after my divorce perfectly… no more arguments, no more silent treatment, plenty of time and energy to grow my career, read thousands of books, sleep when I was tired, eat when I was hungry, and work out so much that I’d be in the kind of health my doctor planned for me.  I’d have the confidence to file arrest warrants on my weaknesses and jail them for life.” 

Her voice became bolder, and her shoulders became stronger, but her eyes never connected with another living soul.  Instead, she described the scene as she imagined it, as she watched it floating somewhere in the rafters.  The two supportive women in the room followed her gaze, imagining it, too.   “I’d find clarity in long moments of meditation.  I’d banish the smallest parts of me, the most inconsequential pieces that could never fend for themselves… off to emotional boot camp… toughen them up… get them ready to take on the real world of possibility.  Finally, I’d find eternal happiness.” 

She slumped back into her chair, her eyes once again staring into the putrid liquid coagulating inside the Styrofoam reservoir in her lap.   “Now… I’m lonelier than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I struggle with the simple day-to-day stuff, like eating and sleeping.  I miss him, horribly.  I cry in the shower… ugly cry.   I let the weakness stretch out it’s kinks for those twenty minutes each day because if I don’t curtail it somehow, the loneliness and the solitude I was stupid enough to choose would turn me inside out… and some days, I have zero control, and it still does… turn me inside out.  Fantasies aren’t truth… that’s why they call them that.”

The supportive women turned their now tear-filled eyes into their own cups, searching for some reflection of a better ending, but knowing the pain of her failed fantasy.  They’d had the same dream, or some version of it.  And it failed for them, too.  One of them was the next to speak.  She was young, far too young, to be so horribly haunted.

The woman wore a denim jacket, jeans with holes at the knees, muted teal sneakers, and a t-shirt proclaiming her devotion to The Eagles’ 2015 Farewell Tour… she doesn’t look that old.   

Her voice cracked just a little.   Although she tried to mask it with her stage persona’s strength, she wasn’t as successful at pretending with this group.  “The life of an exotic dancer isn’t easy, but I make it work… I guess.  The money is good, and the hours are short.  I work mostly late at night, when not much else is going on, anyway.  I get to sleep in, subscribe to as many streaming services as I like.  There are no heavy emotional commitments, and plenty of batteries to do what needs to be done.”

The same juvenile snickered again and caught the eyes of everyone in the room this time.  They would protect her from the sleaze, albeit silently. 

“Please go on, Miss; and let’s keep our opinions to ourselves, please.  This is a safe space for everyone, remember?” chided the facilitator as he folded his hands in his lap and nodded his encouragement to the young woman.

She inhaled slowly, and tried to pick up where she left off, punching her fists into the pockets of her jacket.   “When that doesn’t work, there’s always brandy,” she quipped.  “For four hours a day, I get to listen to music I enjoy, move around brainlessly in spandex and sparkles, and take a break from the reality of the existential crisis that lives deep inside life.  It’s clear, I’ll never be more than this; I can accept that… but why?  What’s the point?  The lack of empty tables every night proves I’m not the only one asking the question.”  She took another breath.  “Still, I think I’d like to have that conversation every day with someone else… maybe find some different answers, or at the very least, we could find holes in the crisis big enough to climb out of it together.  I think I’d like to try that, at least.  And I’d like to try it with the person who used to be my person… again.”

The room was quiet for a while.  A few people took the opportunity to either throw away their trash or refill their cups.  The paster, or priest, or whoever he was, allowed it without commentary.  He understood that sometimes, people needed to take a break.  When it was clear the meeting wasn’t over yet, the group mingled back to the circle of chairs. 

A few more moments of silence eavesdropped on the group. 

At last, a quiet, gentle, middle-aged man leaned in, forearms resting on his knees, hands clasped one over the other. He looked around the room.  Expectant faces returned his glances.  Although he was attractive… a simple beard, casual clothes, and a baseball cap with a faded logo… there wasn’t anything particularly exceptional about him.  Still, he commanded their attention without being overbearing about it.  Simple curiosity, maybe…

“It’s interesting, don’t you think, where punishment finds us?  It beats us up in the dark alleys that we defiantly walk because we aren’t smart enough to recognize that weakness is an armor, of sorts.”  He paused, slightly bewildered by the circle’s attention.   “No matter how many self-defense courses you take… no matter how proficient you become with your concealed carry permit… you eventually come to realize that Goliath fell not because he wasn’t strong enough to subdue the onslaught.  It’s because David had people around him who constantly reminded him of the mistakes he made whenever he started thinking he had a handle on life.”   
The man sat back and shrugged his shoulders.  “In the end, giants are always defeated because of a case of an over-active ego, not because their sword is rusty, or their combat skills are out of date.  Still, we convince ourselves that being the giant is somehow better.”  He shook his head in frustration.  “It’s enough to mess with your head and make you do stupid stuff.  Stuff you can never take back, and never repair.  So, you end up screwed forever.”

The circle nodded in agreement and connectivity.  It was clear all of them felt exactly the same way but had no clue how to change any of it.  It was, after all, why they’d found themselves together, drinking swill in a basement shuffleboard court.

“That’s when the Suicide Hotline is a good resource…” the twelve-step crusader, chimed in. “For those moments when you feel like you are too weak, too alone, too egotistical, or feeling suffocated.  It’s not a replacement for this group, but certainly, it’s a good place to turn… when you’re in the middle of a crisis, overwhelmed and maybe need a bit of compassion...”

Every eye turned to their feet.  No one wanted to think about that.

Until that moment, she’d sat quietly, only half-listening, with her back against the metal folding chair, hands interlaced on her head.  She noticed the rhythm of her heartbeat gently rocking her forward and back.  Imperceptible to the others, and nearly so to her.   She held her breath to make sure that’s really where the movement was coming from, and not some errant fault line tremor.  It seemed impossible that she could feel it.  During the last several months, she’d struggled to recognize that she even had a heart, let alone notice it beating.  Huh; that’s different. 

It prompted her to speak.  She drew herself back into the room.  Her deep sigh echoed loudly off the cinderblock walls. “He’s got something, there…”  The circle raised their heads in surprise.  “Seriously.  I was on that website the other day.  They have all the information you could ever need.  They even have a complete step-by-step organizational chart of what to do and in what order.”  She ticked each item off on her fingers as she spoke.  “You know, join a support group, slowly pull out of social engagements, write a will, write goodbye letters to the people you care about, find new housing for your pets, find a great vacation spot to… it’s like a blueprint.  It’s really helpful.”  Her face was filled with encouragement, as if she’d found the missing piece to their collective puzzle… that edge piece everyone searched for. 

“Um,” stammered the crusader.  “That’s not what I meant…” His voice disappeared into the rafters.
​
“And, if you do it just right, no one will be the wiser until it’s too late; so you’ll be able to finish your list uninterrupted.  After all, who really cares?  I mean, they all say they’ll be there – but what will they do, really?  These are the same people who never warned you how horrible this would be, remember?”  Her face was painted in a scowl of exasperation.  No one returned any answers.  She made eye contact with each person who’d spoken earlier.  They didn’t realize she’d been paying attention; and truth be told, neither did she.  “What, help you find a house where you feel comfortable and safe… discuss the existential questions that plague your sleep… fill the gaps of your alone time with something meaningful… enjoy sex without the expectation of performance anxiety… simply hold on to you while you cry yourself out without judgement or condescension?”  She glanced around the circle again, waiting for an answer.  None came.  “Nope.  They all talk a good game, but really, nothing ever happens.  You’ll be surprised; really… that site’s got it all planned out for you.  It’s practically idiot-proof.”

“Ah, I think you misunderstood my suggestion…” the crusader tried again.  “That’s not what its meant for…”  His words were lost in the information dump now buzzing through the group.

“The bonus,” she continued, holding up a finger, “when you’re gone, people will say some really endearing things about you and get a dopamine boost for their trouble.  But you won’t hear any of it, so… no guilt.”  She coddled a slight pause as she surveyed the circle again.   She laced her hands back on top of her head, waiting for the movement she could no longer feel.   “Really,” she shrugged, “it’s a win-win.”

“She’s right!” real estate guy exclaimed.   “I just pulled up the website on my phone.”  The others pulled out their phones, wiggled their thumbs, and stared at their screens in a choreographed movement Bob Fosse would be proud of.  “It’s all here, pretty simple.  Thanks, this is really helpful.”  Real estate guy stood and headed for the door, dropping his coffee cup in the trash on the way out.

“But… that’s not what…”  The crusader had lost them.  He stood and watched helplessly as the circle disbanded and quickly marched out of the room, staring at their phones, excitedly whispering to each other as they compared notes about who had done what on the list so far.

“You’re right,” she said over her shoulder as she collected her water bottle and followed them out the door.  “It’s a really great resource.”

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