This kind of man, p.16
This Kind of Man, page 16
It’s a nice image, but one he can’t maintain, even as abstraction. His wife has long since given up, on him, if not their son, and it’s time for him to embrace the clichés of failure: see the writing on the wall, play the hand he’s been dealt, and do whatever it is a man does when there’s nothing but closed doors and silence surrounding him.
(More guilt. Does he wish his son had never been born?
Been there, done that. That’s old news and, if not resolved, acknowledged. No, it’s at a whole other level now, a level he would never have imagined possible, even when they were more than half-way into this never-ending mess. He finds himself now, and not infrequently, wondering if it would all be for the best if he’d never been born. And that gets to an uglier place in a hurry. Once you begin not caring if you didn’t exist, it’s not a long way to the next exit where you don’t especially mind if nobody existed.)
Here’s the part of the story where he gets back in the car and takes off, taking it upon himself to finally make some decisions.
Like driving home right now, pouring out four fingers, or however many it will take to keep the Scotch sluicing around his tongue until, mercifully, he can’t think or feel anything at all.
One final door to walk through.
Out to his garage, where he’ll wait in the running car as the exhaust works its invisible magic, like incense in an old church—this holy ghost the one that will actually show up, addressing, at last, all his unanswered prayers. At last, a certain way to shrink this spiraling world and its too many problems to count down to a size in which he could finally sleep, but forever.
Maybe, after all this, the last question is one he asks himself.
What are you waiting for?
Waiting
He waits.
He looks out the window and he waits.
He doesn’t look at the magazine, the one on top of the others littering the table, the one last picked up by the last person who sat in this room.
He stands, not wanting to sit, not wanting to look down at the magazine. He looks down at the magazine, which stares up at him, defiant, disinterested. The magazine didn’t ask to be brought into this room, it didn’t ask to be read or ignored, to be picked up and put down, to be digested and then discarded.
He stands, knowing that if he thinks about the magazine he wishes he wasn’t looking at—the magazine he won’t read—he won’t think of the things he doesn’t want to think about.
He doesn’t walk into the corridor to look into the room that his wife isn’t in.
He waits.
He understands—anyone who has been where he is understands—that you must prepare yourself to wait a long time. So, you prepare, and you wait. And then, it’s even longer than that, longer than you remember. Much longer. He remembers: standing, then sitting in this room, almost the exact same spot, twice already (third time is the charm, he doesn’t think) and still can’t help being surprised at how long he’s had to wait.
He waits.
No one talks to him (they know who he is and why he’s here), and no one knows the story he could tell (it’s the same story everyone who has stood where he’s standing would tell).
He stands silently, shifting and sorting his awareness that, eventually, they’ll bring her to the room. When they bring her to the room, he’ll see her. He’ll see her seeing him, then see her seeing him see her. And then she’ll ask him, and he’ll have to tell her. He’ll try not to tell her, and she’ll look at him and remind him that he has to tell her.
He waits.
He wishes they would hurry up (hurry up and get it over with, he doesn’t say) and then he hopes that they’ll never come so he can stand, peacefully paralyzed.
Eventually, he looks at the table, and the magazine that waits for him to pick it up. He doesn’t pick it up.
He sits down and doesn't think about the nothingness that surrounds him, the nothingness around him, and the gnawing nothingness inside him. He doesn’t notice the plants, or the paintings, or the cheerfully colored curtain that doesn’t quite cover the light outside. He doesn’t allow himself to contemplate the sterile silence screaming all around him, the vacant spaces, and the odd energies of dying life. Most of all, he doesn’t think about it: how impossibly clean people, in impossibly white clothes, speaking impossible to understand languages, using impossibly powerful tools and technology do everything they can, but still can’t keep it from occurring.
He finds himself staring, again, at the magazine; the magazine he’s picked up without realizing it. He doesn’t open the magazine that, under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have the slightest inclination to read. He doesn’t open it and therefore does not, among other things, learn about which foods would improve his sex drive and help him sleep more soundly, he does not find out ways to make his partner reach new levels of ecstasy every time, he does not peruse his horoscope to see what the future has in store for him, he does not discover the secret to losing ten pounds in only three days, and he does not skim the interview explaining how the fragile millionaire singer lost the chance at making millions more dollars after having a nervous breakdown while filming a commercial for a soft drink she wouldn’t otherwise endorse.
He waits.
He doesn’t pass the time planning opportunities that could create happiness. He doesn’t deceive himself (this time) about the possibility of forgetting the present by focusing on the past. He doesn’t dwell on the types of things they would enjoy doing again; the things they enjoyed, once, which they never found the time for, or always forgot to do. He doesn’t think about the ways you discover the things you love, then, become the things that bring about inexplicable sorrow: the movies, the music, the meals, the books, the board games, the photo albums, the family.
And so: he doesn’t allow himself to think about her as she is now, or how she was then. Or how he is now, or how he was then. How he will be.
He looks down at the magazine, again, and picks it up, again.
He understands that the second he opens the magazine they will arrive, wheeling her down the hall like the enigmatic magicians they’re trained to be. If he opens the magazine, the magic act, performed (again) before an awkward audience, will begin. So, he waits.
He stands up and looks out the window, at the horizon, beginning to disappear in heavy air beneath the tops of the trees. He looks down, far below, where miniature people inside miniature cars sit in miniature rows, slowly moving forward in the direction of their miniature houses and the miniature respites awaiting them. The sky continues to sag, ensnaring the world in its unspeaking sentry. The people, and then the cars, and then the earth all slip away, leaving only lights that sigh stoically, bearing witness to it all. He looks down at the waning waves of lights, and these lights do not look like a thousand sets of eyes, they do not make the darkness more discernible, they do not appear as poetry. They’re exactly what they are: they are progress, they are pain, they are power. They are the cold crucible of machines that control the lives of the men who make them.
He doesn’t let himself think about these things. He has too many other things not to think about.
He doesn’t turn around.
He’ll hear them, eventually, when they come.
Eventually they will come, and he will hear them, and then he will turn around.
Then, he will...
He looks down, again, at the magazine he will not read. He knows, again, that if he opens the magazine, they will come.
He sits silently and stares at the magazine. He stands and looks out the window. He does not turn around.
He waits.
Gethsemane
The first thing he realizes is that he’s awake and thinking about his father.
Or is he still asleep, and dreaming?
He opens his eyes and looks at the faces looking at him.
He’s been here before. Not just literally, either. He has envisioned it, more times than he’d care to count. The near-deathbed experience, surrounded not by friends, or family, but impassive professionals.
Okay, I’m ready, he thinks. Let’s get on with it.
He knows why he’s here. Aside from the fact that he’s dying. He’s here because he’s still alive. He’s still alive because he hadn’t had the nerve to do what he always figured he’d do. What he promised himself he’d do. What he promised himself he’d do, if the time came when he was facing what he’d seen his mother endure. What his mother endured, exacerbated by the fact that she’d watched her mother endure the same, only worse. A curious inheritance handed down successive generations: the fear of some certainty, neither premonition nor resignation, just an inability to forget, and a refusal to deny what was, eventually...inevitable. Even if cancer wasn’t the culprit, some other sort of death was, and no one who dies before they’re ready (is anyone ever ready?) can be said to have died happily.
Nevertheless, he had, finally, been unwilling to do himself in as he imagined (hoped?) he would (could?). There were at least two reasons for this, aside from cowardice.
The first, his grandchildren. His daughter was going to have to deal with enough once he went, anyway: the coffin, the funeral, the insurance, the paperwork—all the mess he’d dealt with after his parents died. It was unbearable to imagine how his grandchildren might react, especially as he was convinced his daughter would tell them the truth. They would be mortified, or worse, frightened (angry?). No matter what damage he’d done, or the negligible good he’d counteracted it with, imparting trauma to the only two human beings he loved without reservation, was not a possibility he could tolerate. So, no ugly—if expedited—self-imposed ending.
The second reason was surprisingly simple: he wanted to live.
You can’t just turn it off. Or else, you must be badly wired, or past the point of reason. Or very, very brave. And committed. Plus, as bad as things had become, they weren’t...that bad. The physical pain he could, for the most part, handle; anticipation, he knew, was half the battle. He saw what his mother had faced, and knew how much easier, relatively speaking, it was today. His mother, and especially her mother—those were times when the treatments weren’t as advanced and the medicine was not as effective. Add to that the ridiculous implications of religious belief; that any type of assisted death was an affront to God’s will. At least his father had been out of the picture by that point, having seemingly made his own deal, or else had his prayers answered: heart attack, one and done, here and gone. It was arduous enough helping his mother over the finish line without Mr. “The Lord has a plan” insisting faith was more effective than morphine.
He had figured out that existence was an unending stream of pain and boredom, occasionally punctuated—if we’re lucky—with good times, which become the memories we cling to like life rafts. And a little perspective never hurts. Imagine being in Calcutta, or Somalia, or just about anywhere in the world, without means, without a chance. If Catholicism had equipped him with one advantage, it was an ability to appreciate how comparatively lucky he’d been; how anyone born white and not a woman had zero excuses from the word go. It prepared one, however morbidly, to confront the disappointments and despair.
About the despair: The discomfort, the inconvenience, the relentless dissipation of vitality, all these things he had foreseen. But nothing, he’d found, and come to fear, could adequately prime you for the mental aspect. Everyone knows at some point we simply...go to sleep. We don’t feel anything anymore and are released from consciousness, certainly from our suffering. But all of that occurs once biology (chemistry?) takes over. Getting from here to there? That had proven more difficult than he’d anticipated.
So here he was, waiting for something he couldn’t control, a conclusion he couldn’t orchestrate.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Searching (still?) for some way out, not yet ready to let go, anything (still!) to avoid the inexorable.
Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.
So, this is what it was like: alone, finally, time to walk forward into...nothing. Even the son of God had his moment of doubt, abandoned in the garden of Gethsemane. And if He could waver, what hope was there for anyone else? What, after all, was He afraid of? He was God. What was crucifixion, a few moments of agony compared with an eternity of bliss? Peace everlasting, et cetera. The MVP of all of us, for all time, honored forevermore. Who wouldn’t volunteer for that assignment?
Hey, are you up there? Is anyone listening? Make some noise, for Christ’s sake!
Do you have your affairs in order?
Doc, that’s how I got into this mess in the first place, he’d wanted to say. That’s a good line, he’d thought. Damn shame he’d never have the opportunity to share it with anyone. It was too flippant, too unserious. Too true.
The joke’s on me, he’d thought, the day he received his diagnosis—the one he always knew was coming for him, like an intractable collection agency.
How long? he didn’t ask. It didn’t matter. From everything he’d heard, and seen, it was always quicker. Always. Besides, he’d already made the obligatory effort, the whole Let’s try chemo and beat this son of a bitch! Had it helped? Perhaps it had bought some time; most likely it had prolonged things, all those days paid for in puke, incontinence, insomnia, and the inability to feel like a human being for even five seconds on any particular day.
But he’d dealt with it, because that’s what one does.
Maybe if he’d had someone to talk to, someone he trusted, they could have spit-balled the options, calculated risk vs. reward, and so on. When the oncologist mentioned chemotherapy, it sounded like a teacher asking if he’d finished his homework. They make you feel like no is not an option. Unless...you’re a coward, a quitter. Plus, you never knew, there were exceptions, percentages, even the all-elusive miracles. Mostly, chemotherapy was something he’d known would be part of the deal, no point in taking short cuts when it would all be over soon enough, anyway.
So, when that surgeon (why did they always look so healthy, anyway? Did they ever get sick? Were they even human?) asked him, at once a cliché and a formality, if his affairs were in order, he couldn’t ascertain if he’d never been more eager for a reprieve from death, or ready for an imminent—and merciful—exodus from life. What his life had become. What he had done to his life.
Even then he knew. If he left his wife for a younger woman, it probably wouldn’t work, no way it could end well. If he left the woman who loved him, he’d wind up alone, one day, dealing with some type of catastrophe. He also knew if he stayed, he’d never get sick and risk spending the entirety of his long, healthy, and predictable life wondering. Not quite fulfilled, still curious, still lacking...something.
And so, he’d been practical enough (or stupid enough) to understand: if you only get one go-round in this world, you’re already playing with house money the minute you’re born. What else is there to do but double down and dare fate to call your card?
That dalliance: it didn’t really last long enough to call it a relationship, was over even faster than he would have imagined in the worst-case scenario. So fast he contemplated actually begging his wife, his ex-wife, to forgive him and take him back. But that wasn’t going to happen, of course. That same loyalty he could have counted on, ‘til death did they part, was now disgust. Or worse, ambivalence. At least his daughter merely despised him; his wife just...nada. Women can flip it like a circuit, all-in or nothing at all.
He’s asleep again or wherever it is you go when you’ve pushed that button beside the bed enough times. You can never press that button too often, which is why they make sure your super juice is doled out judiciously, like a bunch of officious traffic cops eyeing the meter. His mother reached the point where she would get angry (Why isn’t it working?) then pleading (Why do I have to wait so long?). He’s noticed that every time he pushes it, it’s working—they’re not making him wait. That’s good. But also not good; that means it’s...bad.
His mother, in one of her last lucid moments, told him it was all almost worth it for the way the medicine made her feel. She explained, wide-eyed like a child seeing Santa Claus, that whatever they put inside those clear plastic bags, flowing like an ocean of serenity into her withered and bloodless veins, made her covet more time; anything just to experience that ecstasy as long as possible.
And he’d thought: maybe Huxley was onto something with his Soma: “All the benefits of Christianity and alcohol without their defects.” Well, that’s what he’d been searching for, with increasingly diminished returns, most of his life. Sure, whatever we consider reality would be bereft of authenticity, but if you could eradicate all earthly pains, who cares? It must be what a great white shark feels like every second of every day: just swimming, killing, sleeping. But does Jaws even know how good he’s got it? Do we detect any arrogance in those impassive eyes? Do sharks have souls?
He’s in confession, again.
A scared little boy, not smart enough to lie, too sensitive to see through the charade. What a sadistic ritual, making children feel ashamed at such a young age (if I should die before I wake?), and that’s just for the things an 8 year-old can bring himself to admit.
And yet, was there not some value in having a semblance of self-control instilled, by any means necessary? Did it not set certain expectations that, even if no one else was watching (He sees you when you’re sleeping), you were accountable for what you did? Did this convention deter some percentage of the psychopaths who might otherwise prey (Let us pray!) upon society? It would never be enough to eradicate all the atrocities, but if some less-than-secular mechanisms were put in place, total despair could perhaps be forestalled?
