If I were Dr. Who, I would stagger into the night, eyes wild, hair outrageously unkempt (devilishly handsome, of course), and there, waiting outside my front door would be my trusty TARDIS in the form of a British telephone box, waiting to zoom me into some other dimension.
All my attractive friends would be inside, waiting for me.
They would put their arms around me and pat me ceremoniously on the back. Someone would say something glib and clever (we are British after all), then we would grin at one another, and off we would go into the post-BBC universe made of Styrofoam and cheap computer graphics, the Weeping Angels close on our heels.
Cue Moog synthesizer.
But this is not Dr. Who. This is my life.
So when I stagger outside into the snowy winter night and lurch down the street like a madman, there is no TARDIS.
I slip and slide down the street, using my flailing arms to balance myself, farther and farther away from that house that suddenly seems unfamiliar: where Dad has kissed a woman who is not my mother.
We have enjoyed soup made from the corpse of a feminist yoga hen named Gloria, who was beheaded on a chopping block and then drained into a metal bowl.
Lydie killed the chicken with her own hands. It’s easy to do a chicken.
I imagine my footsteps in the white new snow filling with blood.
I run behind the houses and through the aqueduct where the snow cloaks the branches of trees, weighing them down so they look like beggars on some ancient road.
I’m suddenly thinking about Hamlet’s question: to be, or not to be. I’m not so sure whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to die, to sleep … perchance to dream.
For the first time in my life, I’m thinking that maybe it is not nobler.
Not nobler at all.
To suffer.
Because slings and arrows hurt like hell.
And so does cancer.
And so do lonely fathers and organic widows who smile at you and then go make you chicken soup out of corpses.
And so do four-year-old girls who could almost be your sisters if you let yourself love them.
And so does Gregor Samsa, looking into the mirror one morning and realizing his life has been meaningless the whole time.
So maybe Hamlet is right.
Maybe it would be nobler to just end it all.
To die, to sleep—no more.
The snow comes down like ash falling in the spaces between the trees. I wonder how long it would take to freeze to death out here. If I just sat here all night and didn’t move, if I took off my shoes and my socks and my coat and lay down in the snow, how long would it take for my heart to stop?
I wonder if the tumor would die before me.
Would there be a moment when I would be finally free of him?
All I would need is a second or two, where I could take a deep breath without him. Or maybe he would linger after I was gone, waiting on tenterhooks, as he must have done when Mom took her last breath, for the next rube to come along and take pity on him, some unsuspecting dog walker, maybe, or a jogger out in the morning, passing by my frozen face, eyes wide open. The tumor will leap from my brain into the jogger’s ear and burrow his way into a new pink host.
Not to be.
That is the answer.
One hundred percent. Not. To. Be.
I take off my coat.
I take off my shoes and socks.
I lie down on the icy ground and let the snow fall on my face.
I will myself to die.
This is not an easy thing to do.
There is no coffin above me.
Snow is cold.
It hurts my skin.
I squint my eyes and move my face to the side and curl my toes and clench my fists and try to stop my heart, but it is too cold to concentrate, even in a fetal position, even with my hands over my face, even breathing into my cupped palms.
I realize, with a kind of grim disappointment, that I am not capable of suicide.
Cursing, I bolt upright, pull on my socks and my shoes and my coat and scramble to my feet and blow on my fingers and rub my arms and stomp around from one foot to the other. I plunge my hands deep into my pants pockets. In my left pocket, I can feel my cell phone. I text Fish and she doesn’t answer. Then I put my hand back in my pants pocket and I feel the shard and my wallet and remember the business card Cage gave me at the Panda Wok. The one with his number. I pull it out of my wallet and start to dial.
I am so cold my fingers almost do not work.
“Max!” screams Cage. “Max! Oh Max. Oh, you wonderful foolish person. I didn’t think you would do it. Bravery abounds. What’s going on?”
“Not much,” I say looking up at the sky.
“Hey. You don’t sound so good. Are you okay?”
“Not really. I was kind of wondering. You said I could call you anytime and we could meet. Is this a good time?”
“Is this a good time?” Cage shouts into the telephone as though he were ninety years old or drunk or both. “Are you kidding? This is a perfect time! Where are you? What’s wrong?”
“Well,” I say, “I’m in the aqueduct and it’s snowing, and I’m kinda thinking about whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or if it is better to just sleep: perchance to dream. There’s the rub at the current moment. As long as you were asking.”
“Wow,” says Cage. “That’s deep stuff, Hamlet. So I gather from this line of thinking that you are experiencing a bit of existential angst, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess you could say that.”
“You know what’s good for existential angst?”
“No,” I say. “What?”
“Steamed dumplings.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Clinically proven. And spareribs are pretty good too. Also chicken wings, but not quite as good.”
“I don’t have any of those things with me,” I say, shivering.
“Well, of course you don’t, you silly depressed person. Chinese food doesn’t just grow on trees. What do you think I am, some kind of ignoramus? You need to get your sorry self out of the aqueduct and down here to Panda Wok pronto. And you need to share a pupu platter with yours truly and you need to look at this gorgeous waitress named Maia who is talking with me right now, and you need to chat with your shit-faced advisor about literature and all things magnificent and then I promise you will be a happy camper once again. Depression gone. At least for the night. Money-back guarantee. Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I trust you.”
“Foolish yet fabulous!”
“You’ll wait for me?” I ask him.
“Will I wait for you? Max! My boy! My apprentice! My soul mate! It’s only eight o’clock. I usually close this place. They know me here. This business would fall apart without me sitting like a manatee on this very stool ordering tropical beverages night after glorious night. You think you’re depressed? You ain’t seen nothing yet. So come find me, my confused little dude. I’ll be the fat mammal at the bar with the big fruity drink.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
“If you’re not, I’m coming out there to find you. No funny business before you get here, understand? No hanging yourself from a tree or jumping off a cliff before I get some good Chinese medicine inside you. Is it a deal?”
“It’s a deal,” I say, feeling myself smile. “See you in ten minutes.”
“I will count the seconds,” says Cage. “One one hundred. Two one hundred. Three one hund—” And then he hangs up.
I plunge my freezing hands into my jacket pockets and trudge out of the aqueduct and into the center of town. Every once in a while, a truck drives by, windshield wipers going, as the snowflakes are falling down, and my heart quickens because I think it’s going to be Dad coming to take me home, Come save me from myself, Dad. Tonight I need to be saved, but it is never him so I keep on walking. I pass the library and the ice cream parlor, and then I pass the Episcopal church, the boutique clothing shop, the bank and the juice bar, and then finally there is Panda Wok, all lit up, windows fogged from the cold, smelling heavenly, and inside there is a fat mammal at the bar with a fruity drink in his hand waiting to give me fried food and bad advice that may not change the world, but will make me feel better for long enough to make it through the night.