Life & Death

Near where I live there's a long, steep stairwell below a large vacant lot that looks out over the city. I like to sit there in the evening as night frames the city lights and another busy urban day ends. I often wear headphones to isolate myself from other people, listening to an eclectic mix of music acquired over a lifetime. So, I wasn't pleased when three young men approached me as I sat in my space in time.

They were black men, dressied in athletic clothing. Unable to avoid them I removed my headphones to find out why one of them stood in my space, staring at me. I'm very glad that I did.

They are students at the university who had come to the stairwell for excercise, One of them had recently converted from Christianity to Islam; the others already belonging to that faith. I think their initial plan was to proselytize, but it turned into a conversation that we all seemed to enjoy.

As we spoke one of the young men said something about learning from your elders, then asked me what I've learned during my life, which kind of took me by surprise, causing me to wonder, for a moment, if I'd learned anything. But then I remembered: I've learned that there are many things that we do not yet know.

I explained to the young man that people living just a hundred years earlier would not believe that the world we live in today exists - it was in the realm of science fiction before becoming reality. The young man and his friends seemed genuinely interested in my thoughts, so I went on to tell the true story of Levi, James and myself, trying to be as brief and concise as possible.

I didn't know James, who was Levi's best friend in high school, during the time Levi and I spent together, but I came to know him later. Levi and I lived and worked along the Coast where we spent a great deal of time enjoying the youthful party scene there. Playboy magazine had rated the town highly as a location to pick up women, and it was indeed a party town. In our twenties, both Levi and I had been involved in relationships before, but found ourselves single, enjoying our independence.

Levi belonged to a prominent local family that knew nearlty everyone in the small town. He was well liked, often loved by members of the community. Siometimes he spoke of his best friend from high school, James. I had moved to the town from another location, but soon became well known too.

Levi and I drank excessively, often using cocaine and other drugs as well. Ultimately the drinking cost Levi his job, as it had cost him his wife, and would ultimately cost him, and others, that highest of prices. He was coming south along the Coast highway after a a night of drinking when he crossed the center line, striking an oncoming car. The man in the other vehicle, who was just visiting the beach, died. Levi's passener was seriously injured, and Levi died at the scene.

Although I knew that it was somewhere along that seventeen mile stretch of road, I didn't know exactly where the wreck had been. A year later I got off work and was preparing to head home when friends convinced me to have a few drinks. Like Levi, I was drunk when I lost control of the truck on my way home. The cab of the truck was crushed, but the first people on the scene managed to pry a door open. Later I learned that my accident was in the same location as Levi's, the same people, who lived nearby, were the first to respond.

Time went on before I landed in an urban area about seventy miles from the Coast. One day I stopped at a yard sale that - although I didn't know him at the time - James was holding. We became friends, spending a great deal of time drinking together. Like Levi, James was a very pleasant person, who was in the late stages of alcoholism.

While there's often evidence of the Devil around us, it's only a couple of times that I've clearly seen the beast. The beast in this instance was Jame's addiction to alcohol. I've never forgotten the confused look of desperation in his eyes as I spoke with him one day after he had attempted suicide. Like Levi, he had tried to stop drinking many times, but just couldn't seem to do so, despite his best efforts and other people around him doing their best to help.

James committed suicide.

How is it that in an area with more than one million people in it I ran into James? There are things that we do not yet know.

My older brother murdered his wife before killing himself. He had stayed in the town where we had spent our childhoods, building several businesses with his wife that squarely placed them among the prominent citizens of that community.

I was about one hundred miles from their home the night they died. Waking from sleep about three in the morning I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. In the morning the call came: he had used a shotgun to kill his wife, then placed the barrel in his mouth.

C.G. Jung spoke of synchronicity. I don't know why, or how, but I'm certain that there are things we do not yet know.

I suppose there is a reason I survived all this time - perhaps to write this. Although I was once addicted it doesn't seem to have left scars as deep as it often does. Reading the police report after receiving a drunk driving ticket when I was eighteen left me with an aversion to drinking before driving. I've most often known when it's time to stop and managed to do so, with a couple of exceptions.