Love Creeps

Thirteen

Ray invited the nuts to dinner at a restaurant. They were delighted.

After ordering their food and engaging in some small talk, Ray got to the point. “I don’t think we live wisely. We are bored. You may not think you’re bored, but I believe you are, we all are. Our lives are the equivalent of a sensory-deprivation tank, and that’s not healthy. It makes many of us go nuts.” He gave them a significant look. They were not aware that he thought of them as nuts, but that look was meant to be a hint. He continued. “Human beings evolved in a manner that makes them well suited to a certain kind of lifestyle, which involves danger in daily life. Through the ages, human beings managed to significantly decrease the frequency of dangerous occurrences. Do you follow me?”

They nodded. They thought he spoke well for a locksmith.

He went on. “This decrease in dangerous occurrences may have seemed like a good idea. It made our lives happier and more pleasant on a certain, immediate level. But the lifestyle that originally made us into what we are was not a safe lifestyle. Therefore, by inflicting upon ourselves a safe lifestyle, we experience certain unfortunate side effects,” he said, pulling a small chalkboard out of a bag. “These side effects are, I believe, the following.” He wrote on the chalkboard:

1.

Loss of vitality.

2.

Loss of perspective.

3.

Loss of sanity.

4.

Loss of the full and rich spectrum of happiness that human beings have the potential to experience if only they were to be subjected to the lifestyle they were made for.

He propped the chalkboard up on the table next to his plate for them to see and said, “Have you noticed how even just reading a book about miserable physical conditions is enough to increase your appreciation of small ordinary comforts? Well,” he snorted, “just imagine how much more potent the effect would be if we actually lived those miserable conditions. I think it’s pretty clear where I’m headed, right?”

The nuts stared at him without responding. Alan was sitting on his hands.

“In a nutshell,” Ray said, “once a year we should try to endure something extreme in order to come to our senses. It’s psychologically hygienic. Just like getting your teeth cleaned, or taking a shower. To maintain optimum mental health, we’ve got to have strong stimulation occasionally. And since our modern life doesn’t provide that, we must manufacture it. What do you think?”

“Well, it’s an interesting idea,” Lynn said, thinking of Judy. “It reminds me of a friend who got hit by a truck and said it was revitalizing. So eventually, she did it again, and died.”

“That may well be, but can you imagine how much better off she would have been had she lived?” Ray said.

“Better off than dead?”

“No. I meant, if she had survived without being seriously hurt, she would have been better off than if she hadn’t been hit by the truck.”

“I disagree,” Alan said. “I don’t believe in that dumb quote ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ I think the truth is the opposite.”

“To a certain extent, you’re right,” Ray said. “What doesn’t kill you usually makes you weaker. But some things that don’t kill you do make you stronger. And happier.”

“Like what?”

“Like certain types of dangerous situations.”

“But like what?”

“I think we should pick one all together,” Ray said.

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Roland said, fingering his empty locket.

The food arrived.

“We could drink sour milk,” Alan said.

Roland dropped his head in his hands.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Ray said to Alan.

“Well, aren’t we supposed to subject ourselves to more danger and unpleasant things?” Alan said.

“Yes, but I think we should pick something a little more dangerous than expired milk,” Ray said.

“We could chain ourselves inside a burning house,” Roland said.

There was silence.

“That’s a bit extreme,” Ray said. “Ideally, I think there should be a 25 percent chance of a negative outcome. Not much more and not much less.”

“What do you mean by ‘negative outcome’?” Alan asked.

“I’m not sure we should be speaking so explicitly,” Ray answered, “but by negative outcome I mean death.”

“I’m not wild about this idea, Ray,” Lynn said.

Ray stroked the stem of his glass pensively and said, “Let me ask you an awkward question. Are you happy?”

“I’ve been worse,” Lynn replied.

“That’s great. I’m really happy for you,” Ray said.

Of course he had a point with his sarcasm, Lynn thought.

“Listen, I don’t think any of you are as happy as you should be,” Ray said.

They could not argue with that.

He continued. “We want to put our lives at risk, not squash them. Do you have any ideas, Lynn?” Since she didn’t answer, he added, “Hypothetically?”

Finally, she said, “I didn’t mind Alan’s idea so much, of eating something bad. Something we might pick out of the woods.”

“Like what?” Ray asked.

“Poisonous mushrooms, of course!” Roland said. “That’s a cool idea, Lynn. I think we should do it.”

“Is that what you meant, Lynn, poisonous mushrooms?” Ray asked.

“It crossed my mind, but I think the risk is too high,” Lynn said. “I’m sure it’s higher than 25 percent.”

“I’d say so,” Alan said. “Count me out.” He ordered a glass of wine in the hope of getting carded, but he wasn’t.

Ray put his chalk away. “I think we should give it some thought until we come up with an idea we can all live with.”

“Or die with,” Roland said.

“Yes, or die with,” Ray said.

The next evening, they were all in Ray’s winter studio, coming up with more ideas that none of them could agree on. Even though the season was no longer winter and Ray was subletting the studio from Roland for a modest sum, they continued calling it “the winter studio.”

“How about if we played Russian roulette with Alan’s gun?” Roland said.

“It was Jessica’s gun, and she took it after we broke up,” Alan said.

“Anyway, Russian roulette would do no good,” Ray said. “Our lives need to be placed at risk for more than a second. We need to remain in the dangerous situation for a while. That’s when the mental good happens.”

Alan and Roland were sitting on the sofa, and Lynn had gotten up from between them and was sitting on a chair, next to Ray. “Why do you want to do this with us, Ray?” she asked. “You’re not in the same boat as us. You’re not unhappy.”

“I am in the same boat. We’re all in the same boat, even though it may not seem so sometimes.”

“Yeah, and I am, too, even though I know it may not look like it,” said Roland.

They laughed. On occasion, Roland could be amusing.

Lynn said, “We could all go out in the same boat and jump overboard. And then the disagreement would be settled. We would no longer be in the same boat.” She chuckled.

“We would have to let the boat go,” Ray said. “We’d have to jump out while it’s speeding.”

“Why?” Lynn asked.

“So that we couldn’t get back in the boat.”

She nodded.

Ray went on. “So that we would float. And wait. And witness our life regain its perspective, its value. And witness ourselves regain our sanity. There’s a very good chance we’d get rescued and reap the benefits of the risk we took. And I’d say there’s approximately a 25 percent chance that … we would not.” Ray’s eyes were opened wide like vast oceans where floating people always got rescued.

It took a week for Lynn and Alan to decide if they wanted to go ahead with Ray’s idea of risking their lives to improve their lives.

After spending some time on his armless white easy chair with his rat, thinking it over, Alan agreed to the idea of jumping off a boat with the others. He had learned to swim and was proud of it, was no longer afraid of water, and anyway, they’d be wearing life vests. Besides, he’d wanted to kill himself. Just because fate had beaten down on him recently and weakened him didn’t mean he couldn’t fight fate a bit. Once again, he’d take a few days off from work — or forever, depending on the outcome.

Lynn agreed to the idea, because Alan agreed to it. When she looked at her calendar, she objected to the date they had chosen. She was booked for a dinner she had been dreading for weeks but was obligated to go to. It was being hosted by an obsequious collector who had bought work from her many times. She had already tried to get out of the dinner by saying she had another engagement that night, but the collector had changed the date just so she could attend. Lynn told the others about the conflict and asked whether they couldn’t all jump off the boat a few days later.

“Why not a few days earlier?” Ray said. “This way, if you die in the ocean, it’ll be a perfect excuse not to attend the dinner, and if you survive, then the danger you will have experienced will make the dinner more tolerable.”

Lynn considered this for a moment and agreed to move up the date of their semisuicide.

“Does the date suit everyone’s schedule now?” Ray asked.

Alan nodded, and Roland said, “I have no schedule.”

“What do you mean?” Ray asked.

“I’m free all the time.”

“Within reason, no?”

“No, all the time. I got fired.”

The days passed, and the four nuts quietly went about their lives with the calm awareness of a day that was approaching, and of the act that would take place on that day. They did not even think of it as an act so much as a sort of gesture. They rarely spoke of it to each other anymore, and when they did, it was always obliquely.

Before taking the plane, Alan left the same suicide note in his apartment that he had written before. He told his doorman he was going away for a couple of days and asked him to go into his apartment if he hadn’t returned in a week, to give his “gerbil” more food. The suicide note would be next to the cage, so the doorman would understand what had happened.

Alan kissed Pancake, held him against his heart, and said good-bye.

Lynn told Patricia she was going on vacation for a few days. Patricia said, “The Harlem Globetrotters just rejected your application for a tryout. That should sustain you and keep you sane while you’re gone.”

The three nuts and the bum packed their bags and boarded a plane for the Bahamas at 8:00 A.M. They checked into Hotel Atlantis on Paradise Island. They sat on lounge chairs by one of the pools, staring tensely at the fake waterfalls and at all those people who were not going to jump off a boat the next day to make their lives happier, fuller, and more valuable.

They went to dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel. They ordered a bottle of wine. The waitress asked Alan for some ID.

“I lost my driver’s license a long time ago, and I left my passport in my room. I’ll have a Coke,” Alan said.

“He’s thirty-five, you know,” Roland said to the waitress. “And looks older, in my opinion.”

As Alan sipped his Coke, he said to the others, “We are quite young, you know.”

“Yeah? So?” Roland said.

“So nothing,” Alan said.

During the meal, the four friends passed the salt and pepper while Ray made a few attempts at a conversation, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he soon gave up. He couldn’t get himself to ask them if they were still okay with the plan, since he himself did not feel completely at ease with it.

After dinner, they went back to the pool and sat on the same lounge chairs, side by side, in the dark, alone. It took a long time for one of them finally to speak.

It was Ray. “I thought eleven o’clock might be a good time. That leaves us with many hours of daylight during which we might be more likely to get rescued.”

Alan said, “It’s strange. It’s kind of like committing suicide in reverse, or something.”

“It’s true,” Roland said. “It’s almost like suicide, but instead of being performed out of hatred of life, it’s out of love of life, out of wanting to recapture it. It’s a sacrifice for life.”

The next day, out at sea, all in the same boat, wearing bulky red life vests and little white hats, they stared at the land that was now only slightly visible, extremely far away. They had no excuses. And it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been — and weren’t still — searching for excuses. But there were none: The ocean was not rough; the air was not cold, nor the water; there were no jellyfish in sight; there were a few pleasant clouds to protect them from sunstroke.

Roland dropped a penny in the boat.

When the time came, Ray slightly increased the speed of the small motorboat they had rented for the day. The four of them climbed on the side of it, held hands, and jumped off.