Mark Long's Funeral and Suicide  I'm at a funeral for my friend Mark Long. As I leave, I shake my friend Gino Teavor's hand, and we grab each other's forearms. Then he hugs me, in his grief. He is wearing a big fluffy winter jacket. I ask Gino if he wants to go and visit the Longs sometime over break, since we have a 12 or 14-day break for Christmas. He says no, he can't handle it.  I go down in the basement of the church because someone, Gino I think, needs to tell me something there. We go into an old dirty bathroom where a man is hurting. He has just gotten in a fight. There are three or four fights scheduled. This was the first one, and it was small. I have a cut lip. There is a funeral procession to a place. My friend Kevin Simpson and I are there already. The ending point of the funeral is a parking lot in which there are many poles sticking up to mark off the lanes for traffic. We see a monster truck with huge tires. The tires have weird tread, like a saw blade. Then we see the hearse pull into the lot. It is like a battering ram, tough and square looking. Kevin says he'd like to have a hearse names after him.  In a building, we're in an empty room. Kevin and Mark are there with a woman from my neighborhood. They talk about suicide. They all have scars. Mark talks about cutting the veins on the inside of his leg near his groin. They are back from the dead for one year, but only if their spouse had approved. Mark talks more about cutting himself: how and where. The neighbor woman is topless. She has a scar from shoulder to shoulder across her chest, and two scars down each upper pectoral muscle. I don't want to look at the scars. Kevin and Mark and I are in the corner of the room. There are blinds near us, almost wrapping around us. I reach my arms around both of them at the same time and grab the blinds. I hold them very tightly, and tell them what I think of suicide. I tell them that I think it's a cop out. That it is the easy way out and it is inconsiderate: the people that love you will really be hurt. Then I walk away. I talk to my dad. Looking over in the corner, I see that there are two straight bodies laying separately on the cement floor. I go to say goodbye to Mark. The two are standing. I don't' know what to say to Mark. We hug and cry. It's hard to keep my balance. We hug for a long time. There is violin music playing in the background. The hug is very therapeutic. It was a release, a letting go after a long time, which was overdue.