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Show PAGE 8 THE ZEPHYRJAN-FE- B From the Desk of the Zephyr On-the-Ro- ad 1994 "Two days had gone by. While I was working out the technical problems of getting dead, I was driving around in a rented car looking at the scenery of my childhood If I told you what I was thinking, I'd be making it up. Because I don't remember. It was a dream in a way and a 1 serious review of my past in another, but words don't apply -- was way down in the basement of my soul somewhere. some wide masking tape. That night "My plan jelled I bought a vacuum cleaner hose and off on a dirt road, and drove turned hundred of miles, I drove out in the plains for a couple then in through a wing window and farther. I parked Tried taping the hose to the exhaust pipe of the car. "What was going on in your mind then?" "It felt like a contest between three people. "One wanted to get it over with. Another seemed to think it was funny, and the third was obsessed with the taping problems, never mind the consequences. I remember the conversation, along the lines of - 'Can't you hurry up,' 'He'll never do it' and 'The only problem is this tape you bought' "The trouble was that the hose was round and the exhaust pipe was oval, and I had to make the connection by using lots of tape to span the difference in shape. When I ran the engine, the heat of the exhaust melted the adhesive on the tape, and the hose fell off. "It was funny. How absurd Too dumb to do something so simple right. I was protected from I myself by my own incompetence. I began to laugh. I couldn't even kill myself. laughed to the paint of hysteria, which turned into sobbing grief, which turned into silence broken by renewed laughter. Maybe I could just sit here and die of stupidity. I could see the headlines. MAN MANAGES TO DUMB HIMSELF TO DEATH - SUCCUMBS TO EXHAUSTION BROUGHT ON BY TOO MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS TO DO AWAY WITH HIMSELF. By Robert Fulghum Inner conversations with myself - between me and my dummy - and me and my committee -are often confusing to me. They would be even more so to an observer. But these are the conversations that take place in that secret room where the hard work is done. I want to speak from there. Perhaps putting the conversations into a form will help: self-intervi- "What's the best meal you've ever eaten? " "Chicken broth and sal tine crackers." "Come on, get serious. " kid you not At a New Year's party about ten years ago, I drank most of a bottle of Greek brandy - at the same time that I was unknowingly incubating the worst case of influenza I've ever had. By morning I had an hangover I I moved. I flu. head time so moaned the with bad hurt Hong Kong My every simultaneously I cried. For so bad hours ached down. the shower in and My body spent throwing up throwing four days, I thought I was going to die. I welcomed death. "Late on the fifth night, I began to feel hungry. At three o'dock in the morning, I cautiously risked a teaspoon of hot chicken broth and one saltine cracker. Yes...OK! Suddenly, I knew my ordeal was over. Anything going down was not coming back up. "So I had a whole potful of chicken broth and a whole box of crackers. Nothing, nothing ever tasted as good to me. Best meal I ever ate." "The best feelings in your life come when you start feeling good after you've been feeling just awful. " "True for all crises - small and large." "Tell about a large one. " "How about the time I tried committing suicide? Twenty-fiv-e years ago. "A harsh time. Everything on my plate seemed foul and rancid --job, marriage; career, friendships, family life, and future. "Ironic that I was a volunteer at the time on a answering service for a crisis center. Desperate people called in the middle rtf the night and said they were considering suicide. I resigned my post when I begin to think they were on the right track. Getting dead began to seem like a good idea to me." "I twenty-four-ho- ur "What did you do?" "One morning - one Monday morning -- 1 just ran away from home. Got in my car, drove to the airport, and caught the next plane leaving. It was going to Texas, the last place I had in mind, but since Texas was where I grew up, probably the place I unconsciously wanted to be - back to the beginning to complete the drde or find where things started going wrong - or something -- -- 1 don't know..." "What did you do when you got there?" "Tried to buy a gun, but there was a waiting period if you were from out of state. So shooting myself was out. Which was OK with me because I didn't really want to shoot myself and make a mess somebody else had to deal with." "What next?" "I looked for something to jump off of, but there wasn't any place high enough in that part of Texas, and then there was the mess factor again. TOM f?EE CONTRACTING "Man too dumb to live - that's me. "But what if I had succeeded? I had this vision of my corpse sitting up at the wheel of this rented car out here in the bushes in the middle of nowhere and the world going on without me - and it seemed like such a meaningless thing to da "And I began to think of my ancestors - considering that I was alive now because a lot of men and women before me had been able to take whatever life threw at them and go on. My genes had been through the Dark Ages, through the Black Death, across oceans to an unknown land, through wars and bad marriages and bankruptcy and all kinds of defeats that made my problems seem like a picnic. Toughness was permanently engraved on my genes. How could I give up here? How could I throw all that away? "I began to laugh again. Death isn't what I wanted. It wasn't less life I wanted, but more life -life with meaning. And if I wanted something to laugh about, I had found that, all right: me, forever me - no bigger fool than I. "And I never felt better in my life than at that moment The best feeling in the world comes when you start feeling good again after you've been feeling awful" "So then what happened? " "Returning home after running away to kill myself was really awkward. For one thing, I was mood. I felt like Lazarus after his resurrection. in a great, exuberant, I "On the other hand, had upset my family and friends, and I expected a stormy scene with my wife. Oddly enough, she was calm. On reflection, I suspect she probably had wished at times that I would just disappear or drop dead When it seemed like Ault's exactly what I'd done, she went through a reality check of her own. "Her response was a complete surprise. "She had bought me a gift life-affirmi- "A canary. A yellow, living, singing canary. "I'm not a pet person. Yet here was this beautiful bird hanging in a brass wire cage in the window of my room - singing as though the joy itself were distilled in its song. How absurd! How wonderfully right. I remember shouting at it,'SING, BIRD, SINGT "Within a year the marriage ended, and the bird escaped while its cage was being cleaned But I'll always love the mother of my children far the gift of empathetic grace in the form of that canary, which still sings in the sunniest window of my soul and welcomes me home from my ongoing bullfights." Bullfights ? What bullfights? Tell me about the bullfights." "When I was a young man, I accompanied my father cm a business trip to Mexico. We went to the Plaza de Toros in Mexico Gty to see the bullfights. A wonderfully terrifying experience. And embarrassing Experiencing in public the fear and blood and death and the mad energy of the crowd was too dose to images of terror and loathing I had hwmH in my nightmares and fantasy. I cried "This powerful experience has kept me attached to bullfighting over the years, though I have never again been to a live event I've read many books, collected photographic essays, seen and talked aficionados with movies, and two professional matadors. "It is not that I like bullfighting as such. But it's the dearest metaphor I have in my mind for the with of demon dark, death that runs loose in the arena of my mind from dealing dangerous time to time. Happy New Year From the Sharp-dresse- d Man for all Seasons. Cabinets - Furniture - Doors and Custom Interior Finishing Custom Homes - Additions Remodeling ft CVSR 1806 Moab, UT (801) 84538 859-789- 6 |