I was sitting in a smoky bar a few weeks ago when I had a conversation with some slick dude. He was one cool customer.
We talked at length about jazz and Star Trek and poetry and beatniks. The subject of Hunter Thompson was touched upon and how he left the world on short notice. Then he told me an interesting little tale.
He mentioned that he himself was also sometimes subject to bouts of depression. He mentioned that when he was in middle school a close friend of his took his own life. Ever since then, he said, that option became an open door. And so, whenever he feels down, he contemplates taking his own life.
I was plenty taken aback by this fella’s candidness. He seemed to me to be so on-the-ball. It was plain to see that this guy was not the kind too take that way out. And he wasn’t, he assured me. He couldn’t. He had his reason.
He said that in a weird way he owes his life to a religious fanatic.
IT was a few years back at a family reunion where he met this flipped out chick. Let’s call her Rachel. Not because that is her name, but rather because that could have been her name.
She did indeed love the Lord and carried out his work and interpretations thereupon verily in every breath. Like this one time she couldn’t find her damn bible. She claimed that Satan stole it. A day later, she found her bibe in the trunk of the car, exactly where she packed before the trip but forgot to look upon arrival. She told anyone who would listen that the Lord smited Satan and put her bible back in the trunk. She let everyone know the Good News. She found her bible because God made the devil put it back. Just so you know, he said, what kind of client we’re dealing with.
But on the last day, when all adieus were said and meant, she came up to our traveler and told him that she had a feeling that she needed to be praying for him. And that was it.
Whenever he feels low, he thinks of Rachel and her divine fussiness. He knows, said he, that should anything bad ever happen to him, she will most assuredly be there to flap her hands around and proclaim how she knew she needed to pray for him and all that. Of that she was sure. She’ll have been praying for him.
And now, he said, he has something to watch over him even stronger than self-preservation. He knows that even in his darkest hours, he’ll never do something that could destroy himself. Because deep down inside, he’ll remember his vow that he’ll never give that bitch the satisfaction.
Then he drank up quickly, paid for both our beverages and was gone in a flourish.
What a novel concept, thought I. Brothers, parents, friends, Lil Wee… of course we’ll stick around for them. But then there are sanctimonious buttheads like Rachel… we’ll stick around just to piss them off. And therein lies the shaker of salt.