Me Against Jim Bailey by Susanna Cupido
CBC Books | | Posted: April 13, 2022 1:35 PM | Last Updated: April 28, 2022
2022 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist
Susanna Cupido made the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist for Me Against Jim Bailey.
She will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her short story has been published on CBC Books.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31.
You can read Me Against Jim Bailey below.
WARNING: This story includes discussion of suicide and may also affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
I laughed. It was the wrong thing to do, of course, but I can explain why I did it. Not to Jim Bailey, whose face crumpled up like paper, not back then, but I can explain now.
We were in the public gardens again, me and Jim, down by the pond which was thick with dead leaves, red and brown and sludgy in the pond-scum, duck-scum water. The October cold made Jim's nose and cheeks look very red and I had the last piece of my bagel in my hand. I was tearing chunks of dough off to tease the ducks, pretending to throw them into the water, but only pretending — I wanted to eat it all myself. So I had my hand up, the bagel in it, when Jim told me.
"I was at the drugstore," he said, "and this woman was there and I went past her in the aisle, and she put her hand on me, on my—" (he gnawed his lip, looking even redder, but not looking, not at me; just the water, the ducks, the dead leaves) "I mean, she did, you know?"
I laughed. It was the wrong thing and I knew it, because he stared at me. His face wasn't red anymore, just slack and kind of thin. It fell in, tore up like paper. "Maybe it was an accident," I said. The laughter was still in the air and so was my fist, still hanging there, and the bagel in it. I took it down, starting to feel guilty. I knew I shouldn't have laughed.
Jim was still staring at me. "No," he said, "it was pretty deliberate. She did it."
I bit off a bit of the bagel, rolled it doughy around my mouth, cheek to cheek, as I tried to think of what to say. I knew, but I couldn't tell him, that I hadn't laughed because of what he'd told me. I hadn't laughed because I thought what the woman had done was funny, or because I didn't believe him. I'd laughed because I was remembering something that had happened to me a long time ago. How, on a Dartmouth-bound bus, a man had stuck his hand between my legs and left it there all the way from Barrington to Bridge Terminal.
Maybe you can't understand how it all strung together in my head — Jim telling me what happened to him in the store, what happened to me on the bus to Dartmouth and me laughing. Maybe you don't see why. Jim couldn't see, either; he looked at me like I'd pulled the world out from under him. "What did you do?" I asked.
He blinked. "I was there with Michael, so I told him what happened and he said to go wait outside while he bought everything."
"Oh. Good."
"He was really cool about it, you know? He came outside and asked me if I was okay."
There was something defiant in his voice now. Clearly, he was holding me up against Michael in his head, comparing us — Michael, concerned and solicitous, a good friend and me, who'd been laughing. I didn't like that. The guilt I'd been cooking up behind my ribs congealed, turned thick and obstinate; it wasn't fair, somehow, for him to spring something like that on me, just anecdotal, then blame me for laughing.
Clearly, he was holding me up against Michael in his head, comparing us — Michael, concerned and solicitous, a good friend and me, who'd been laughing.
"She's probably just some creep," I said, and then went past him quickly to throw my bagel wrapper in the trash can. It was just then, crumpling it up, dropping it down into the fly-stink, that I remembered that I had told Jim about the man who'd touched me on the bus — I'd told him years ago and he'd been very quiet afterward. He hadn't laughed at all.
We never talked about that again, the woman, but I didn't forget and I don't think he did either. There was a space between us, something rancid, but I don't think you would have noticed just by looking. We got along okay, we were just less.
Still, I was ready next time.
"I've really been struggling lately," said Jim Bailey and I watched his reflection in the clear glass of the water, as he fractured into pieces, hugging his ribs. November sky, grey from end to end and the surface of the pond looked like steel.
"I'm sorry," I said, tucking my chin into my chest, so he wouldn't see my face. It was a damp, drizzly day and I'd worn my gloves, pulling them up over the scratches on my hands. Nothing serious, those half-hearted, preemptory attempts at something self-destructive with a pair of bathroom scissors — they embarrassed me, more than anything. I didn't have the conviction to be a cutter.
"Sometimes," he said, "I want to, sometimes I kind of want to hurt myself."
He said it very quickly and quietly, dropping his voice like it was a dirty secret and the theatricality of it got me the wrong way. My hands itched, the wool rubbing the scratches raw. "I'm sorry," I said, and then, feeling that something else might be expected of me; "You should take care of yourself, man. Be careful."
Jim shrugged, but I could tell he was pleased. "It's not a big deal. I just got so low, you know?"
"I know, Jim," I said, because I did. I got low, too. I looked at his splitting reflection and wished that I had more friends — high friends, who got up and stayed up. It was always cold and dark down there on the ground with Jim, especially in November, when the whole world was starting to turn in on itself and the only cure was a pair of bathroom scissors.
I looked at his splitting reflection and wished that I had more friends — high friends, who got up and stayed up.
A month later, Jim Bailey told me: "I've been kind of thinking about dying."
I didn't laugh.
He told me: "You know. Ending it."
I didn't laugh. I wanted to, but I didn't. December now, and the public gardens were closed. We stood in the street instead, leaning against the wrought-iron bars and looking through, at the withered stalks of the rose bushes and the dried-up old fountain.
"I'm so sorry," I told the rose stalks. I think I really was sorry, even if me and Jim were getting so far apart; I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from grinning. "How long?"
"Just these last few weeks. It's been so bad, you know, the depression, and I keep thinking —"
I nodded, leaning against the bars and thinking. I'd been heading that way myself, had asked discrete questions about suicide hotlines and recovery centres, but I knew pretty clearly that it was all a game for me; I was never really going to do it. I wanted the show and I wanted the sympathy, but I didn't really want to be gone. Life was too short to go around dying. "Yeah."
"I was down at the pier the other night and I really just wanted to jump, you know?"
"Yeah," I said again, but, strangely, it was that last part that had done it for me, was shutting me down; I no longer felt particularly sorry for Jim. Back then, I didn't think you could die jumping off the Halifax pier, unless you made a serious effort and I didn't think that Jim ever would. I saw his suicidal ideation as the same thing that mine was; attention-seeking, or maybe even worse, just some passing, self-destructive impulse. The same thing that made you want to stick your fingers in candles or walk into traffic or jump off somewhere high. L'appel-du-vide, l'appel-du-fin. You know the feeling. I thought Jim had that.
"I was thinking of going to the clinic myself," I said, reasoning that he would be embarrassed to know I was in the same straits. That he might snap out of it. "We could both go, I guess."
He seemed to really like that. He stood up straighter, gripping the railings like that was the only thing tethering him to the ground. "Yeah, we could make a deal. You go, I go."
"Sure," I said.
"Deal?"
"Yeah. Deal."
But I didn't go, of course, I knew I didn't need to. My depression was a product of the winter as much as of my brain chemistry. Even in the cold, I had hope it was all going to level out sooner or later, that in the spring I was going to stop thinking about dying and start thinking about something else. Inevitably, I would get bored of it.
But I didn't go, of course, I knew I didn't need to. My depression was a product of the winter as much as of my brain chemistry.
The next time I saw Jim, he asked me if I'd gone to the clinic, and I told him honestly that I hadn't.
"I'm feeling a lot better these days," I told him. "I don't think I need to go yet. It's all kind of a hassle."
And I laughed.
Sometimes, looking back, I think maybe I shouldn't have laughed. Maybe I should even have lied and said I had been to the clinic. Sometimes I think he took my reneging on our deal to mean something, that he thought I was giving him some kind of tacit permission.
Compassion isn't infinite in me and it isn't rooted in pain either. In fact, the farther I get this way, the less I feel for pretty much anybody.
I know you'd think I'd be sorry for him, because I'd wanted to die too, that I'd be sorry a woman had done that to him because of what had happened to me, but it doesn't always go like that. Not for me, at least. Compassion isn't infinite in me and it isn't rooted in pain either. In fact, the farther I get this way, the less I feel for pretty much anybody. Even for Jim Bailey, who was my friend and who I still miss a lot — especially on Saturday afternoons sometimes, when I go down to the public gardens to walk around. I really do miss him.
I never had anything against Jim Bailey, you know. We just had too much in common.
Support is available for anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
If you or someone you know is struggling, here's where to get help:
- The Canada Suicide Prevention Service: Call 1-833-456-4566 (available 24/7) or text 45645 (available 4pm to midnight)
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 686868
- Kids Help Phone (ages 5-20, French and English): Call 1-800-668-6868 or text CONNECT to 686868
- First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness Help Line: Call 1-855-242-3310
- Trans Lifeline: Call 877-330-6366
- LGBT Youth Line: Call 1-800-268-9688 or text 647-694-4275
Read the other finalists
- Desire Path by Jeremy Elder (Toronto)
- Dinner With Friends by Nancy Hui Sulaiman (Windsor, Ont.)
- Nesting Season by Anna Ling Kaye (Vancouver)
- Beneath the Softness of Snow by Chanel M. Sutherland (Montreal)
About Susanna Cupido
Susanna Cupido is a student from New Brunswick. She attends university in Halifax, where she's currently completing an undergraduate degree in English and psychology. Her poem The Door won the Accenti Poetry Contest in 2021.
The story's source of inspiration
"I was inspired by the research I've done in psychology and by some of my own personal experiences around mental health and therapy. Writing this story, I was particularly interested in exploring the different ways that people who struggle with mental health might relate to each other."
About the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize
The winner of the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
The 2022 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May, 31, 2022. The 2023 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2023.