Dawnsinger

I don’t remember the five stages of grief . . . in fact, Google tells me that some experts dismiss them as psycho-babble. But I know how it starts.

At first, you scream.

Yesterday afternoon, 22-year-old Chris Sanders was in our front yard, chatting with my kids. He was like a brother to Amanda, and a classmate of Sarah, who had just flown in from her post-Katrina home of Philadelphia. He was a “don’t need to knock” family friend who helped my wife with handyman chores and borrowed family cars. Friendly, athletic, respectful. I last saw Chris easily fielding a football thrown by the kid next door. His little white bike was leaning against the side of the house beside our driveway.

Ironically the news came today as we were watching the wrap-up of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. The broadcast was showing a rolling memorial of victims of muscular dystrophy who had died during the past year. I was just starting a holiday duty shift for NOLA.com. Between the TV and rushing to get up the latest alert on Hurricane Felix, I didn’t hear the clamor from the street. My wife ran in and yelled, “Jon, something’s happening outside!” In our life, that means run and be prepared for anything.

I wasn’t prepared.

Cop cars are still squealing up, choking our narrow street between its deep storm culverts. Emergency crews are pulling gear from ambulance and fire trucks. In the front yard of the house next door - repeatedly vacant since the owners gave up on our town after Katrina - officers are trying to contain a woman screaming in a voice that doesn’t seem human.

My daughter Amanda makes it to the milling mob before I do . . . then she is screaming and pulling her hair. An emotional punch to the midsection as I finally understand the woman’s shrieks, “Chris . . . Dead!” Things are spinning, and my wife is crying out.

First you scream.

Nausea comes as we discover that Chris’s mother, alone and searching for a son who never came home last night, is the one who found him. Steps away from our driveway, behind the house next door. Her anguished screams drew neighbors. I can’t bear to think about a parent living through that.

I run up my driveway, and see easily into the back yard.

Chris is lying on his face alongside the patio, feet drawn up slightly, hands drawn up and head twisted at a grotesque angle. Several cops are searching his pockets for ID. An officer pulls Chris up by one shoulder, and the whole body rises, in full rigor. His head, neck and arms are dark, purpled. I’ve done crime scene police photography. There’s no need for paramedics here.

A Mandeville officer walks up along my driveway, unrolling crime scene tape around the house, stretching it across the white bike and all the way to our side fence.

Beside Chris’s right hand is an aerosol can.

My wife runs up. I start to stop her . . . spare her the sight . . . but I drop my arm. There’s no way to avoid this.

Chris was as far into the justice system as he could be without being behind bars. On probation, he was subject to frequent, tough drug testing. He couldn’t do drugs . . . he couldn’t even drink without going to jail.

Chris turned to possibly the most dangerous way to get high: “huffing” - inhaling various vapors. He huffed alone, in cars, in hiding places. He was found frequently reeling or convulsing in the grip of the intoxication. The high came quickly and powerfully . . . but when it passed, Chris seemed clean and sober . . . and came up clean on drug tests. It wasn’t a secret . . . his mother, friends and neighbors had tried desperately to get him committed, arrested, anything. Police were called repeatedly, only to find a sober young man whom they released. Family friends had twice taken Chris to the parish coroner, the official who can order an involuntary commitment.

On this Labor Day 2007, the parish coroner was called a third time - to declare Chris dead.

The can lying beside Chris’s hand was fully legal. You may have used it to blow dust from your computer keyboard.

As the sun starts setting, one of the cops removes the crime scene tape. He takes Chris’s small white bike and rolls it toward Chris’s house.

The mother asks my daughter Amanda to get rid of the bike. It’s leaning against my garage.

I don’t remember what’s next . . . I’m still hearing the screams.