Last Chance Forgiveness

In addition to discharge papers from his service in the Navy, Billy brought back the scar of a shrapnel wound in his left shoulder and severe PTSD. Coupling this with the childhood trauma embedded in his soul, Billy was not a willing patient. Doctors removed the shrapnel from his shoulder in Saigon, but the difficult childhood memories and PTSD were embedded in his soul. His failure to connect with others continued even as an inpatient in the mental ward. He refused to cooperate with the doctors or the staff. There on the hospital’s third floor, he fell into a deeper, almost paralyzing depression.

“What now?” he would say to himself. “I would be better off dead. I just can’t cope anymore.”

Even though Petty Officer William Cole was suicidal, he refused to confide in the doctors. The hospital had no choice but to release him after two months as an inpatient. He was discharged with several prescription drugs to help him fight against depression. Billy didn’t take them. He was now a ticking time bomb set on self-destruction.

With no home to return to, Billy Cole again found himself living on the streets of Helena; he became a regular panhandler on Last Chance Gulch, the city’s main shopping area. If his panhandling was successful, the money was spent on very little food but always on alcohol in the form of cheap wine or beer. He received a small pension from the VA, but that was usually spent quickly for alcohol, maybe a couple of nights in a cheap motel for a shower and a few decent meals.

The winters in Montana can be brutal, and Billy would seek shelter from the cold nights wherever he could find it. Sometimes, shelter was in the hallway of an apartment building. Sometimes, he would stay in an all-night café until he was asked to leave, and he often spent the night in an unlocked church.

It was in a small church on one of Helena’s side streets where his life took an unexpected turn. He was especially depressed as of late. He had had enough of life and had a plan to kill himself that night. Enough was enough. After all, he told himself, who would miss me? His family wouldn’t care. He hadn’t talked to his parents since he left home, and he thought maybe his brother and sister would be better off without him. He hadn’t seen them since he left for Vietnam.

“Anyway, they’ve probably forgotten about me by now,” he said.

On that bitterly cold November night, Billy sat in the church pew. He opened the cap on a cheap bottle of wine he had stolen from a local drugstore. He knew what he had to do. Life was one hurt after another. His plan was to drink the whole bottle of wine. Then, with the knife he kept with him in his backpack, he would slit his wrist in front of the cruel God who did nothing to make the pain go away.