BUMPING
by
W. Jack Savage
There was something different about the sense of urgency I
felt that morning. Having lived with the anxiety for some
time, I began to notice a certain positive influence it had
on me in some areas. For example, while it made me somewhat
scattered at times, I seemed less forgetful. I had always
been forgetful. It was as if going to the car had no
relationship with having the keys to operate it. I would
simply get there, pause, and realize the next step would be
impossible without keys. It annoyed everyone but me. The
truth is that I became somewhat good-natured about it. I’d
even laugh. Then, I’d go back to the house and get my
keys. Often, I’d repeat the process with my briefcase or
something else I’d need. But that morning it occurred to me
that preparation had somehow become a byproduct of
the stress.
It
would only be fair to say that the ominous feeling that came
with the urgency probably began with the dream. Suffice to
say, if I’m not going to find my way through these…these
problems in some way, it’s only natural to at least consider
some sort of final solution. That is, before these things
become the province of others to decide for me. I’ll not be
forgotten to death in some institution or wander off, only
to be absorbed into the ranks of the homeless. Be that as
it may, the point is that dreams of ending my life should
not be looked upon as anything other than a logical
progression in the cavalcade of “what ifs” which are still
mine to ponder. So, in getting back to the dream, the list
of what I would not do in such a case seems endless. No
guns, knives, razor blades, ropes, and heights could be
involved. Death by car or train, or in any manner likely to
cause pain, however momentary, could not be given any
consideration. Upon eliminating all possibilities of a scene
where people might gather, we are left with pills or some
kind of asphyxiation or suffocation.
In
some way, the pills I’m taking have kept me just this side
of the next step in the process of being dealt with, I
suppose. To that extent, they’ve bought me time. By that
reasoning, and still acting upon the hope that my condition
may improve, it would, somehow, seem ungrateful for me to
seek my demise with the very medications that have allowed
the time and reasoning to affect it. Therefore, cessation
of breathing functions in one of its forms is what we are
left with.
I’m
not sure, having never been there, but Santa Catalina has
always seemed more to me like Bali Hai from South Pacific.
Not Bali Hai itself, of course, but the picture of the
tropical paradise painted on some flat in some community
theater production. State of mind rather than a grid
coordinate. And, it occurs to me that for my state of mind,
deteriorating though it may be, to seek an ideal on the
horizon, never to be achieved, smacks of a poetic lucidity
that soon may be well beyond me. In the simplest of terms,
I’d go for a swim from Huntington Beach to Catalina. I’d
never make it, but I’d die trying. It could be a last quiet
struggle, the kind I used to enjoy such as college,
marriage, the service, and my other demons. Some won; some
lost, but with all the motivational tools brought to bear in
achieving an end from a beginning, or finding a beginning
after an end, as the case may be.
And
so I dreamt that I was swimming to Catalina, and it came to
me like a revelation. But then I felt it. As soon as I
did, I told myself that I didn’t. Then I felt it again, and
it seemed so impossibly unfair. All I wanted to do was swim
to Catalina for God’s sake! I certainly couldn’t make it.
I’d drown, but I’d spend myself in a final celebration of
splendid nonsense. But now this! I felt it again, and the
next thing I would feel, or perhaps the thing after that,
wouldn’t feel like splendid nonsense at all. It would feel
like death by shark and, before it was over, would make me
wish I’d been run over by some Orange County prick in a
speedboat. It was a bump. They bump before they bite — most
of them. Not the big ones, of course. They’ll suck you
down whole or cut you in half or any damn thing they want.
But nearly all the rest of them bump into you to see if you
might be something to eat. They don’t see well, I heard
once. I woke up murmuring to myself, “Well, it’s always
something.” It made me laugh. I laughed about it later,
too, but couldn’t remember the reason for the laughter.
That stopped it! But I find this condition more curious
than sad at the moment. In the time I have left, if I don’t
improve that is, I need to follow that curiosity to a
conclusion. I’m just not sure about Catalina anymore. I
did like the idea though, thinking it to be masculine and
extroverted. Two things I’ve never been, sadly, but there’s
no point in becoming deranged if you’re going to stand on
ceremony.
Quite a bit had changed by that time. I was still
driving my car but not on the freeway. Actually, I was
driving less and less, and it seemed my gas gauge had
broken. It never appeared to go down;
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