What I'll think of instead
In class, I tell my students about Jeanette Sliwinski.
How in July 2005 she attempted suicide by driving her Mustang eighty-seven miles an hour down Dempster and slamming full-force into the back of a stopped car. I tell them there were three guys in that car, all on their lunch break and waiting for a red light. “They were musicians in Chicago,” I say. “I went to their shows. Exo and The Dials, The Returnables and Silkworm.” I tell them I was lucky enough to know Exo’s Doug Meis through my friends Scott and Julie, to have talked with him at parties, to have laughed with him a few times. He laughed a lot, that guy.
“Jeanette Sliwinski,” I say to my class, “walked away with a broken ankle. The guys—Doug, and Michael Dalquist and John Glick—are all dead.” They had wives or girlfriends. Friends and family. Hundreds and hundreds of fans. They were stopped at a red light on their lunchbreak and in a single second they were slammed from behind at eighty-seven—EIGHTY-SEVEN—miles an hour.
They are missed. And mourned.
“The reason why I’m telling you this,” I say to my class, “is because I found out Jeanette Sliwinski had been a student here.” She was also a model, and maybe a stripper, she was twenty-three-years old and suicidal and certified bi-polar and since she killed Doug I’ve asked myself, What if she’d been in my class? Not her exactly, but someone like her? Someone who maybe, had I said the right thing at the right time, I could’ve effected in some small way so maybe she’d seek help, call a hotline, talk seriously to a friend or let me walk her over to student services, something so this horrible loss could’ve been avoided.
“All I’m saying is,” I tell my class, “if you’ve got something going on up here—” I gesture to my head, and my heart— “and you need someone to talk to, let me know and we’ll get some coffee. We can just shoot the shit, if you want, or maybe, if you need someone smarter than me, we can walk over to student services, or I can get you some phone numbers. Just please please please be aware of how your actions effect so many other people besides just yourself.”
What I DON’T say to my class is how, for nearly two-and-a-half years since this happened, as Doug and Michael and John’s wives and family and friends and fans have been awaiting Sliwinski’s trial (can you IMAGINE!? Your husband dead from someone else’s botched suicide and you have to wait for TWO AND A HALF years for closure?) I’ve been hoping they lock this girl up for life. Forget sunshine. Fuck keys.
I don’t say how Yeah, sure, mental illness, temporary insanity, untreated bi-polar, these are all terrible diseases and the victim can’t control herself and psychological help and leniency and blah blah she MURDERED THREE PEOPLE.
I don’t say how this horrible senseless f'ing stupid crime has called into question all sorts of things I thought I knew about myself, like what I think about the death penalty and the prison system and forgiveness and redemption and, yesterday: justice.
Yesterday, Jeanette Sliwinski was—finally—sentenced.
She got eight years.
Eight.
Of which she’ll serve half.
Which means, since she’s already been in Cook County for two and a half years awaiting trial, she’ll probably only serve one and a half to two.
Three innocent lives equals two years.
In my opinion, that’s an unspeakable math.
Thinking about it is just. fucking. infuriating.
Instead, I’ll think about this: in January 06, I attended a concert at the Metro for Doug and Michael and John, one part benefit (all the cash went to charities the guys supported), two parts healing and three parts rock. The room was packed, hundreds of people there to hear the guys’ music, celebrate their lives and dance their asses off. Also, the annual party that Scott and Julie now throw, a night to celebrate friendship and spend time together and remember what’s really important in this whole stinking life. Also, John Glick’s wife Rebecca, whom I’ve never met but who spoke yesterday at Sliwinski’s sentencing with more dignity, eloquence and power than I could ever hope to achieve were I in her situation and mostly, I think how when Christopher walks through that door after getting home from work, I’m going to hold him really tight and remember how lucky I am for every tiny moment.