Page 50 of Play of Love
Chapter 12
Josh
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Idrove to Bruce’s. It was a sports bar where the guys and I always hung out. Especially after a game. They always had what I wanted and the women who worked here were always hot.
I grabbed a few beers and stayed there for a while shooting pool and watching baseball on the overhead TV. I did every and anything I could to take my mind off the day, and Amy.
When I got bored I went to the supermarket, grabbed a case of beer and some wine, then headed out to Dead Man’s Gorge, so called for the jagged, sharp, rock formations that led into a deep chasm. Either jumping off or driving over would result in sure death. Not many came back. Especially the ones that planned it that way.
I knew a guy once that jumped. He lived two houses down from me and worked as an insurance broker. He was made redundant after his company went through a bad spell. The poor guy was unable to bounce back. Burdened with substantial debts and the damage losing his job caused his family, he thought that death was the only answer. I remembered how his family suffered. At the time I’d wondered how the man could have been so selfish as to take his own life and leave his family behind with no one to care for them.
What I never thought of was how the man must have felt when he done it.
I never thought of how doomed the man must have felt for death to be his only answer.
I understood it now.
Understood it all. It was that doomed, damning feeling that gripped you and made you feel like there was no way to escape it. I was getting tired of it. Tired of waking up every day and blaming myself. Tired of feeling guilty.
I’d been parked up in my Range Rover about a meter away from the edge of the gorge for about an hour now, downing more drinks.
Normally I followed Bruce’s with a visit to Roam Me, my favorite strip club.
But I couldn’t today. Not only did I want to be alone, but something happened to me when I kissed Amy and I felt that if I was ever going to please myself with a woman it had to be her.
That would never happen after the way I treated her this morning.
I was disgusted with myself for the way I spoke to her. Thoroughly disgusted. I was still drunk from the night before and all I knew was anger. All I knew was I’d wanted more beer, and when I discovered what she did I was so furious I couldn’t think. I wanted to shake her for caring, to knock some sense into her so she could see that I didn’t want anyone to care for me. I didn’t care about anything and anyone so she shouldn’t waste her time on me.
Now I was here. At the precipice of the gorge that signaled the end for a lot of people.
The depressed, who had no more to give, and those who couldn’t bear any more pain. I fit both categories. I was depressed and I didn’t have the strength to make any more attempts at fixing my life. The pain from the grief was too much for me now and I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do.
So…what now?
I rested my head back on the seat and closed my eyes. I steadied my ragged breathing and allowed my mind to drift. It seemed to drift forever and into a hole of bottomless nothingness.
Down, down deep I went trying to get to the bottom of my mind.
As my mind steadied, the image of my family home in San Francisco came forward. It felt like someone was playing a memory from one of those old-style projectors people used to play their family videos on.
I saw myself as a very young child running across the lawn with a football. Dad was chasing me. Mom was laughing and so was Clarissa.
“Throw me the ball, son,” Dad called out.
I threw the ball and Dad caught it, but as I looked back my father looked older, the way he did now. And I was no longer a child. I was a man playing as a professional with my team.
In every game I played I always, always looked to where my family sat. The proud looks on their faces would always give me that strength I needed to do my best and more. To be the best at what I did and give me the edge no one else had.
The pride for me would literally glow on their faces. Every time, every game, no matter how old I got or how many games I played. I played for them, all of them. I played to make them proud.
I knew without question that they loved me and always would.
Everything shifted in my mind again but this time it was as if I was running through scenes of my life, memories of Mom and Clarissa. Memories of my happy family.
When the scenery settled I was in the living room of my family’s house. Mom and Clarissa stood by the grand piano sorting through some clothes they were boxing up for charity.
