Roll Over and Play Dead

The day that Carrie almost killed me, she had already been dead for ten years. Carrie was my best friend in high school until she threw herself off of a cliff and died. We ate lunch together every day and defended each other from the constant taunting of seniors. And then she was a splatter at the bottom of a hill. We got into trouble, but we also enjoyed giggling, lipstick and life. I never thought she wanted to die.

Carrie and I were the entire costume department of our high school. The two of us hemmed gowns, rented tuxes and borrowed any props our parents and grandparents would part with. But the best part of being the costume mistress was having unfettered access to everything within the costume closet. From ball gowns to clown noses, horse heads to wigs; there were thousands of interesting artifacts in the closet.

In the afternoons when the other students had gone home and the only people left in the building were the janitors, Carrie and I would try on costumes. I wore Dolly Levi’s wedding dress and Carrie put on Gypsy Rose Lee’s sequined striptease ensemble. We paraded onstage, belting out off-key show tunes until it was time to scramble back into our own clothes to catch the late bus.

Sometimes, after weekend rehearsals, we would sneak a few of the costumes out of the wardrobe room and ride our bikes to the edge of the overgrown field north of school – where the town quarry began. The quarry owners had put up a huge rock wall around the edge of their pit to keep anyone from slipping down the two hundred foot drop to the quarry floor below. The structure made a wonderful castle wall to set our fantasies against.

Our favorite costumes were from the Shakespearian plays. I would put on the regal and elegant robes of Ophelia and Carrie inevitably chose a shimmering confection from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In front of the quarry wall, by the tall shade trees and soft, high grass, we pretended to be princesses’ pining for lost loves and persecuted by our evil stepmothers. It was silly for teenagers, which is why we were usually secretive.




Darrel was one of the seniors who taunted Carrie and I. At first, he would merely whistle as we walked by with our cafeteria trays. Then he would sidle up next to Carrie and bump her as if it was an accident. Finally, when he wasn’t getting a reaction from whacking her with his hip, he started grabbing her ass.

At first, Carrie and I would complain constantly about his unwanted attention. But about the time the ass thing started happening, her complaints tapered off. She let him keep his hand there and even responded with cloying comments like, “Is that all you’re gonna do?”

I laughed while she said it, but I was feeling left out. I know that was jealousy. Who wouldn’t be upset that for the millionth time, cute and perky Carrie had been chosen instead of dull, pudgy Jen?

The cafeteria taunting quickly evolved into furtive make out sessions in the theater costume room where Carrie and I spent our afternoons. I only knew because I walked in on them more than once while preparing for a show. But they kept their attraction secret from the other students. On the opening night of Gypsy, I found them sprawled on top of the newsboy knickers, his hand up her shirt and her hands locked around his head.

“Jesus, you guys!” I was startled to find anyone in there and then angry, seeing who it was. “Carrie, curtain up is in, like, two hours. Did you do MaryAnn’s makeup yet?”

Carrie sat up; wiping Darrel’s saliva from her chin, “Chill out. I’m going right now.”

Damn her, making me feel like a little kid. And damn Darrel too, trying to suavely stand up without tripping on corduroy knickers and caps. He followed her over to the band room where the cast was dressing. I wanted to scream after both of them that they were disgusting and rude. Instead, I just hung up the knickers and cried.

That was the last night that Carrie worked as a costumer with me. If I had known that she would die in three days, I might have been nicer to her. I would have laughed and made a joke instead of griping. I might have made sure the last thing I said to her was more significant than, “Are all of the top hats back on the shelf?”

Carrie officially went missing the next day. Her mother first called my house, but I hadn’t seen her since I left the school after the play. She had been waiting near the band room to speak to the director and I figured it was to quit the theater program since she hadn’t been interested lately. Her mom sighed and said thanks. I don’t know why, but I didn’t mention Darrel to her. Looking back, I think I assumed she knew about Carrie’s involvement with this guy. But now I’m not so sure.

For the next two days, police and search parties combed our town for Carrie.
They didn’t find her until Monday morning, when the quarry workers arrived at work. She had fallen from the top of the guard wall into the pit below. After the two hundred foot fall, she was crushed into a pile of flesh that was barely recognizable as human.

Her family was devastated and so was I. The investigators fixated on the fact that Carrie had quit her costuming job the night before. The director quoted Carrie saying she, “just wasn’t interested in doing costumes anymore.” She didn’t even want to finish out her commitment to Gypsy. She wanted it to be over immediately. The investigators interpreted her statement as a sign of depression and withdrawal and informally called the death a suicide.

The last strained conversation between us made Carrie’s death even harder for me. I was sent to therapy almost immediately – thank goodness for Mom and Dad who realized that this would be an incredibly hard time.

Ten years later, I’m still in therapy. The issues have changed, but not by much. I used to talk about boys who ignored me, and the absent friend who killed herself to get away from me. Now I talk about men who leave abruptly and women friends who never quite measure up to the ideal girl who left me long ago.

The latest in a string of therapists talked me into going back home to revisit the site of Carrie’s death. Others had suggested this cathartic visit before, but the prospect was too ominous. What if I found an errant blood splatter? I would pass out, for sure. But after a decade, I was ready to try anything to feel better. I wanted to be a whole person without the missing piece that Carrie took with her over the wall and into the quarry. I drove myself back to my hometown of Hovan and announced my intentions to my family. Dad nodded and went back to his paper, but mom knew how important this visit was. She got up from her chair and started to make me a lunch to bring on my trip.

“I don’t have any plastic silverware, so I’m going to pack a regular fork. Just make sure you don’t throw it out.”

“Mom, I’m not ten. Hello?” I grumbled.

The closest I could get to the field by car was about fifty yards away from the quarry edge. I parked back before the trees got thick and took my lunch. It was fall and leaves littered the ground. I sloshed through the crispy, brown piles to one of the trees where we had once picnicked in our medieval garb. The tree was almost bare today and it seemed fitting to close this open chapter of my life on a dreary day like this.

I turned at the sound of someone running through the leaves toward me and was hit immediately in the chest with something warm and heavy. I stumbled back and fell into a pile of leaves at the base of the tree. A sharp pain seared through my cheek as something tore into me. I shoved at its mouth and it bit into my hand. I heard a snarl and it dawned on me that this was an angry dog attacking.

I pushed and shoved, keeping the dog away from my bloody face and allowing him access to my arms instead. It must have only been a few seconds, but so many thoughts raced through my mind. Was the dog’s owner around? Would someone call him off? Was he breaking the bones in my hand?

I couldn’t catch a breath to shout for help. I took in short little gasps of air, but not enough to scream. I managed to shove the dog down hard and start running. In a second I was at the stone wall where Carrie had jumped. If she had gotten up there, I could too. I stretched upwards, but the top of the wall was at least a foot higher than I could reach. The dog sunk his teeth into my leg and I grappled at the wall - my fingers searching for a crack or crevice to stick my fingers. Nothing. This dog was going to tear me to shreds in the same place where Carrie died. How’s that for closure?

It was a second later that I remembered the fork. The dog was still hanging onto my thigh, so I dragged him a few steps back to the tree with me. My lunch was still there, in it’s paper bag. I ripped at the bag and mom’s stainless steel fork fell out into the leaves. I grabbed it and prayed that it wouldn’t slide out of my bloody hand. I turned to look at the wild-eyed creature still wrenching at my thigh and plunged the tines of mom’s fork into its bulging eye.

The beast didn’t let go immediately, but it did shudder and whimper. I yanked out the fork and plunged it in for a second time. Now the dog let go and staggered away from me. I limped as fast as possible to my car – looking back to watch the dog pawing at his face and twitching, ignoring me.

Inside the car, the whole thing seemed surreal. I was too dizzy to drive, but I had my cell.

“Hovan Police, what is your emergency?” the calm dispatcher asked.

“I was attacked by a dog. In the field by the quarry.”

“Are you in a safe spot now, hon?” the voice was concerned.

“Yeah. In my car.”

The dispatcher asked questions for the five minutes it took the Hovan Police cruisers to arrive. One officer came to my door while the other drew his weapon and went toward the wall. The dog was dead – fork still protruding from his eye. The officer asked if I wanted it back, but I didn’t think Mom would ever want to eat lasagna with that particular fork again.


I needed stitches for the spot on my cheek where the dog torn a large gash. My arms fared a little better; the wounds needed dressing, but no stitches. My thigh had several deep puncture wounds, which needed careful cleaning. The luckiest part was that the dog was not rabid – just hungry and angry. He belonged to a vagabond that had been camping in the field and hadn’t treated the dog very well.

The most incredible realization from the trip was the absolute certainty that Carrie didn’t kill herself. There was no possible way that she climbed up that wall alone. We used to be of similar height and I could not get my hands anywhere near the top of the wall to pull myself up. If Carrie went over the wall and down into the quarry, it was with the help of someone taller than both of us. Someone who I suspected was Darrel.

I mentioned my concerns to the Chief of Police and he reopened the investigation. Armed with my new information about Darrel and Carrie’s secret involvement, he contacted Darrel for questioning. Darrel was easy to find, still living in Hovan with his elderly mother. He worked as a builder off and on between drinking binges and hunting trips.

With a decade of guilt on their side, the detectives were able to get a detailed confession out of Darrel on their very first visit to his home. He told them everything about the tragic accident that led to Carrie’s death.

After weeks of clandestine make out sessions in the costume closet, Darrel had asked for the petting sessions to become more serious. He wanted to have sex. Carrie agreed and on Friday night after Gypsy, she left with him for the field. Darrel thought it would be wild to have sex on top of the quarry wall. After some convincing, he hoisted himself up and pulled Carrie up after him. The wall was about sixteen inches wide – enough room to lie still, but not to move without falling off. When Carrie reached behind herself to open the hooks of her bra, she rolled over too far and slipped off the wall.

It happened so fast that she was gone before Darrel even had time to register what had just happened. He stared after her as she silently plunged down to the rock floor. There was a faint thud, then nothing. It seemed impossible to explain; who should he even call? The police? She definitely didn’t need an ambulance. Her parents? He didn’t even know her home number. Darrel got back into his truck and drove home. No one was there and no one would be home for a few more hours. His mom’s shift at the convenience store ended at four in the morning. Darrel sat in the living room, letting the television drone in the background until she came home.

He woke up Saturday afternoon in the living room recliner with a blanket over him. There was a note on the kitchen table, “Went to the casino with my sister. Chicken in the fridge. Be back tonight. Mom”

With each passing day, it became easier to stay silent. No one ever talked to Darrel about Carrie. They searched for her, but no one specifically came to him and asked. He assured himself he would have helped them, if someone had asked. Ten years later, there were some days that he forgot her entirely. Those were the days that he muddled through the work site with a hammer and a broom, came home and drank a six-pack, but didn’t remember why he had started drinking in the first place.

When the police arrived at his door he remembered everything. They asked the right questions and he offered every detail he had. He not only knew what she was wearing and the exact time of death, but he knew that the top hook of her bra was undone. A fact that investigators had not published and had originally attributed to the fall. When the detective finished writing down the story and put away his notebook, he had one final question for Darrel:

“Why didn’t you tell anyone this ten years ago?”

Darrel shrugged, his greasy hair falling across his eyes. “I dunno. Nobody asked.”

To Carrie’s parents, the distinction between an accident and a suicide was an important one. Their daughter was not the depressed enigma they were led to believe, but just an ordinary horny teenager. To me, dead was dead. The closure I had sought had netted me several scars, an irrational fear of dogs, and at least one more decade of therapy.