He Forgot

He Forgot

by

Burt Sage

        Again he’d thought about it—all the way back on his flight from Boston to San Diego. Could he really do it? Could he really commit suicide? He’d thought about it many times before. “How would I do it?” he asked himself again. “Gun? No—too messy. Auto crash? No—cars are too safe now. With my luck I’d probably survive. Sleeping pills? With them, I’d just go to sleep and never wake up. But how many to take? And where would I get them? Too uncertain.”

        He’d come to the same conclusion again, the same one he always came to when he had these thoughts. Carbon monoxide from his car in his garage. Get a good drink, put on his favorite music, and just go to sleep. No pain, no mess, just…..oblivion.

        “Why not,” he’d asked himself. “Absolutely nothing is going right for me now that I’m fifty-six. I’m probably worth more dead than alive to the people I care about.”

        Years ago, when he was 40, he’d bought twenty-year-term life insurance, thinking that if he were to die suddenly, the family could get by. And he had paid the extra premium in case the death was ruled a suicide. “Now that was something I did right,” he’d thought. “Nowadays people keep telling me that I can’t do anything right.”

        These people certainly had plenty of evidence. He used to shoot scores in the mid eighties when he played golf with the guys at the club. But his last score was 92. One of the guys even out-drove him on one of the par fives. That had never happened before. And his seven irons used to carry 150 yards. Now all his seven irons were coming up short. His golf buddies just laughed. They used to walk off the 18^th green several bucks lighter. Now the few extra dollars were in their pockets.

        There was more evidence at home. In the bedroom the night before he left on this trip, his hydraulics had failed. His blood just wouldn’t go where he needed it to go. His wife assured him that it was ‘just one of those things that happens to every guy once in a while’. “It’ll be fine next time. Don’t worry about it,” she had said. But it had never happened before.

        The worst part was his memory. Loss of short term memory, they called it. On trips to the grocery store he never used to have to make a list. Twenty items? No problem. Now he needed a list even if there were only five items to buy. And one time he got to his car only to realize that he had not purchased the one item he made the trip for. He had to go back into the store again to get it.

        And even tonight, in the parking lot at the airport. He had to use the flasher on his car key to locate his car. He had forgotten where he had parked it. Good thing he remembered which floor.

        He was now in his car headed home. “God help me if I forget where I live,” he thought.

        Traffic was relatively light on the five as he drove north to Encinitas. It was Thursday, not Friday. He had cut the trip short because his Friday appointment was canceled at the last moment. Soon he would be home.

        He sighed. But then he would have to explain to his wife that the trip had been a total failure. There would be no new business. In fact, two of his best customers were now willing to take sample product from competitors. That meant lower sales to these customers. Sadly, he shook his head. “I even forgot the name of Jim Clark’s wife,” he remembered. “Boy, was that embarrassing. Jim just looked at me kind of funny. ‘What the hell is going on with you?’ must have been in his mind.” But the worst part was that his CEO had told him that when he got back, they needed to meet to discuss his future with the company. Those words always meant retirement or outright dismissal.

        He signed again. “Too bad my wife will be waiting,” he thought. “If the house was empty, I’d actually do it.”

        “Damn,” he muttered as he rolled up the interstate. “I just missed the Manchester exit. Now I’ll have to go all the way up to Encinitas Boulevard.”

        His house was dark as he drove up. He parked in the garage and went into the kitchen through the laundry area. “Alice,” he shouted. No response. Then he remembered. Alice had gone to visit her sister while he was away on his business trip. She wouldn’t be back until Sunday afternoon.

        He went into his den and went behind the bar. He took down his bottle of Jack Daniels, went over to the mini-fridge and took out some ice, and poured himself a stiff one. He sank into his favorite chair but did not turn on the TV. Someone once said that life was a play in three acts, and the third act sucks. “They sure were right,” he thought.

        Life had stopped being fun over five years ago. And now it was downright dreadful. The people who said he couldn’t do anything right anymore were right. He couldn’t.

        And then the light went on. “Yes,” he said to himself. “There is one thing that I can do right. I can leave.” And right then and there he made the decision to actually do it. “Well,” he thought, smiling, “when they find me, at least they’ll be able to say ‘finally, he did something right’.”

        Should he leave a note? He should. He went to his office and wrote on a sheet of paper, “Alice, I love you. But you’ll be better off with me gone. Love, Al.”

        He looked at the note. Good. Short and to the point. He left it there on his desk.

        He went back to the den, got his glass, the bottle of Jack Daniels, and some more ice, and took them with him out to his car. Checking to make sure the garage door was closed, he got into the driver’s seat and started the car. Using his phone, he went to Spotify, selected a couple of his playlists, and started the first one. He filled his glass, settled back into his seat, and listened and drank until he went to sleep.

        The light through the garage window the following morning woke him. Through a blinding headache the events of the previous night slowly unfolded. He looked around. His glass and the empty bottle of Jack Daniels were in the passenger seat. Suddenly he realized he was alive. “How can that be?” he thought. He pinched himself just to make sure. Ouch. And then he understood. He sank further into his seat and started to cry. “Of course I’m alive,” he mumbled. “I drive a Tesla.”