They’d lost one of their own. Michael Schwartz was dead. Victim of a hanging. An apparent suicide. Manny Hawkins set down his morning paper and turned dry eyes out the window at the sunny day outside. Shouldn’t it be raining, he thought? Wouldn’t that be apropos on a day like this? He stared at the headline … let it seep into his heart and mind. “Fulton High Junior Hangs Himself.” The air inside Manny’s two-bedroom condo was stuffy. Too stuffy. He stood and took long strides toward the patio door. Once it was open, he breathed deep. Two breaths, three. Until the nausea began to subside. He’d had Michael in his class the last two years. English Comp I and II. The kid seemed normal enough. Quiet, a little dark in the wardrobe department, but nothing too out there. Nothing gothic or deathlike. No signs that this past Friday night he’d ride his bike home from band practice and hang himself in his bedroom. Manny pushed himself back to his kitchen table and sat down again. The breeze through the open door was good, a reminder of life.
