Forty Leap (2 page)

At one point, I got into an argument with one
of my co-workers. To begin with, I never got into arguments with
anyone. There was a situation once, when I first started working
with the company, where a co-worker, Denise something or other, was
stealing things from my desk. It wasn’t much, just little things,
but it was done in the spirit of antagonism. She was just a mean
old lady, a couple of years from retirement and she had chosen me
as a victim because she had pegged me as someone who would not
fight back. And she was right. I endured her torture for two years
until the day of her retirement. On her last day, she dumped a box
of my stuff (pens, pencils, some loose change, some really old
chocolate bars, etc…) onto my desk and thanked me for entertaining
her for the last two years of her career.

The doctors now suggested I see a
psychiatrist.

Well, I did just that. I couldn’t afford not
to get the root of the problem. Even a man who does and has nothing
feels that his life and his time are important. As did I.

We tried several things, the psychiatrist and
I. We tried to find a pattern among my blackouts. Maybe they were
caused by stress, maybe by some combination of the foods I was
eating, the television I was watching, the radio to which I
listened. Eventually, we tried hypnotherapy, but it was too
difficult to focus in on periods of such a short time. Even a
twenty minute period was difficult, but it was where we had the
most success. The doctor actually regressed me to my visit to the
hospital, had me accept the baggie, had me walk into the dressing
room, had me place the baggie on the bench, and then (
poof
!)
the nurse knocks on the door and I answer it. There was no gap
between the two events, just as it had appeared to me at the time.
Somehow, I had lost twenty minutes and my subconscious hadn’t even
bothered to take note of it.

Spooky.

Going back to the argument with the
co-worker. His name was Ralph Tennest. It was a Monday, which was
bad enough. My weekends were generally choked with catch-up work
concerning my mother’s affairs. Mondays at work were hard and
stressful. I had a hospital appointment that evening, which was a
constant source of aggravation. Afterwards, I would have to head to
my mother’s apartment and see to a left over piece of business that
I couldn’t manage the day before. At around 11:00 pm that night, I
would wander home and collapse into bed only to have to get up
several hours later and go to work again. The chaos of my life was
beginning to close in around me.

Ralph was a decent guy, not particularly
friendly, but with a good enough head on his shoulders and a
kindness that was deeper than the exterior. He and I rarely spoke
as I rarely spoke with anyone, but I didn’t dislike him and I don’t
believe he disliked me. It was getting on toward the end of the day
and I had been finding the ends of work days to be the most
stressful times of day. Work itself was constant and regimented. It
provided comfort where the rest of my life caused discontinuity and
discontent. As work came to an end and I knew I would have to face
the rest of my responsibilities, I would become increasingly
irritable. I knew this about myself, even then, but that didn’t
help me to control it. Ralph, walking past, stumbled over a lip in
the carpet and knocked against the cubicle. I had a picture of my
brothers and their families in a small frame leaning up against the
cubicle wall and it was knocked aside and fell to the carpet. It
didn’t break. It was no big deal. Ralph even grunted an apology.
But I snapped at him anyway. I can’t even write the words I said
because I don’t remember them (which is uncharacteristic for me),
but I do remember the look on his face. It was this morphing
expression that was born as shock, first from the insult itself and
then from the source. Finally, it turned to anger, to which I
responded with anger. We exchanged words, drawing the attention of
some of the other people around. Eventually, though, he simply
dismissed me and walked away, grumbling about how I choose to use
my words. It was ultimately humiliating and I could feel my cheeks
redden and my blood boiling. I sat like a statue until the last of
my colleagues had looked away and then I bent down to pick up the
picture.

It was no big deal. I was already more calm
by the time I had straightened up and replaced the picture. The
office had become eerily quiet and I stretched up to peer over the
sides of my cubicle. The place was deserted.

In a panic, I sat down heavily and looked at
the clock. It was 7:21 pm. I’d lost three hours. Three hours of my
life was gone.

“Mathew?”

I turned quickly to see my boss standing
beside me, a file folder in her hand, a look of confusion on her
face.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said.

“I…no…” How could she not see the utter
confusion mirrored on my face? How could she not know?

“Well, we all thought you’d taken off after
your argument with Ralph.”

No, I was just blacked out under my desk
for three hours.
“No. It was my fault anyway. I should
apologize to him.”

She didn’t seem to care. She was the type of
woman who had worked her way up the corporate ladder with spit and
venom. She treated her superiors the same exact way as she treated
her underlings. It wasn’t exactly unfriendly, but it wasn’t exactly
friendly either. She was on a first name basis with everyone and if
you did your job the way you were supposed to do your job she left
you alone. If you didn’t, she swept you out of the way. I think I
was just the type of employee she loved. I did my job and asked for
nothing. I don’t know whether or not it impressed her that I was at
work two hours after I was supposed to have left, but she said
nothing and walked away.

I hastily gathered my things and left in the
twilight of a May evening. I was already an hour late for my
hospital appointment so I decided to skip it. I called to tell them
what had happened and they seemed unconcerned. I didn’t speak to
any doctors, or even any technicians. The fact that I was missing
the appointment because of the very thing that caused me to have
the appointments in the first place didn’t interest them. And that
was the end of my hospital visits. Just like that.

Grabbing a quick dinner, I hurried it over to
my mother’s apartment. She was glad that I had come early and we
spent a couple of hours talking and watching television after I
finished up the paperwork. If you’ve never had to take care of a
sick parent, count your blessings. There were times when I felt
myself resenting her, even wishing she would just die already. But
those were selfish moments for which I paid the dear price of self
recrimination. In truth, she was an extremely important part of my
life that I dared not lose.

With the three hour blackout weighing heavily
upon my thoughts, I began keeping a log in a paper notebook which I
kept on my person at all times. Every time I would notice lost
time, I decided I would record it. I shared this with the
psychiatrist, but it didn’t help her to discover the cause of my
problem at all.

The next three weeks passed without incident.
At least, without the incident of a blackout. On May 19th, I
received a call at work that my mother had been rushed to the
hospital by ambulance and was forced to leave right away.
Ironically, they took her to the same hospital where I’d taken all
of those meaningless tests. By the time I arrived, the doctors
already had her in stable condition and were telling me that she
would be fine, or at least as fine as she had been the day
before.

Sobbing, I called Jeremy and told him what
had happened. Whether he cared less or he was just so stunned by
the fact that I was crying, he took the news emotionlessly. The
conversation was clipped and short until he asked, quite politely,
if there was anything I needed from him or Wyatt. That was the way
it was with the two of them. They were free to speak for each other
at any time. I suppose he didn’t expect me to accept his offer. I
never did. After all of those years, I knew that they preferred
their separation from the family. But I was on the verge of truly
breaking down and I not only accepted his offer, I begged him for
help. Even without the after-work hospital visits, I was truly at
the end of my rope. I could feel the layers peeling off of my
psyche and my psychiatrist, as good as she was, was not helping.
The futility of those visits just made things even worse.

I went home that evening, drew the shades,
turned on the television, and prayed that I would get no phone
calls. A news magazine show was running a story on the new face of
the Arab Nation. Normally, I am not a political animal, but just
this once I thought it might be a good idea to see that the
problems of the world were greater than my own. A man by the name
of Abdelaziz had formed what he was calling the United Arab Nation.
Through tremendous charisma and knowledge of his people and their
religious beliefs, he had been sweeping through Middle Eastern
countries and uniting their governments against Muslim terrorism.
In the space of a few short months, he had made great strides
toward accomplishing what America had not. And he was very vocal
and very public about it. The show was focusing on the world’s view
of Abdelaziz and his Nation. Many people glorified the man. They
were ready to give him a Nobel Peace Prize. But there were those
that were afraid. Continued presence in the Middle East by a
growing population of United States troops was creating more and
more anti-American sentiment throughout the world. Though Abdelaziz
himself never spoke of America in anything but a neutral manner,
there was fear that he would simply turn on us when he had the
support of the rest of the world and crush our way of life.

It all seemed very large and unlikely to me,
if not a little surreal. I had never been able to conceive of the
One-Man-Can-Change-The-World
theory despite history’s
teachings. For me the idea of stepping up and taking charge of
anything was completely alien.

I must have dozed off shortly into the
program because I came to with a start with little memory of
anything but a series of introductory clips. There was something
completely different on the television and the clock read 8:56.
Rubbing my eyes, I got out of the chair and went into the bathroom
to wash up. As I turned off the water, I heard the phone and
silently pleaded for peace.

“Hello?”

“Mathew?” It was my boss.

“Yes?”

“Are you sick?”

That was an odd question. “No.”

“It’s after nine.”

Some extra sense put me on my guard. From the
living room, I could hear the television spitting out the traffic
report. But there’s no news on at 9:00 at night. And there’s no
reason to give a traffic report.

“I overslept,” I explained weakly. “I’m
sorry. I’ll be in soon.”

She accepted the news and let it go, not
knowing that I hadn’t overslept. I hadn’t actually slept at all.
And I hadn’t blacked out either. There was no foul taste of sleep
in my mouth, no overnight’s growth of beard. I had sat down in my
chair and lost more than twelve hours. Somehow, I knew that I had
skipped those hours, just like flipping extra pages in a book. The
implications of the event were terrifying. I envisioned myself
skipping months or even years, coming to in an alien world with
people I didn’t know or recognize. I kept these revelations
carefully to myself, not wishing to alarm my mother in her fragile
state or, worse, illicit sympathy or aid from my brothers. I told
only my psychiatrist who, quite predictably, began to see me as
more of a mental case than a physical one. I think I stretched the
limits of her imagination to the point where she was sure I was
delusional. She suggested and even prescribed medication, but I was
averse to taking it. Unless I had shaved and brushed my teeth while
not knowing who or where I was, then I was not delusional.

My mother’s visit to the hospital turned out
to be a blessing in disguise. Through evidence left behind by her
collapse, the doctors were able to pinpoint her problem and begin
treatment. Treatments were three times a week and very taxing on my
time, but the results were noticeable and immediate. As she got
better, I began to settle down. Jeremy and Wyatt had to make fewer
trips to the city and things began to return to normal. All through
the rest of June and July, I saw my mother through what appeared to
be a complete recovery. We went twice together to visit the family
and I went twice by myself. Jeremy must have spoken with Martie
because her demeanor had changed somewhat. Behind her eyes, I could
still see the truth, but she had become cordial. Even Devin engaged
me in some conversation.

Things were going so well that Jeremy called
and asked if it would be okay for Livvie to spend a weekend with me
in the city. Livvie, being the only offspring of my brothers who
actually thought of me as a human being, had come up with the idea
as a way of both cheering me up and getting out from under the
oppressive glare of her mother for a weekend. I was only too happy
to accommodate.

We chose the weekend of August 18th for the
trip. My mother’s treatments ended on the 16th, a Thursday, so I
agreed to pick Livvie up at Grand Central the next day. At about a
quarter after five on Friday, I was waiting on the 59th Street
platform, surrounded by a throng of hot and uncomfortable rush hour
travelers. I was leaning over a bench, staring at a newspaper on an
empty seat. The headline read
ABDELAZIZ TO SPEAK AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.
For me what happened next was the most
uncanny experience of my life. It was almost as if the world had
just sped up around me until there was nothing but a buzz left in
its wake. And then I was almost alone on the platform. The
newspaper was gone, replaced on the bench by a homeless man who
slept soundly if not soundlessly. The station was silent except for
the hollow wail of the wind through the tunnels. Blinking, I
checked my watch and it read a quarter after five on Friday.
Immediately I began to relax. If time had not changed, then I had
not lost any time. Could it be that I was suddenly inside myself
during a blackout?