Opposing Abnormality

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I drive my burgundy Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme up and down the rows of the parking lot at my workplace, looking for a free spot. After thirty minutes, I find one. Then I walk from the back of the lot all the way to the entry door of an ugly brown building. There is a foul-smelling hallway; I take the sixth door on the right. It is a small office with tables and phones.

“You’re twenty minutes late,” sez Jan, my supervisor.

“I had to find a parking spot,” I say, pulling up a folding chair and taking a seat before the telephone on the table that’s been ringing since I entered.

“Hold on a sec, will ya?” sez Jan into the phone that she’s cradling between her shoulder and neck; then she turns her attention to me and sez: “That’s a lie. You lost track of time because you were eating breakfast tacos.”

With my hand on the still-ringing phone, ready to take the call, I first pause and answer my supervisor: “No, I swear; there were very few spots available. It’s probably because there’s some sort of special event going on at one of the other small businesses in this building.”

Jan the Supervisor makes a shocked expression: “Oh, that’s right, I forgot — the Protestant Prayer Hub is having their gun show. Alright, sorry: I’ll believe your story.”

“Whew, thanks!” I say. Then I pick up the receiver: “Hello, Suicide Line; this is Bryan. How may I help you?”

During the silence between my question and the caller’s answer, I hear my supervisor Jan in the background return to her own call, saying: “OK, I’m back — hello? can you hear me? are you still there?”

After some weeping and sniffling noises, I hear a voice on the other side of my own phone’s line reply: “My name is Josh.”

“Hi, Josh, what brings you to call us, here at the Suicide Line, today?”

“Well I’m an artist and I live in the U.S.—”

“Oh my god, DO IT!” I shout, before he can finish his introduction.

“Do it?” sez Josh.

“FREE YOURSELF!” I say. “DO IT QUICKLY, BEFORE ANYONE CAN INTERFERE!”

“Jeez,” sez Josh; “that’s not what I expected. I thought you’d try to talk me out of it.”

“We’re wasting precious moments, Josh,” I say. “I’ve got a lot of callers waiting, so I’m gonna hang up now — DO IT!” then I slam down the line.

The telephone immediately starts to ring again. I lift the receiver:

“Yes, Bryan here. Suicide Line. Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“Um, hello,” sez a timid, shaky voice; “I was… actually, I think I’ll just say goodbye — you can’t talk me down.”

“Hey,” I shout, “can you hold on long enough for me to give you just one word of advice?”

“Go ahead,” sez the voice.

“Do it immediately,” I urge. “You are completely right in your instincts. This world is for the dogs. Or the next species of aliens, rather.”

There is a pause; then the voice sez: “OK, thanks for the pep talk.”

“Hey, no problem; that’s my job,” I slam down the phone. Then I pick it up directly, because the moment the handset is replaced, the thing starts ringing again immediately — and its bell is very shrill and annoying, so I’d actually rather just deal with the callers than try to ignore them.

“Hello, Bryan here at the Suicide Line. What can I do ya for?”

“Hi Bryan, this is Mary. I’m calling because my son Josh apparently spoke with you recently, and you gave him some advice. I know this because he left behind a note, which ends with your contact info and some praise of your wise counsel. (Those are his words.) Also in the note, my son explains the reason he took his own life: He mentions the difficult relationship that he had with my husband, his father. Josh writes that, quote, ‘although I believe dad truly loves me, I feel that his deeper wish is that I should hang myself to atone for my shortcomings’, unquote. So that’s what my son Josh went ahead and did; and now I’m depressed — I wish that I had never given birth, since the child came to such a bad end. I just wish I could turn back time and be pure again, and refuse conceiving, even immaculately, to save any potential children from future suffering. — I guess that’s why I decided to dial your number: I was thinking self-slaughter might help.”

“O, mother Mary, you called the right place — it indeed is the answer to all of your problems,” I explain. “What happens is that, after expiring, you get reborn as a fresh, young virgin bunny on Easter, just like your son. Then, you can lay as many eggs as you want, cuz God loves you.”

Following a pregnant pause, Mary answers: “O, that’s great — thanks so much for all your help!” (She now bursts into tears.) “I can’t express the level of stress that I’ve been under, trying to wrestle with this moral-ethical dilemma.”

“No dilemma: it’s an imperative,” I say. “Go and do it, right NOW. — I’ll stay on the line, if you need me to guide you…”

“No, no, that’s OK,” sez Mary, regaining her resolve; “I’ve got a chair and a rope rigged up right here, next to Josh — I’ll be fine: I know what I’m doing.”

“Alright, good luck!” I say; “But we recommend either an opiate overdose or firing a gun toward the roof of your mouth. — Deaths by hanging can get messy.” 

She’s apparently already hung up tho; so I click the switchhook and answer the next call: “Good morning, this is Bryan at the Suicide Line. Can I interest you in one of our monthly specials? We have a three-for-one deal going on…”

“No, thank you — I’m not sure if you’re joking, but I sort of am: I just called this line for a lark, for I can’t see how anyone could stop me from meeting my demise. My name is Harold Hart Crane, the American poet. I’m on the steamship Orizaba. I’m a little drunk, at the moment. (Actually, quite severely drunk.) — I’m jumping overboard into the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Hart! STOP!” I scream into the receiver: “You have SO MUCH poetry to write — your gift has only just begun!! Wait there, I WILL COME RESCUE YOU…”

I place the handset gingerly down upon a cushion, and I wave my hand to get my supervisor Jan’s attention. She’s yelling at a customer, so I just silently mouth my message to her: “I’ll be back in no more than five minutes.” Then I hold my hand out with its fingers splayed, to emphasize the amount of time.

“Hold on,” my supervisor Jan angrily shouts to her present caller; then she turns to me and sez, thru clenched teeth: “If you leave now, this counts as your lunch break.”

“That’s fine,” I say. 

So I swim out and take the Bermuda-Triangle shortcut, which leads me straight to the Gulf of Mexico. I climb aboard the Orizaba just as Hart Crane is teetering on its handrail, aiming to leap. I dash forth and embrace him with both of my arms and pull him back towards life, and we tumble onto the deck of the steamship together. (NOTE. There is nothing sexual about this rescue mission — it is purely professional, despite the fact that certain low-minded critics might interpret vague undertones of camaraderie between us poets. NO! There is none of that funny business. I’m strictly doing my job.) 

Now sitting atop Hart Crane with my legs straddling him, I slap him twice in the face, very smartly — the same way that I used to slap Jesus when he was rich & handsome and I was dating his triune sister — and I shout: 

“Write at least a few more volumes of poetry before you try something like that again. Do you hear me!?”

Hart Crane promises not to despair too early. So I swim back to my office in the South Bronx of 1987 and dive right into the next phone call:

“Hello. Suidice Line. This is Bryan. Speak up — I’ve had a rough day already, and I’m not in the mood to take any more bullshit.”

“Bryan? Is that really you? Bryan Ray the fake novelist?” the voice seems genuinely star-struck.

“Yes, now hurry the bloody fuck up and tell me your sob story so I can yell my famous advertising catchphrase ‘JUST DO IT’.”

“Bry, this is JFK the prez. — I was just calling to see how you’re doing. I didn’t know that this was your Suicide Line; this number just appeared in my rolodex as an alternate option after your mobile number. For I just tried your cellphone, and a robotic butler’s voice told me that the line was out of service. So then I dialed this one, which was listed as your business number.”

“Ah, sorry, J.; this Suicide Line is my business line — it’s where I work, during the day — and my cellphone got wet when I swam to the Gulf of Mexico this afternoon, so I’m sure that it probably has water-damage. I’ll need to put it in the microwave for a while, to clean all that saltwater out of its brains. — Well, anyway, it’s good to hear from you. What’s the reason for your call? I hope you lined up a double-date for us with some voluptuous and intelligent women. I’m in the mood for conversation.”

“No, Bry,” sez JFK, “the reason I’m calling is that I’ll be in Dallas, Texas, pretty soon — like, within mere moments — riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza, and I wondered if you might want to come join me. I know how much you love presidential motorcades.” 

“Hmm…” I think about whether this is worth feigning an illness and skipping work for; so I say: “ah, it’s very tempting… but my supervisor Jan is still here, and I’ll need to convince her that I should be allowed to quit my shift early — can you tell me who else is going to be there?” 

“Well,” sez JFK, “a lot of folks will be gathered in the surrounding areas, holding firearms and aiming them at me — tho only playfully, of course — and, in the car itself, where you’ll be situated right by my side (if you choose to join us) will be the Texas Governor and his wife Nellie, then of course my beloved Jacqueline, and finally Marylin Monroe, the famous actress, model, and singer: she’ll be in the convertible as well — but I reached out just now, dear Bryan, because I’d like to seat you between Ms. Monroe and myself — you see, I’ve sort of developed a thing for Marylin, and, when I mentioned it to her, she requested that I ask you specifically (I guess she’s a fan of your weird-ass books) to pose as her lover, and act as a physical buffer between herself and me, so that my wife can maintain a plausible deniability about any affair that sparks up between us. Just for the sake of the mainstream press.”

I groan and say: “Jack, if you seat me next to Marylin, you know that she’ll fall in love with me. — Are you prepared to face the consequences of that!?”

“Look, Bry, if you’re willing to do this favor for me, just come quick,” sez JFK. “Now, can I count on you?”

I sigh: “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

My supervisor Jan overhears me say this, and she notices that I intentionally do not hang up my phone’s receiver (for I know that if I replace the handset on the switchhook, it will immediately start to ring again); and Jan appears to be about to reprimand me for skirting my duty, however, as I tiptoe towards the exit, I make the “shush” sign with my index finger to my lips; then, while Jan gasps and clutches her pearls, I run as fast as I can to my Cutlass Supreme. 

I drive recklessly and at the highest possible speeds until I reach Dealey Plaza. I then park my vehicle near a gang of armed CIA thugs who are all aiming at the automobile that is my destination. (Again, their guns are fake and their aim is only playful — so keep your pants on.) I hop into the car between the Prez and Marylin Monroe, and we wave to the people. When we round the corner, gunshots zing and zang around us like the Wild West, but none of them hit us. Not only Ms. Monroe but Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis also falls deeply in love with me, on our brief date. Then I head back to work.

When I walk into the office, my supervisor Jan drops the receiver of her current telephone call and glares at me. She then sez: “You already agreed that your trip to the Gulf of Mexico was to serve as your lunch break. Now you’ve taken a double luncheon. So, what shall stop me from firing you? I’ll give you two options to redeem yourself: You can either (A) skip lunch break tomorrow; or (B) satisfy me romantically after my shift ends; which is now, I’ll have you know. — Well, what’ll it be?”

So I end up satisfying Jan in the employee breakroom. — I must admit, this is not unpleasant. She’s extremely attractive… Truth be told, it’s an OK end to a so-so day, if one allows oneself to invest one’s emotions in it.