Waiting Period

by Hubert Selby

  And thus a sacred plea from the man as he experiences the anguish of the human condition. Have you not seen it everywhere, most especially within yourself? It is simply part of the dilemma … contradictions, vacillation, confusion, self-deception, he is but a man. Does it not move your heart to see how he struggles to stay in the darkness, doing all he can, yet again, to avoid acknowledging that another day is upon him, another day of consciousness, of being aware of the pain in every cell and fiber of his being? What excruciating pain emanates from his body as he tosses about, seeking that magic position that will allow him to go back into sleep, the merciful darkness he so treasures. A black sleepshade, ear plugs, hugging the pillow, any and every device that has ever worked at any time in his life. All for a few minutes more of sleep, yet in sleep a few minutes can be as hours, the only important thing being that you not awaken to the point of needing to get up, of having to once again face the day.. He knows, as everyone does, that that moment will come, as always, yet what a treasure to postpone it as long as possible. Once up the inevitable follows. No flinging of sleepshade against the wall, no screaming at the light coming through the blinds, no shaking of fist at the world, just the simple recognition that another day has started, a day that may possibly bring to an end all his days. Yet I still think not. I have yet to see fault within the man. I say this even as he once again puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth, closes his eyes and tries to force his finger to pull the trigger. Another painful, boring day, pitiful and arduous. A day almost indistinguishable from the previous one, different only as each day is always new, the pain new yet old and endless.

  Must look like a question mark. Head wont raise. Hanging like a melon. Krist, what the hell must I look like bent in half with a gun barrel in my mouth? Animals dont sit around with a gun barrel in their mouths. They live as long as they can. Follow their instincts and their instincts tell them to live. They dont think. Dont ponder or contemplate. They dont think and just live. I think therefore I die. But Im not dead. Im sitting here with a gun barrel in my mouth … not an oboe, not a recorder, nor a clarinet or even a penny whistle. I have been sitting here so long with this in my mouth its an extension of my tongue. I have been sitting here with this in my mouth so long it has effected a genetic change. What might take endless generations and centuries has been accomplished in the wink of an eye. If I were to sire a child at this very moment its natural tongue would segue into hollow tubing of gun metal. No way of knowing how long it would be. Inches … feet … who knows? All of it might not fit into the mouth. It might hang pendulously, clanging, perhaps, against the childs chest. What if I stay like this indefinitely, would the metallic extension of the tongue be attached to a hand? Would it look as if the hand were reaching into the mouth or reaching from the mouth? What sort of hideous monstrosity would be created? How would it eat? How is it possible to chew with your tongue hanging from your mouth or a gun barrel inserted into your mouth? Could it speak? Can I speak now? I cant understand what Im saying. I know what I want to say, but am I actually saying it? So it can be understood? If no one hears me am I speaking? Is my head hanging lower? Who can answer this for me? Who am I asking? I talk and talk and talk but say nothing. My head rumbles with words yet I am silent. I am tortured and agonized by words yet I remain mute. If the words were coming from outside I could parry them as with a foil and laugh and thrust, but I am immobilized by the words resounding and reverberating and slashing and stabbing in my head. Is it really the words that weigh me down so that my hand hangs ever further down my chest, the barrel going deeper—no, the barrel can not go deeper as the hand too goes lower, as it must. How deep can the barrel go before it is thrown out by retching? That can not be allowed. The barrel must always be strategically fixed in the mouth so even an accidental triggering will leave the back of my head imbedded in the wall. Sounds strange. But not gruesome. It will be for the onlooker. But I wont be seeing. I will simply be a wallflower. So, nothing changes. Even as death approaches and time runs out … nothing changes. Only appearances. Thank god I cant see me. Would I cry to see such a sad scene, a man trying so desperately to die he ends up looking like … like … like this, body bent, twisted, a gun barrel apparently a permanent part of his anatomy? Would I care and ask if I could help? Suppose I … the me sitting on the couch, said yes, please push my finger against the trigger. What would I do? Would I feel such profound compassion and empathy I would do as I request; or would I decline for fear of being a murderer? Dont know. Is that why I am unable to pull the trigger, I think I/ll be a murderer? No. A persons life is their own, their own to end if they want to. Period. Screw the church. And their purgatories and hells. The only reason I would want to avoid hell, if it exists, is that it is filled with them. Hell must be populated with the devout, the fundamentalist, the Barnards. I suspect when you die you die. When do I die? When do I die??? everyday, all day, yet death continually evades me. Pull damned finger. I dont think I can even pull this thing out. I have to pull the trigger or spend the rest of my life like this. I am spending the rest of my life like this. All I have to do is squeeze the trigger gently, just soft, easy squeeze! Ive done it on the range. Aimed and squeezed the trigger slowly. Had no trouble. All that practice to no avail. What the hell good is it to know what to do if you cant do it when needed? Its insane. I can take it apart and put it back together with my eyes closed. Cant pull the trigger. Finger just wont squeeze it. No strain. No pain. Just a squeeze. Im going to fall off this couch. Maybe then it will squeeze. My stomach is screaming for food. It needs more than the taste of gun metal. It needs more than thinking. More than air. It wants food. Fine. How do I fix something to eat with only one hand? Even tv dinner? Maybe I can pull it out with my other hand? Worse than yesterday. Muscles, joints locked. Late. Faint glow in sky, but not for long. Wish I wanted to eat. How can I be so hungry and not want to eat? Strange. No. Want to eat. Dont want to fix it. Put it in front of me. Not now. Maybe later. Why eat if Im going to die? All that trouble. Suppose I do get this out of my mouth and nuke a tv dinner, then half an hour later, or whenever, Im dead. All that work for nothing. Im crumbling. Arm and hand numb again. Didnt realize it. Maybe for hours. No wonder it couldnt . squeeze. Do have to pull it out. My jaw seems locked. Teeth clamping down on it. Didnt know. For hours and didnt know. Have to grab my wrist with my other hand and—no. Break my teeth. Dont need that now. Feel bad enough. Lets see, what in the hell do … start with jaw. Yeah th—no, wait. Krist, cant think straight. How long have I been sitting here like this? Was still morning when I got up. Dark now. Must be after nine. Im frozen in this position. Like an old Indian curled over a campfire. First … first … what the hell is first? oh yeah, of course. Got to hang over couch. Make sure. Gun falls on couch. My god, everythings stiff. Okay, slow, easy does it, got to move slowly. Alright, thats it, lean against the back … now, massage jaws, got to massage slowly and keep trying to open mouth … yeah … oh yeah, its working, I can feel it o krist, I hope it doesnt crack. I hate it when it cracks. Feels like the end of the world. Just keep massaging slowly, move slowly, dont crack, please dont crack, just keep trying to open up, easy, easy, tiny little bit, just go slowly, its working … yeah, its moving, its actually moving, I can feel it, my jaw is moving, its opening my mouth, oh god, dont crack … nice and slow … yeah … its opening … dont think teeth are touching barrel … think … easy … easy … yeah, yeah … it is opening … okay, now … nice and easy … thats it, just hold the hand gently … firmly … Easy … easy … yeah … pull it out … little more … thats it … little more … pull your head away … good … good … its working … its working … almost out … good … oh, I think the teeth are free … no spasms in jaw … thank god … it hasnt cracked … hate that blinding pain … can feel the tip with my tongue … aaaaahhhhhhhhhh … just leave it on. the couch … still cant move my jaw … okay … mouth will close in a minute … ooohhhhhhhhhhhh god, my arm is throbbing, jesus it hurts, blood must be pounding, oh jesus, o krist, rub it
rub it inside the elbow …

  well, it got me on my feet, but Im wobbly … jesus, I cant walk … I/ll be damned, sat there so long I cant walk … . Well, just have to inch along one little step at a time … well … its working … damn … how the hell did I sit here so long I ended up like this … again? Its okay, its okay. Just dont give up. Might need the irony. Eat a hearty and nourishing tv dinner then kill myself. Didnt work yesterday. Okay. Edison never gave up. The Wright Brothers didnt give up. Just keep trying. Okay, the circulations back. Legs and arms move. Maybe some noise. Might help. Turn the TV on. Seems fair. Eating a tv dinner. They deserve each other. Both so aggravating I/ll forget how I feel. Yeah, do feel like a failure. Been sitting here for years trying to end the misery, to kill the pain, and keep failing. Cant give up. Yet Im getting so depressed I cant try. How did this happen? How did I get here … like this … feeling so bad I cant even kill myself? I dont feel good enough to kill myself. I am chewing. I can hear my jaw creaking. Moves so slow. Hard time lifting food to my mouth. Arm still feels like its detached. Not important. Keep chewing. Wake up the body. Chew … slowly … carefully … chew … chew. Cant even say its no good. Not important. Dont care. Whats the difference. Nothings important. Oh god, not again. How long? How long can it go on???? For ever. And ever. Im doomed to spend all my days sitting as I did today. Nights feeling as I do now. Blackness would be lighter than this. So far beyond hopeless. Oh god, I just cant take it … yet I know I will … will keep awakening to a new day … another day like all the others … beyond bleak … beyond black … beyond hope for change or relief. That is my destiny … my life … to keep living this day … I cant even try to fool myself that maybe tomorrow I will squeeze the trigger. I never will. Theres no point in trying. No point in sitting with it in my mouth hoping, praying I/ll be able to end all this and find some peace. It is all an illusion. A painful hoax. There is no hope for death. It isnt coming. Only endless dying. I can see that now. Oh so clearly. The hope I would eventually squeeze the trigger was just more deception. Oh god, what an indescribable bareness I feel. No words. They dont exist. Not for this. I just have to give myself up to the futility and bleak, crushing nothingness of my life … vacant of all meaning … oh god … how agonizingly despairing the simple truth … empty of purpose … yes … yes, so true, vacant of substance … nothing to resist … nothing to strive for … to wish for … to hope for … not even anything to defy … no battle of light and darkness, good and evil … no struggle for honor … most wretched of all, not even a fight against nothingness, no struggle for fulfillment … simply an absence of all sensibilities … only nothing … nothing … no fall from valor … no integrity to be reclaimed or perversion to be renounced … no … not even nothingness, but something so hideously beyond its almost ineffable … the total absence of everything, even nothingness … I—what??? what the hell they talking about? Thats a long time ago …

  ‘ … and it is estimated that at least 200 adults and more than 50 children attended the barbecue celebrating the event that occurred 30 years ago today and—’

  I remember that. On the news for days.

  ‘ … as you can see there are tubs filled with ice and watermelons, and others with soda and beer—’

  Wonder where the bourbon is? Off camera probably, oh god, theres a fiddler too.

  ‘ … and this has been an annual event since the verdict was returned 30 years ago, but today—’

  Yeah, a day to remember … an extraordinary day. Another day of infamy.

  ‘ … so it is plain to see that no one is anxious or willing to speak with us, except for some of the young children who are just having fun at the barbecue and have no idea what is being celebrated—Oh here comes the man who—’

  Jesus, look at him … at them. Theyre cheering and jumping up and down—

  ‘ … fathers are carrying children on their shoulders so they can get a better look at Big Jim Kinsey, who is walking around and shaking hands and slapping shoulders—Oh, some people are blocking the camera, Please, let us through, this is network news and—’

  It really is Kinsey. Must have put on 50 pounds in the last 30 years, but its him. No doubt. Grinning from ear to ear. Those people idolize him … worship him. A real folk hero …