Chapter Seven
Ned Phillips stared at the blank screen on his iPhone for several
long moments. What had just happened? He was conflicted, alternately
hopeful and confused. He wasn’t sure which was worse. He didn’t want to
be hopeful anymore, he knew from experience where that led.
What had he just learned from his phone call with Dee? Had he
learned that there was still hope for Dee and him? No, not really, he
realized, she had made it quite clear earlier that she had no intention of
wasting another second of her life with him. All she was admitting to was
that she still struggled with her emotions. Women loved security. That’s
all he was to her. She didn’t love him, she loved the security he brought
into her life, the familiarity of relationships. She loved what he could
give her. That was the rational conclusion. It was logically deductive of
all the information he had been given. So why did he still hurt?
He let the iPhone drop into his lap. Why did life have to be so
confusing? Why did there have to be hope in the world? It wasn’t even a
real tangible thing. It was nothing more than a concept, yet it prodded
him, taunted him, urging him to embrace it. Dee had said she loved him.
Why did she have to say that? Why couldn’t she have just cussed him out
and hung up? It would have been so easy then.
All his carefully laid plans for how this evening was going to be
were slowly being destroyed. His confidence was ebbing, his confusion was
growing, his emotions were bungee cording all over the place. He even
realized with some chagrin that he wasn’t at all sure he was going to kill
himself. Ironically, that thought frightened him the most, and gave him
the most courage. There was too much pain in this life, too much confusion
for a man like him. He needed to end this all.
Then he remembered the sign. …D LOVES YOU. He stiffened in his
chair. This was crazy. Sure he had asked for a sign. It was a normal
human reaction to a strong fear, it didn’t mean anything. But he had asked
for it. And he had gotten what he had asked for.
But what if he hadn’t asked for a sign and had just called Dee on his
own, he reasoned. The results would have been exactly the same. But he
had not had any intention of calling Dee. It was only the dare to God,
that quasi prayer that had prompted him to contact her. He had called her
only in challenge, in protest against the concept of God giving people
signs of his presence. In fact, he had been given a sign even before he
had asked for one. And then when he had asked for a sign, he had received
one.
Screeching tires and the sounds of a car speeding down the street
interrupted his thoughts. The sound slowly faded. The rain beat down
harder now, a gust of wind blowing it hard against the window of room 7.
He should have asked for a different sign. He should have asked for
the sky to part or the rain to suddenly turn to flowers, or something more
dramatic. Of course he doubted any kind of God would be bamboozled so
easily by a request for divine parlor tricks. But really, couldn’t the God
of the universe do something a bit more drastic than controlling a neon
light and engineering a phone call? Then again, he hadn’t asked for
anything more drastic.
The TV hummed back to life. Ned shifted uneasily in his chair as he
gazed down at the dingy, ancient black box. There was something definitely
wrong with that TV. It kept beginning with the Miracle on 34th Street, and
then showing Christmas movies—and nothing but Christmas movies. And, he
thought, there were never any commercials, any channel identifications.
There was no way you could watch as much TV as he had without at least a
dozen commercials per show. But he couldn’t remember even one. OK, that
in itself was semi-miraculous. He tried to comfort himself with the idea
that the commercials might have run when he had been asleep.
And what was up with his dreams, or his…he wasn’t sure what to call
them. He had never in his life entered a movie in his dreams. But tonight
it had happened. At least he thought it had. It wasn’t possible. But
what do you do if the impossible happens? Of course he had never been in a
dingy motel room preparing to end his life either. He took a deep
cleansing breath and tried to rationally put all the pieces together.
After a few moments of concentration he came to the conclusion that he
had simply miscalculated how powerful the survival instinct in the human
species was. Hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary progress had
programmed him to survive, and despite all his clear and rational thinking,
his instincts sought to keep him from ending his life. He wasn’t
struggling against God, he was struggling against evolution. As his ration
and logic returned he felt better, more in control.
The Miracle on 34th Street hummed back to life. Suddenly he felt bad
again, the fleeting feeling of control teetering again on the brink. The
black screen slowly brightened from inky darkness lighter and lighter until
the picture began forming. The familiar music played and the old white
bearded man was walking down the street again with his overcoat and cane.
This was just not right. What was the logical explanation for a possessed
TV? He suddenly felt hot and wiped some sweat from his forehead. His
clothes were only slightly damp now as his body warmth had dried them
almost completely out.
He felt suddenly tired again. But this time he struggled against the
encroaching fatigue. He glanced at his watch. It was 10:47. He summoned
all his will power. The TV was growing louder and, as usual, The Miracle
on 34th Street disappeared and silence reigned. If he could have seen
himself he would have witnessed himself shaking his head back and forth as
he stared at the TV like a hapless creature before the hypnotizing eyes of
a King Cobra. There was fear in his eyes. He would have been very worried
about himself.
What would be next? He didn’t want any more signs. He was almost
completely sure they weren’t signs of divine intervention, but more likely
signs of his mental and emotional strain, but neither option was
attractive. His eyes were growing heavy; he was feeling more comfortable
in the naugahyde chair. Normally sleep was welcome, it delivered you from
your dark thoughts, but what happened when sleep was where your dark
thoughts lived? He could barely keep his eyes open. He was actually
grateful when a picture suddenly popped on the TV, but the feeling of
gratefulness only lasted a second. Then he felt absolutely miserable.
As he watched the TV begin to clear into a picture, he heard a bell
ringing, then he could see it swinging back and forth. It was a large
bell. Then he saw a picture appear on the screen, a painting really. A
snowy winter scene of a horse pulling a wagon filled with children waving.
Behind them was a snow laden mountain with several small homes dotting the
mountainside. It is a cheerful picture, a festive cozy picture. Then,
like a page in a book, the scene was changed and the name of the movie
prominently displayed.
Ned laughed mirthlessly.
“Oh God, this is just cruel.”
Of all the Christmas movies in the world, he hated this one most of
all.
It’s a Wonderful Life.
If there was a God out there, he must enjoy irony. Here Ned was
sitting in the most god forsaken arm pit of a room in the worst area he
could find with a gun ready to end his life and It’s a Wonderful Life comes
on. This was schmaltz, pure unadulterated, high grade mind opium for the
masses. This was what people who couldn’t afford liquor or drugs used to
get high every year. It was an intellectual narcotic. If he had a vote he
would have given this movie an X rating.
A Guardian angel named Clarence who loved reading Mark Twain, the
goodie good George Bailey, who was, in his book, one of the greatest chumps
and suckers that ever drew an ink inspired breath, and of course, the
villain, Mr. Potter, the cruel old wheel chair bound millionaire. That’s
where the danger of this movie was, the propaganda. Most of the masses
would just drink the Kool-Aid without questioning.
Mr. Potter, the bad guy, was painted as evil because of what? He was
the bad guy because he was rich, because he was successful in business.
But that’s what everyone wants to be, they just don’t want to pay the real
price it takes to get there. Ned had learned this lesson long ago. Potter
was the evil guy because everyone else was jealous of him. Potter was the
only smart cookie in the whole movie (a point he had made several times
during the years that he had forced himself to watch the movie with the
family—despite Dee’s remonstrance’s for him to shut up).
The movie was nothing more than a socialistic communistic docudrama
with a splash of quasi religion to make it palatable to Bud and Ethel in
Des Moines who put 50,000 Christmas lights on their house every year,
depleting the environment of valuable and non-renewable energy resources.
For what?
Ned’s jaw tightened. He may have to end his life in this dive of a
room, but he did not have to watch this stupid movie. He traced the TV
cord and saw that it went behind the large heavy dresser that sat beneath
the window. To unplug it he would have to get on his hands and knees on
the carpet, or heft the large dresser out of the way. Normally, he would
have done this immediately, but he was growing more tired by the moment.
He wished he had toothpicks to prop his eyes open with. He couldn’t
remember ever being tired like this before, it was unnatural. He would
just rest for a moment and then turn the TV off. Then he felt a mental
warning.
He eyed the TV suspiciously. Something just wasn’t right. Why did
he always get so tired when the movie was beginning to play? It was
unnatural. Everything in him told him he needed to stay awake, but his
body wouldn’t cooperate. All he wanted to do was sleep. He was so
comfortable. He didn’t think he had ever been this comfortable in his
entire life. The movie began playing. Part of his mind told him to turn
away, but his eyes seemed unable to answer.
Ned closed his eyes, trying vainly to resist the assault on his
senses, but he could not close his ears. He heard the sound of prayers,
many different people praying to God. They were young voices, old voices,
the voices of friends, and family. They were all praying. He groggily put
his hands over his ears, but he could still hear. The prayers suddenly
became a potpourri of prayers, rising now in a chorus. On the TV, the
scene left earth and entered space, past planets, stars, until finally it
reached what looked like the Milky Way. Before the scene changed, Ned had
lost. He was asleep, an angry and frustrated look etched on his
unconscious face.
Scenes came slowly into view, starting small, then broadening out in
his mind. Boys sliding down an ice hill on a metal shovel, a line of boys
walking hand in hand down a busy main street in 1930 America, blocking
traffic behind them; this was George Bailey’s early life.
Suddenly Ned found himself trying to talk to his father, but his
father was busy talking to someone else. He tried to get his father’s
attention. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. He just knew
that he needed to talk with his father. But his father was talking to Mr.
Potter. The crags of the old man’s face, his wicked looking crooked
fingers, the perpetual scowl all made Ned leery of the old man. The old
man’s voice was dangerous, and he was threatening his father. His father
was trying to reason with Mr. Potter. Ned felt angry, why did this man get
to get away with his evil? The picture slowly faded away. The emotions of
fear and anger gradually left and suddenly Ned felt light at heart. In
fact, he was so lighthearted, he was smiling and laughing.
He was trying to hold his pants up. He didn’t even know what kind of
pants they were, but they were so big he had to grip them tightly with one
hand or risk being embarrassed in front of the beautiful young girl he was
walking with. He was no longer a young boy, but a young man. It was
evening and the moon was bright, illuminating their walk down the
neighborhood sidewalk. He was laughing and joking with her. The young
woman was wearing a white bathrobe for some reason, but her face shone
brighter than the moon to Ned. Her smile was almost intoxicating to him.
Her eyes shone like turquoise.
Dee had always had the most beautiful eyes. It’s what had attracted
him to her. All he wanted in life was for this one moment to last forever.
He was young, strong, hopeful, and in the presence of the most beautiful
woman he had ever met. She was obviously as attracted to him as he was to
her. Everything was perfect. He seemed to remember this feeling from
somewhere long ago. He desperately wanted to take her in his arms. But
before he could, the scene faded out. But the smile on Ned’s sleeping face
didn’t fade, it grew even broader.
It was raining rice and rain. Umbrella’s covered the spectators as
he and Dee walked down the steps into the waiting car. Celebrations and
congratulations filled the air, competing with the falling rain for
attention. They were on their way to their honeymoon. She was finally
his. He had a stack of money in his pocket, confidence in his future, his
beautiful bride next to him and the world was his for the taking. Life
with Dee would be perfect. Then the scene went suddenly black. He was
lost. Dee was gone, his money was gone, his hope was gone. Somehow,
everything he loved had been taken from him.
When the darkness lifted, he was seated in a dark office before a man
in a wheelchair and his private butler behind him. It was Potter and he
was leering at him in great delight. He could tell from the window that it
was dark outside. The room seemed cold. He was in Potter’s office in his
bank. He was desperate, almost in tears. Something was missing from his
life. What was it? He couldn’t find it. He needed help. Only Potter
could help him. Money. If he could get more money his problems would be
solved. He could salvage his life. He could return home to Dee and the
kids. He had worked so hard. But Potter wouldn’t help him. He was
laughing at him.
Then suddenly Ned was scared. He had lost everything. There was only
one thing left to do. He had to run, he had to escape. He ran out of the
office, out of the bank, the sound of Potter’s threats dying behind him.
It was snowing outside, the streets were covered with snow, but he hardly
felt it. He ran like the demons of hell were on his heels, his legs
growing tired, his lungs straining for air, tears turning to ice as he ran.
He had never felt such fear before.
In room 7 of the Atlas Motel, Ned Phillips legs jerked back and forth
in the naugahyde chair. Small sounds of fear and moaning came out of Ned
Phillips mouth, but there was no one to hear them. The rain continued
pouring steadily.
Gradually the scene faded away, the fear lessening. And he had a
queer feeling. Something had happened, but he didn’t know what. He was
tired and just wanted to go home. He wasn’t even sure why he was out
alone. Maybe he had gotten some bad liquor. He started back for home, but
nothing looked the same. Nothing was familiar. Ned was puzzled. Had he
somehow gotten lost?
He walked down streets he thought he knew, but nothing looked
familiar. What had happened? Then he realized that all he wanted was to
find Dee again. Where was she? She would make everything alright. She
had always been the anchor in his life. No matter what, she had always
been there for him. He had always just taken it for granted. But now he
realized how precious she was to him. He needed her.
Then he spied her. She was standing on the steps of an old building.
But she looked old, insecure, frightened. But it didn’t matter, it was
Dee. His heart jumped for joy and he raced to her, and caught her eyes.
But she did not smile in return. He was running to her, but as he did he
saw her eyes grow large with fear. She was afraid of something. She
didn’t seem to recognize him. Then he reached out to her and called her by
name and she screamed and ran away. Why was she running from him? He
chased her, calling her, begging her to remember him. Dee was all there
was for Ned. He yelled for her to remember him, but it was as if he had
never existed.
In room 7 of the Atlas Motel, Ned Phillips unconsciously mouthed out
words which would not come. It was agonizing. Dee was gone. His kids
were gone. His life was gone. The picture faded to black.
When the scene returned, Ned was running. He was running through the
soft snow, past cars, buildings, stores, houses, until finally he ran out
of the town itself. Then he saw the bridge, the river below so cold that
large chunks of ice were floating downstream.
He had lost everything. He knew it now. He had lost his home, Dee,
his reputation, his children, everything. The pain of that was so deep
that he had to stop the pain, at any cost he had to make the pain stop. He
ran to the bridge, walking to the railing. His fingers rested on the
frozen railing, but he didn’t feel the shooting pain anymore. He was numb,
in every possible way.
He wanted—what? What did he want? He was as frozen as the railing
upon which his fingers rested. Snow fell down gently upon him, his ears
practically frozen. The rush of the river was the only noise that could be
heard in the gentle snowfall. Then, from the deepest recesses of his
being, Ned began to cry. All his defenses had finally fallen, his
resistance had broken. A pain so deep that it could only be uttered with
moans came out of his mouth.
What was life all about? Had he been wrong? Finally, one thought
emerged from his soul, one last gasp of hope. And to his surprise, he
realized he didn’t want to jump in the river and end it all. He wanted
life. He wanted back what he once had. The tiniest speck of hope still
remained. Although everything looked lost, he could not help it. Hope
would simply not die. If there was nothing out there, if no one could help
him, yet he would still cry out.
“I want to live again. I want to live again,” he begged. He buried
his head in his cold hands. “I want to live again,” he pleaded. “Please
God, help me live again.” It was an anguished cry, a cry of desperation.
He had no one left to ask.
Ned woke up. He had fallen out of the chair, and was on his knees.
Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he was sobbing.
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