Actuaries say I have fewer than 10 years to live. That’s based on the odds rather than on any pressing health problem. I’m not anxious that so little time remains, but also know that feeling something before it happens is like claiming you’ll be a hero in a future war. Will I feel and behave bravely when “so little time” becomes a fact rather than an idea? Will I act heroically when 10 years becomes 10 hours or days?
I wish I could confidently predict I’ll be gracefully brave when the end arrives. But I can’t. And there are reasons for my self-doubt. I’m in a Motel 6 in Tucumcari, New Mexico. My companion is a Jack Russell puppy named Frankie. Frankie is (mostly) housebroken and has two gears: manic and depressive. I am four days into a seven-day stay. It feels like a near-death experience. Grace and bravery are in retreat.
Maybe this accounts for my preoccupation with death and the style in which I’ll handle said expiration. Frankie and Tucumcari are challenging partners, one new and endlessly needy, the other in an advanced state of entropy. Together, they cultivate and harvest despair for distribution to the nearest customer. That would be me.
I’m hopeful Frankie develops other gears as she grows up and becomes a more reliable contributor to the pursuit of (my) happiness. Tucumcari? Not likely. It is rural America: it’s lost population, and those left behind possess few transferable skills or they’re elderly people living on government remittances. Once a thriving tourist destination and railroad stop, it’s now a third world border town comprised of struggling stores and a couple of truck stops. Frankie and I walk around its empty, weed strangled streets every morning at 6 a.m. for an hour or so, dodging packs of feral dogs. By 8 a.m. it’s hotter than a $2 pistol.
But time, as we know, is relative. Hours and days can feel like 10 years. Up to now, we’ve been getting by, time and I; I’ve behaved well enough and I’m not yet, comparatively speaking, insane.
Tomorrow, of course, is another day.
Lovely memoir work. Let us know if you figure out the death thing. Incidentally, if you have not seen, there’s a movie called Lucky that is an interesting, very zen contemplation on death. Sort of Harry Dean Stanton’s self-eulogy.
Oh man, this is brilliant! It feels like the first page of a great novel or short story, don’t stop!