The Underground Man Part Four

The Tragic Absurdity of the Risks We Take When We Believe We're Alone

As the ambulance and its team of navy blue cowboys carried me through the night, weaving its way toward the outer suburbs, we braced ourselves against the force that pitched us around under the bright, flickering lights of the cargo hold. Then someone wanted to know what happened. That was the first time I took a shot at an answer, and I’m not sure what I said, but it was probably some version of the following:

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I’d been offered a way out. Outsiders may not have seen it that way, but to me, it was a shot at redemption. I’d been so often fucked up at work that my days were growing obviously numbered, doing blow on my breaks, drinking through the restaurant’s inventory after close, and using opioids to prop myself up through bad hangovers. When I wasn’t self medicating for physical pain, or trying simply to break up the monotony of being a glorified babysitter, I was using every substance I could score to suppress the unbearable pressure of guilt and shame, my karma for double crossing so many kind and loving people. Naturally then, when I saw my escape, I didn’t hesitate.

“No more seventy hour work weeks, wincing on my feet,” I thought. “No more fighting the temptation to make downtown into my personal, late night playground.” “No more tiptoeing into the house like a sneak thief at the risk of being stabbed by a woman I once agreed to protect.” I was choking on white powder, obsessed with how to choke better. That’s when Tim called, right when my cause had begun to appear hopeless. I locked the door to the manager’s office and listened to what he had to say.

Tim was an old buddy who’d been hip-deep in the smuggling of extracts out of Colorado. “Me and the old lady are done,” he said. “Moving back home. If you’re serious about making some moves, now’s the time.”

“Oh my god,” I said, “I’m so sorry to hear that.” Serious? Shit, if he only knew. “If there’s a way you think I could help, I’m open to it.” No—This was better than gospel. So much for karma. Time to forget my sins and finally make something happen. The perfect reason to quit before I blow my cover and get fired.

The truth is, when I answered the call, I was high. My mouth was numb, ideas rolled over in my head like marbles. What began to take shape was this flimsy plan: go out to Colorado, lie low while the smoke cleared from my latest fuck-ups, come back with enough ganja to distract concerned parties and maybe, just maybe, buy back some trust. Because that’s how I treated trust—like a transaction. You put something tangible on the table and it gets you a pass for whatever… being a shit husband, father, human being, etc. It was common sense, pure and simple.

Like every decision I made, I accepted Tim’s offer without running it by Natasha, or anyone else it might affect. I just went directly home to pack with the urgency of a fugitive. It wasn’t until she caught me cramming clothes into a duffel bag at two in the morning that I mumbled something about “kicking my habit out in the mountains” and “this will be good for all of us.” I left no room for any sensible input, no room for doubt. Just my feverish determination to patch up my self-image with duct tape, convinced that if I could change the scenery, I would change as byproduct.

What I didn’t say, and what Natasha probably suspected, was that I was running back to solutions that had never worked. It was so much easier than admitting I’d lost control. I had fucked over someone with every big move I’d ever tried to make, twice failing as a low-rent drug runner. My resume proved that I couldn’t even hold a stash without inevitably coming up short. But here was this shiny-new promise of redemption, vacuum sealed and dropped in my lap, whispering that this time, I’d be smarter, more disciplined. That I’d be the one to beat the odds.

The Underground Man in me loved this plan, loved how it justified every paranoid, selfish urge I’d ever given into. He said, “Look at you, a hero in your own tragedy. It’s precisely your brand of revenge. You’ll prove to everyone that ever discounted, doubted or even determined you were less than, that you, sir, are capable of things they couldn’t even dream of doing.” He was right. Besides, there was some serious social currency to gain by taking risks that other people have too much sense to take. It gratifies the most massive of egos to become known as fearlessly crazy. And as we’re about to see, it worked, at least for awhile, I found myself in demand with all sorts of opportunities for the specific type of glory I was after.

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