It wasn’t fair, what he was doing to Leanne and the kids. Not that he was a scoundrel or jerk… What then?
He was just sick at heart, exhausted. He’d tried everything he could think of to make things better between him and Leanne, or even paper them over. Nothing worked. A malignancy had taken root somewhere between his gut and heart, which would eventually kill him—metaphorically speaking, of course. Spiritually. He could barely breathe whenever he became aware of it, which seemed to be more and more often, the resulting lethargy becoming pervasive, unavoidable.
It forced conclusions he didn’t necessarily agree with. Like, you can’t be fair to everyone else and yourself at the same time; honest with everyone else and true to yourself—not always, especially once the insulating passions of love wear thin, opening illegitimate pathways in the neural network, where the impetuous energy of human spirit will inevitably arc and short circuit.
Stop being melodramatic!
Brushing his teeth that morning, the unavoidable outcomes of his dilemma became clear. Buddy saw through the froth of tooth paste, past his gums, down his throat and esophagus, all the way into the pit of his stomach, and discovered creatures down there—rats scrabbling and gnawing away at the wiring. He recognized these phantoms as a species of delusion, of course. But… I’m not crazy! he decided.
“Got to go!” he said.
It was quick as that, his diagnosis. Something had snapped inside him, like a dried wishbone, and he had to find out what, and why, and how, or?
I sure as hell will go insane.
So, at 61, a year into early retirement, he packed a tote bag with the things he thought he’d need, tossed it onto the back seat of their aging Matrix, along with a sleeping bag and some camp gear, and took off. In that moment of departure, as he turned right off Sunnyside and accelerated down Craigflower toward View Royal and the Trans Canada Highway, his whole past fit into the lurching frame of his rear-view mirror.
It made me seasick, watching it telescope away.
All time, all space, every trace of who he was or ever could be existed inside the rocking car, rolling along on its humming tires. I am ‘Now’ with a capital ’N’, he figured, with ‘Nowhere to go.’
Inevitably, rhizomes of his past would burrow through him. He expected that—memories mushrooming into consciousness at inconvenient moments, sprouting from irreducible spores in the contaminated soil of his future. Perhaps triggered by the haphazard collection of images in the photo library of his mobile phone; or his aptly named Music to Go By collection of downloaded Spotify tunes, which Gloria and Robbie had helped pull together to usher their prehistoric dad into their 21st century, their future…
What future? That was the question—the one he didn’t have an answer for. At least not one he wanted to know.
Everything else he left behind, including his note to Leanne on the dining room table. He didn’t think she’d be too surprised at what it said. I need space, Lea. Don’t want to go gently into that good night. I want to rage, rage against this dying. So I’m taking some leave time to figure out if there’s anything worth the effort of waking up to in the morning. I’ll keep you posted. Take care. Love Buddy.
It took him a couple of hesitant seconds to close with an avowal of love but in the end, he figured it was true, even if its shelf life had expired.
He’d torn this parting message out of his brand new Cambridge note pad, folded it, and placed it at her end of the table—a gesture that felt like laying a wreath, despite the note’s hint at open-endedness. On the way out the door, he switched his mobile off. By the time he twisted the key in the ignition, he’d pushed through his misgivings.
“Gotta go!” was to be the day’s mantra.
Would Leanne shout a visceral “Fuck!” after him? Would she crumple the note and throw it into the garbage? File it away for future use? He couldn’t allow any of that to matter, had to get far enough away that there would be no turning back, rattling up the drive, and snatching his note off the dining room table before she got home from work.
Next: Critical Thinking