“I’m thinking…I think…”
Developing a sixth sense about impending and dreaded heart-to-heart talks has its benefits. Most significantly you can get a jump on an exit strategy well before you are called on to actually get in touch with either your feels or anybody else’s really. Save that stuff for the after-school special. I’m generally a sympathetic guy but like Lou Reed says, “I got no time to waaasssttee…”
“I think I’m going to kill myself.”
And there it is. My mind is racing. Mostly toward the flowchart of tri-level chess possibilities when this is your opening gambit. Specifically that I’m being told this because
1] the desire is that I stop them by telling them
1a] how much I care,
1b] asking what I could do to convince them that the world is a better place with them in it,
2] make an impassioned philosophical defense for life as a sacred sacrament, and/or
3] they need cash and have just gone to DefCon Level 10 in asking for it.
“Hey…” I pause because I don’t know if I really know how to say this. “…After you’re gone.…Can I have your pickup truck?”
…[I]f people getting mauled to death by bears want to spend their last few breaths trying to convince me, while I step over them, that they weren’t mauled to death by the bear that was mauling them to death, I’m happy to have them do so.
I neither smiled nor laughed when I asked because as much as he hadn’t been joking, I also hadn’t been joking. Life goes on and mine would be made immeasurably better by being able to drive a nice new Toyota pickup truck that his parents had bought him.
He looked down, cleared his throat, and just like that we were back on Planet Earth and to the job at hand: making our hustles pay out. At present, as far as I know, he’s the CEO and founder of an industrial concern of some sort. Life’s rewarded him nicely even if I still have not managed to have a pickup truck. His, or anyone else’s.
However, when I read some breathless series of keening tweets about Stephen Harmon, a California man in his 30s whose posts mocking the vaccine, that then detailed his getting coronavirus right before he died from it? The indignation series goes on to state that they think that anyone taking delight in his death needs to reexamine their understanding of how they tie into the parts of them that make them human.
Which is, really, when you think about it: totally rich.
But much like Mao who when he spoke of Maoism really meant some version of Me-ism, or later on, Al Franken, who believed that the decade after The Me Decade — largely believed to be the ‘70s — should be The Al Franken Decade, Stephen Harmon’s passing and the heat and light its generated just make me think…of me.
Specifically how, after years, hardcore years, of capital C belief in Conspiracies, I had gone all Princess Bride and believed, finally, that it wasn’t the poison (or the chips) in the vaccine that were designed to kill me but rather the disease that the vaccine was created for, which had actually been designed to kill me. And/or bleed me dry financially through the upending of whatever micro-economies have kept me alive.
And Harmon, in the grips of Hillsong Church, some evangelical, celebrity church “cult” whose larger claim to fame had been its connection to Justin Bieber, chose to not get a vaccine that, according to him and other fellow travelers, may (or may not) have protected him from the magical mystical disease that is, or is not, part of a wider political scam to? Well, to “you know….”
I hate to be callous (in actual fact I’m perfectly willing to be so), but the fact that there are now fewer people inline in front of me, really makes me think that things are looking up. For me.
And if people getting mauled to death by bears want to spend their last few breaths trying to convince me, while I step over them, that they weren’t mauled to death by the bear that was mauling them to death, I’m happy to have them do so. The bear’s otherwise engaged and in the larger sense I now am in a position to get my hands on whatever it is they’ve left behind that won’t attract bears.
“I think I have enough…to…you know…do it now.”
Karl had had a problem with crack when people had problems with crack. His solution? Heroin. To overdose on, because, no man, no problem.
It wasn’t and wouldn’t have been a workable solution for me, but who was I to tell him that his life was worth living? I don’t think my response was any more significant than a grunt though and so to drive the point home he invited me over to his apartment. And he OD’d minutes before I showed up.
“It’s what he was listening to when he died…” And through the clear plastic siding of his Walkman I could see he had been listening to OXBOW.
He was rushed to the hospital and when released, OD’d again. Was rushed to the hospital and on release again? OD’d again. On Sunday, the fourth consecutive day, after his release, he went home and OD’d for the final time.
While on the one hand I felt bad that he had died, and maybe a skosh that I didn’t do more to stop him, on the other hand his death, despite what the death certificate listed as accidental, was no kind of an accident.
“I think he wanted you to have this…” His girlfriend was handing me some of his stuff. Not the thousands of dollars of video editing equipment he used as part of his business that I actually wanted, but a portable music player. With a cassette in it.
“What is it?”
“It’s what he was listening to when he died…” And through the clear plastic siding of his Walkman I could see he had been listening to OXBOW.
I needed a Walkman. I would have liked a Walkman. But I declined this Walkman.
I never saw her again, and I, for sure, have never seen him again, but I find myself thinking about the now always-23-year-old Karl a lot more than I ever thought I would. So I guess while life is not for everyone the reality remains that there are very few ex-humans, like the recently departed Harmon, who are not missed by someone.
[Pause for an after-school special moment of reflection.]
Which hasn’t changed my opinion regarding the COVID vaccine and anti-vaxxers one iota. But, and I don’t know if I really know how to say this, after they are all gone…would it be déclassé for me to ask for their stuff I do want?
Answers on a postcard please.
I'm sorry (well, clearly not THAT sorry), but I have little sympathy for most of the anti-vaxxers. You can only tell somebody a gazillion times. If at that point, they consciously decide over a lengthy period of time to avoid it, then they (like your very determined friend) are bound by all that is fate and logic...to get what they get. I used to get my ex-wife out of jams far too frequently. Eventually I guess she decided I was the jam she needed out of. And finally I said to myself "Just...step out of the way..." And I did. I'm happier and better off for it. She crashed hard, but eventually got her shit together. And life goes on...
[...or in some cases doesn't, but we're not anybody's superman, nor are we their mama.]
What anti-vaxxers mean to me on one ol joke (sorry if this joke is known on us):
Guy find a fella kissing his wife on the couch. Kick the fucker out. Wife says fella forced the kiss.
Next week guy gets home again and find the wife gazing at the zipped out bird of other fella sitting on the couch with a curious look. Kick the fucker out. Wife says fella exposed himself out of the blue.
Third week and guy gets home to a third fella fucking his wife on the couch. Kick the shit out of the fucker and boot him out. Wife says fella raped her.
Guy know he has to do something about it, and do it fast and mercyless: sells the couch.
(Yeah, know its a shitty joke, but an acurate analogy)