Way of the Peaceful Warrior (10 page)

“What's going on?” For the moment, the life was back in my voice. These journeys were always a shock to my system; I felt a rush of energy.
 

“A suicide attempt is in progress. Only you can stop it.” “I'm not trying to kill myself just yet,” I said.
 

“Not you, fool. The young man outside the window, on the ledge. He's attending the University of Southern California. His name is Donald; he plays soccer and he's a philosophy major. He's in his senior year and he doesn't want to live. Go to it,” Socrates gestured toward the window. “Socrates, I can't,” “Then he'll die.”
 

I looked out the window and saw, about fifteen stories below, groups of tiny people looking up from the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Peeking around the side of the window, I saw a light haired young man in brown Levis and a T-shirt standing ten feet
 

away on the narrow ledge, looking down. He was getting ready to jump.
 

Not wanting to startle him, I called his name softly. He didn't hear me; I called again. “Donald.”
 

He jerked his head up and almost fell. “Don't come near me!” he warned. Then, “How do you know my name?”
 

“A friend of mine knows you, Donald. May I sit on the ledge here and talk to you? I won't come any closer.”
 

“No, no more words.” His face was lax, his monotone voice had already lost its life.
 

“Don--do people call you Don?”
 

“Yeah,” he answered automatically.
 

“OK, Don, I guess it's your life. Anyway, 99 percent of the people in the world kill themselves.”
 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he said, an edge of life coming back into his voice. He started gripping the wall more tightly.
 

“Well, I'll tell you. The way most people live kills them--you know what I mean, Don? They may take thirty or forty years to kill themselves by smoking or drinking or stress or overeating, but they kill themselves just the same.”
 

I edged a few feet closer. I had to choose my words carefully. “Don, my name is Dan. I wish we could spend more time talking we might have some things in common. I'm an athlete too, up at U.C. Berkeley.”
 

“Well...” he stopped and started to shake.
 

“Listen, Don, it's getting a little scary for me to sit here on this ledge. I'm going to stand up so I can hold on to something.” I stood slowly. I was shaking a little myself. “Jesus,” I thought. “What am I doing out on this ledge?”
 

I spoke softly, trying to find a bridge to him. “Don, I hear it’s going to be a beautiful sunset tonight; the Santa Ana winds are blowing some storm clouds in. Are you sure you never want to see another sunset, or sunrise? Are you sure you never want to go hiking in the mountains again?”
 

“I've never been up to the mountains,”
 

“You wouldn't believe it, Don. Everything is pure up there the water, the air. You can smell pine needles everywhere. Maybe we could go hiking together. What do you think? Hell, if you want to kill yourself, you can always do it after you've at least seen mountains.”
 

There--I'd said all I could say. Now it was up to him. As I talked, I'd wanted more and more for him to live. I was only a few feet from him now.
 

“Stop!” he said. “I want to die…now.”
 

I gave up. “All right,” I said. “Then I'm going with you.  I’ve already seen the goddamn mountains anyway.”
 

He looked at me for the first time. “You're serious, aren't you?”
 

“Yeah, I'm serious. Are you going first, or am I?”
 

“But,” he said, “Why do you want to die? It's crazy. You’re so healthy--you must have a lot to live for.”
 

“Look,” I said. “I don't know what your troubles are, but my problems dwarf yours; you couldn't even begin to grasp them. I'm through talking.”
 

I looked down. It would be so easy: just lean out and let gravity do the rest. And for once, I'd prove smug old Socrates wrong. I could exit laughing, yelling, “You were wrong, you old bastard!” all the way down, until I smashed my bones and crashed my organs and cut myself off from the coming sunsets forever.
 

“Wait!” It was Don, reaching out for me. I hesitated, then grasped his hand. As I looked into his eyes, Don's face began to change. It narrowed. His hair grew darker, his body grew smaller. I was standing there, looking at myself. Then the mirror image disappeared, and I was alone.
 

Startled, I took a step backward, and slipped. I fell, tumbling over and over. In my mind's eye, I saw the terrible hooded spectre waiting expectantly below. I heard Soc's voice, yelling from somewhere above, “Tenth floor, lingerie, bedspreads--eighth floor, housewares, cameras.”
 

I was lying on the office couch, looking into Soc's gentle smile. “Well?” he said. “Are you going to kill yourself?”
 

“No.” But with that decision, the weight and responsibility of my life once again fell upon me. I told him how I felt. Socrates grasped my shoulders, and only said, “Stay with it, Dan.”
 

Before I left that night, I asked him, “Where is Joy? I want to see her again.”
 

“In good time. She'll come to you, later perhaps.”
 

“But if I could only talk to her it would make things so much easier.”
 

“Who ever told you it would be easy?”
 

“Socrates,” I said, “I have to see her!”
 

“You don't have to do anything except to stop seeing the world from the viewpoint of your own personal cravings. Loosen up! When you lose your mind, you'll come to your senses. Until then, however, I want you to continue to observe, as much as possible, the debris of your mind.”
 

“If I could just call her.”
 

“Get to it!” he said.
 

In the following weeks, the noise in my mind reigned supreme. Wild, random, stupid thoughts; guilts, anxieties, cravings---noise. Even in sleep, the deafening soundtrack of my dreams assaulted my cars. Socrates had been fight all along. I was in prison.
 

It was a Tuesday night when I ran to the station at ten o'clock. Bursting into the office, I moaned, “Socrates! I'm going to go mad if I can't turn down the noise! My mind is wild--it's everything you told me!”
 

“Very good!” he said. “The first realization of a warrior.”
 

“If this is progress, I want to regress.”
 

“Dan, when you get on a wild horse that you believe is tame, what happens?”
 

“It throws you---or kicks your teeth in.”
 

“Life has, in its own amusing way, kicked your teeth in many times.” I couldn't deny it.
 

“But when you know the horse is wild, you can deal with it appropriately.”
 

“I think I understand, Socrates.”
 

“Don't you mean you understand you think?” he smiled.
 

I left with instructions to let my “realization stabilize” for a few more days. I did my best. My awareness had grown these past few months, but I entered the office with the same questions: “Socrates, I've finally realized the extent of my mental noise; my horse is wild--how do tame it? How do I turn down the noise? What can I do?”
 

He scratched his head. “Well, I guess you're just going to have to develop a very good sense of humor.” He bellowed with laughter, then yawned and stretched not the way most people usually do, with arms extended out to the side, but just like a cat. He rounded his back, and I heard his spine go crack-crack-crack-crack.
 

“Socrates, did you know that you looked just like a cat when you stretched?”
 

“I suppose I do,” he replied nonchalantly. “It's a good practice to copy the positive traits of various animals, just as we might imitate positive qualities of some humans. I happen to admire the cat; it moves like a warrior.
 

“And as it happens, you have modelled yourself after the jackass. It's time you started to expand your repertoire, don't you think?”
 

“Yes, I suppose it is,” I answered calmly. But I was angry. I excused myself and went home early, just after midnight, and slept for five hours before my alarm woke me and I doubled back toward the station.
 

At that moment, I made a secret resolution. No more playing victim, someone he could feel superior to. I was going to be the hunter; I was going to stalk him.
 

It was still an hour until dawn, when his shift would end. I hid in the bushes that lined the bottom edge of campus, near the station. I would follow him and somehow find Joy.
 

Peering through the foliage, I watched his every move. My thoughts quieted in the intensity of my vigil. My sole desire was to find out about his life away from the station a subject about which he'd always been silent. Now I'd track down the answers myself.
 

Like an owl I stared at him. I saw as never before how smooth, how graceful he was. He washed windows without a wasted movement, slipped the nozzle into the gas tank like an artist.
 

Socrates went into the garage, probably to work on a car. I grew weary. The sky was already light when I roused myself from what must have been a few minutes of shut-eye. Oh, no--I'd missed  him.
 

Then I saw him, busy with his last-minute duties. My heart constricted  as he walked out of the station, crossed the street, and  headed directly to where I sat stiff, shivering, and achy, but well hidden. I just hoped he didn't feel like “beating around the bush” this morning.
 

I faded back into the foliage and calmed my breathing. A pair of sandals glided past, no more than four feet from my temporary lair. I could barely hear his soft footsteps. He followed a path that forked right.
 

Quickly but cautiously I scampered along the path like a squirrel. Socrates walked at a surprising dip. I barely kept up with his long strides and nearly lost him, when, far ahead, I saw a head of white hair entering Doe Library. “What,” I thought, “could he be doing there of all places?” Tingling with excitement, I closed in.
 

Once past the large oak door, I cut past a group of early bird students who turned and laughed, watching me. I ignored them as I tracked my prey down a long corridor. I saw him turn right and disappear. I sprinted over to where he had disappeared. There could be no mistake. He had entered this door. It was the men's room, and there was no other exit.
 

I didn't dare go in. I stationed myself in a nearby phone booth. Ten minutes passed; twenty minutes. Could I have missed him? My bladder was sending out emergency signals. I had to go in and not only find Socrates, but to make use of the facilities. And why not? This was my domain after all, not his. I would make him explain. Still, it would be awkward.
 

Entering the tiled bathroom, I saw no one at first. After finishing my own business, I started to search more carefully. There was no other door, so he still had to be there. One guy came out of a stall and saw me hunched over, looking under the stalls. He hurried out the door with wrinkled brow, shaking his head.
 

Back to the business at hand. I ducked my head for a quick look under the last stall. First I saw the backs of a pair of sandaled feet, then suddenly Soc's face dropped into view, upside down with a lopsided grin. He obviously had his back to the door and was bending forward, his head down between his knees.
 

I stumbled backwards in shock, completely disoriented. I had no good reason for my bizarre bathroom behavior.
 

Socrates swung the stall door open and flushed with a flourish, “Whoooeee, a man can get constipated when he's being stalked by a junior warrior!” As his laughter thundered through the tiled room, I reddened. He'd done it again! I could almost feel my ears lengthen as I was once again transformed into a jackass. My body churned with a mixture of shame and anger.
 

I could feel my face turn red. I glanced at the mirror, and there, tied neatly in my hair, was a perky yellow ribbon. Things began to make sense: the people's smiles and laughter as I'd walked through campus, the strange look I'd gotten from my fellow bathroom occupant. Socrates must have pinned it to my head while I dozed off in the bushes. Suddenly very tired, I turned and walked out the door.
 

Just before it swung shut, I heard Socrates say, not without a tone of sympathy in his voice, “That was just to remind you who is the teacher and who is the student.”
 

That afternoon, I trained like the unleashed furies of hell. I talked to no one, and wisely, no one said a word to me. I quietly raged and swore I'd do whatever was necessary to make Socrates acknowledge me as a warrior.
 

One of my teammates stopped me on my way out and handed me an envelope. “Someone left this in the coach's office. It's addressed to you, Dan. A fan of yours?”
 

“I don't know. Thanks, Herb.”
 

I stepped outside the door and ripped open the envelope. On an unlined piece of paper was written: “Anger is stronger than fear, stronger than sorrow. Your spirit is growing. You are ready for the sword--Socrates.”
 

The next morning, fog had rolled in off the Bay, covering the summer sun, chilling the air. I awoke late, made some tea, and ate an apple.
 

I decided to relax before tackling my daily activities, so I pulled out my small TV and dumped some cookies into a bowl. Switching on a soap opera, I immersed myself in someone else's problems. As I watched, mesmerized by the drama, I reached for another cookie and discovered that the bowl was empty. Could I have eaten all those cookies?