26.
Rich
What does Rich Anderson truly want? It’s the question that bugs me for the next several days.
My main line of argument, starting each morning upon awakening and repeating itself innumerable times throughout the day, is always the same:
I was turning thirty next year. The big three-oh. Even if I were to return to the football field, how many more years did I have left in me? Five? Six? Seven at the most? And if I were to stay until the bitter end, what then? The idea of becoming a coach or commentator was anathema to me. If already I thought of playing football as an empty pursuit, what was I going to feel when all I could do was talk about it? The image of sitting in a booth in a tailored suit mindlessly dropping stats about little ants running around on a green patch of grass was enough to make me shudder in horror. I needed something more, something grander. It was an imperative of my soul. I needed something that would make me look back with pride upon my life, something that would make it clear I hadn’t just lived for myself. But what was that something? What could it be?
I spend most waking hours at the resort contemplating this very thing, analyzing it from every possible angle. For the most part while doing this I lounge around the main pool, sunglasses on, hat pulled low, drink in hand. One by one I work through the possibilities, which, for all intents and purposes, are endless. With money no issue, every option was open to me. In a way, this was what was making the question so hard. For a man who could do anything his mind might design, the question of what he wanted sure posed quite the pickle.
Aside from these fruitless attempts to chart out my life, I also think quite a bit about Becca. The sadness and despair which had gripped me during the first hours of our separation give way to deeper considerations the following days. Sure, I tell myself, she was unlike any woman I had ever met. And I most definitely still ached to see her, to hold her, to touch her and to kiss her. But perhaps my reaction to her, both in the beginning of our time together and in the end, had been nothing more than a symptom of something larger, that same larger something that was now making me question my football career. Perhaps she too had been a manifestation of my soul searching for something more, of my soul aching to fill the hole that until now its existence I had been too afraid to acknowledge. And now that I was getting older, now that the first flourish of youth was gone, young adulthood just about at its end, the bigger questions of life, those that demanded to be answered when the shiny chrome of the first years of being out on your own had worn off only to expose the rust of true life underneath, had settled in. No more could I avoid them. Life, as I was coming to find, was a lot longer than I had given it credit for, and no amount of money or love or running from myself would win me the satisfaction and sense of belonging and purpose I truly craved. It was time to stop thinking about love. It was time now to start focusing on Rich.
Of course, despite reminding myself of this several times a day, every morning I awaken with the hope that Becca will be at my door.
***
On the morning of the third day, just as I’m sitting down to breakfast, Cal comes over and invites me out for a night on the town. Though I don’t much feel like it, I say yes anyways. As much as my heart and mind are craving solitude, the rational side of me is well aware it can’t stay cooped up forever.
And so, that evening after a large meal of pulled pork and all the fixings that go along with it, once again I meet Cal out in front of the resort.
“Hey, buddy,” he says as I walk up to his car idling in the resort’s driveway. He has the windows rolled down and is beaming at me from the driver’s seat. Leaning over, he pushes open the passenger door. “Notice anything different?”
“You cleaned!” Climbing in, I buckle up and turn to peer into the backseat. It’s still piled high with trash. “Well, sort of.”
“Sort of, indeed,” he laughs, gunning the engine and whipping us out onto the road. “But I did it all for you.”
We go to the same bar as before. This time, it’s not nearly as empty. In fact, it’s downright packed. After parking several hundred yards up the dark street, Cal and I stroll on down. The bar is so crowded that we have to fight our way through crowds of sunburnt surfers just to get inside. The bartender, the same grizzled man from last time, having spotted Cal upon our entrance, has two house specials ready for us by the time we finally reach him. As before, when I go to pay, he waves away my money.
“Cal told me what you did,” he growls. “Good man.”
We don’t end up staying out too long. I’m just not in the mood to be around people and this is easy enough to tell. Several times, Cal has me go with him to talk to some girls, only for me to stand there awkwardly until he mercifully leads me away.
“You know what, Rich?” Cal says after our third failed approach. “I’m just not really feeling it tonight. I think I might be getting sick. You wouldn’t mind if I took you back early, would you?”
From the way he’s not quite looking at me, I get the feeling he’s planning to drop me off at the resort and come right on back. Nevertheless, I appreciate his tact and am only too happy to take the bait.
“Sorry to hear that, bud. It’s not a problem at all. Kind of sleepy myself.”
“We’ll go out some other time, okay?”
“Of course. Just let me know when you’re feeling better.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m back at the resort. As Cal speeds away into the night, I head into the lobby, continuing out the back into the dining area still packed with people. Before returning to my villa, I fill a plate with food to take with me. With all the running I’ve been doing, and with the sting of rejection becoming less potent by the hour, the insatiability of my appetite is back and stronger than ever.
Returned to my room, I sit at my desk while I eat. While I chow down, I crack open one of the books I’ve brought with me from Seattle—Childhood, Boyhood and Youth by Leo Tolstoy. It’s one of the only works by my favorite author I haven’t read and something I’ve been looking forward to consuming for quite some time. What better time to read about one man’s life in early nineteenth-century Russia, I could remember thinking as I’d been tossing things haphazardly into my suitcase before my trip, than while sitting on a beach in Hawaii?
Reading, as it tended to do, puts me in a contemplative and happy mood. There was a uniqueness in the way Tolstoy wrote, a special voice I had yet to find in any other author. One got the feeling that here was a man who had really understood human nature and what this crazy life of ours was all about. He had known that life was pointless, and yet, at the same time, had also appreciated that this very pointlessness was what gave life its beauty and meaning.
After a good hour has passed, I sit back in my chair and cross my arms in front of me. The book is spread open on the desk, an open beer from the mini-fridge beside it.
Hmm, I think, tapping my fingers against the backs of my arms. What about writing? What if that’s what I were to do instead?
The clock is approaching midnight. Leaving the book where it is, I go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. When the water is just hot enough to still be comfortable, I strip down and climb in.
“Okay, Rich,” I say, my words reverberating between the tile walls and the glass door of the shower. “What about it? You think you can write?”
Truth be told, it’s not my first time having such a thought. In fact, writing was something that had crossed my mind any number of times over the years, though only now did it seem a distinct possibility. It kind of made sense though, didn’t it? I mean, after all, I did love to read. Reading was one of the best ways to learn more about yourself, to unearth and unlock the parts of you that you didn’t even know existed. Would not writing be the same? Except now, the search would be internally driven. So what if I were to try my hand at it?
My entire shower I spend turning this idea over and over like it’s a stone whose weight I’m testing. Could I really do it? Could I really write something worthwhile? Did I have anything meaningful to say? The last thing I wanted to be was a slinger of cheap, throwaway fiction.
Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try, that much was for sure. And suppose I did find out I was terrible. What then? Why, I could just throw away all the evidence and never think of it again! Talk about risk-free!
The more I chew it over, the more sense it starts to make. Didn’t I remember as a kid how I had always been trying to write novels? This, of course, had been before my father had signed me up for football and my life had taken a distinctly different course. Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I had always held onto the dream.
I stay in the shower, meticulously cleaning every inch of myself three or four times, until the hot water has turned warm, the warm cool, the cool cold. Already my mind was a-swirl with ideas for stories and poems and books. It was as if a part of myself that I had kept locked away was now suddenly free.
About halfway through my ablutions, a faint knocking reaches my ears. At first, I think it’s a trick of the imagination. Only when I hear it a third time do I finally shut the water off to listen.
Silence. Like water from the showerhead, several seconds drip down the drain. I shrug. Must have been I was hearing things. Turning the shower back on, I resume my scrubbing. With Cal at the bar, who else would be knocking on my door?
It’s another hour before I find myself back in the bedroom. Once I’m as clean as a newborn babe, I spend a good amount of time meticulously shaving the shadows of my beard and applying lotion to my skin. Glistening, a towel wrapped tightly around my waist, finally I am ready to leave the bathroom.
Though it’s nearly one and I’m as tired as can be, I’m not the least bit sleepy. Impossible to be with so many ideas buzzing in my brain. After tossing on some fresh clothes, in the drawer of the bedside table, I find a pen and a small pad of paper. Cracking open a fresh beer, I settle in at my desk.
Where to start? Now that I was here, I had no idea what to do. How did writers do this?
Just put down a word. One word. That’s all you have to do. One word. And then another. It’s just like football. Don’t think about the end goal. Think only about the very next moment, the very next yard.
Taking a sip of beer, I write out the first words that come to mind.
There. Not so hard, was it?
I read over my sentence. Clunky, and definitely a bit self-conscious. But not terrible. I had read enough to know that this was where most writers started, so at least I was right there with the rest.
Putting pen back to paper, I start again. Ten minutes later, I’ve reached the bottom of the page. Grabbing a fresh beer from the fridge, I turn to the next sheet. The words are flowing now, the thoughts coming so fast there’s not a chance I can keep up with them.
Before I know it, the entire pad of paper is filled. When I reach the bottom of the last page, I call down to the lobby for another pad. Within minutes, the night receptionist knocks on my door.
“Thought you could use some more beer, too,” he says, handing me a six-pack of beer along with several pads of paper.
I bound back to my desk the moment he’s gone. Now that the fount has been uncapped, there’s no stopping it. My pen is flying across the page, the words spilling out like water through a crack in a dam. I can feel the pressure of everything inside of me aching to get out, demanding to be birthed. Seemed I had a lot more to say than I had previously thought.
I don’t bother to go back and read what I’ve written. Maybe I would in the morning. Or maybe I never would. Who knew? I didn’t have any particular reason to. The important thing was that I was writing, that I was finally doing something for myself, something for me and me alone. The last thing I needed to be thinking about was validation, whether that be my own or anyone else’s. Hell, I was half-inclined to take these pages and throw them away as fast as I was churning them out. That would keep me pure.
Wow, I chuckle to myself. Pure. Already I was beginning to sound like a writer.
Eventually, though my mind is still roaring to go, I begin to tire. For the first time in several hours, I put down my pen and look at the clock on the bedside table behind me. 4:12. Four a.m.? How was it all of a sudden four in the morning? I’d been at it for a solid three hours. It felt like no time at all had passed.
Sitting back, my ass somewhat sore, I look at the pages spread out on the desk before me. A platoon of empty beer bottles is scattered around my feet. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel the slightest bit intoxicated. If anything, I felt completely and wonderfully sober, sober as I hadn’t been in years. When was the last time I had felt so excited, so myself? Probably not since first picking up a football.
Only one blank page remains. It seems fitting to fill it before calling it a night. Tomorrow would mark my twelfth day in Hawaii. How far I’d come in such a short amount of time! I felt like an entirely different man than the one that had left Seattle. How was it that one could live one life for twenty-nine years, and then a whole other life in the span of two weeks?
Cracking my knuckles, I pick up the pen. Though I’m not quite done with the story I’ve been working on for the past hour, I’m itching to create something else. All of these wondrous feelings inside of me needed to be let out.
Don’t think. Feel. Your soul knows what to say.
Ever so slowly, I press pen to paper. There it is: an idea. Not a story this time, but a poem. A poem of love and longing and loss.
As the words begin to spill out on the paper, my laughter fills the room. Rich Anderson: football star turned poet!
Cracked open
You (the hammer)
took your smile (the chisel)
and pressed it to my heart.
What others failed to do
you accomplished in an instant;
a gentle tap and now
the light spills out.
Running from myself
I found you waiting
though you had no idea
this was what for.
A spare moment together
A flash in the pan
dazzling and dear
to be forever remembered,
cradled and considered
like…
I can hardly keep my eyes open now, the words to finish floating just out of reach. I’m just too tired, every ounce of my energy long since spent. Though I can feel what I want to say, I don’t know how to say it.
“Cradled and considered,” I murmur, my eyes closing, my head drooping down to the desk. “Cradled and considered like…like precious new life…cradled and considered like the miracle…like you…like love…”
***
I awaken to someone pounding on the door. Bleary-eyed, my temples throbbing, I raise my head wearily from the desk. It takes several seconds to remember where I am and why I’m hunched over in this chair, my memory finally jolted by the sight of the papers spread around me. My muscles are aching; sleep is clinging to my bones. Blinking several times in the early morning light, I glance back at the alarm clock. Just past seven. Who the hell was here so early?
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I grumble when the sharp rap of knuckles on wood sounds again. Every joint in my body creaking, I push myself up from my chair, my legs stiff, my toes asleep. Barely able to walk, I shuffle over to the door, wincing as a third knock shakes the air. Ugh. Whoever was here was one impatient sonofabitch. Didn’t they know what time it was?
My eyes half-closed, I fumble with the lock, my fingers like toddlers refusing to listen to their parents. As soon as whoever this was was gone, I was going straight back to bed. And no more drinking. My body just couldn’t take it.
“Okay! Okay!” I call as the person on the other side of the door knocks yet again. “Give me a second, for goodness’ sake!”
The lock finally undone, I wrench open the door.
“Geez! What could possibly be so damn import—“ My words catch in my throat as my eyes fall upon the woman standing on the porch.
No. No, this can’t be. You must still be dreaming. There’s no way…
“Hi-ya, Rich!” Charlotte says, dropping the suitcases in her hands and spreading her arms wide. “Surprised? Oh, how wonderful it is to see you!”