When Summer’s Over is a fragment by Jack Rusher, published here Monday, January 14, 2008. It is part of Stories.
The seasons change, and so do we.
1. For readers who aren’t familiar with Goethe, these names have been changed.
When I was at school, one of my best friends, Werther1, landed himself a fantastic girlfriend, Lotte. She was a joy to be around, and we all rejoiced when she became a part of our group.
Many of these friends had gotten into the hippy-revival aesthetic that was popular as the eighties became the nineties — smoking pot, listening to classic rock, reading Tolkien. We spent that summer throwing pool parties at Werther’s apartment complex, inner-tubing down clear Floridian waterways, taking road trips to New Orleans, hiking and attending outdoor rock concerts.
November, John Francis Murphy, c. 1880.
At the end of summer, Werther and Lotte became scarce. We’d grown so accustomed to seeing them that it really stood out when they weren’t there, and we were all a bit worried. Werther, whose voice sounded tired but not overly troubled, insisted that everything was fine whenever I was able to reach him by telephone.
One afternoon, Werther called to ask me to come with him on an errand. He didn’t want to say what it was over the phone, but he made it clear that it was important.
When we got to the hospital, he gave the nurse Lotte’s name. The nurse looked her up and said, “Ninth floor? That’s sharps. Neither of you boys brought a pocket knife or anything, did you?”
We were escorted to the dayroom, where we found Lotte with her wrists bundled up in gauze. She was like a photo negative of herself, her joyful personality replaced with staring, dark-circled eyes and a sluggish shuffle.
Werther went to see her every day they had visiting hours until Lotte’s parents transferred her to a private hospital on the other side of the country.
I only went that one time because it seemed to me that the medicine they used to save her from the razor had killed her just as dead.