Pull You Under

Spencer Henry spent what seemed like hours at his apartment staring angrily at a photo of himself. His cheeks were trembling. His eyes were burning and watery. Every muscle in his body tensed up. The picture he held in his hand was taken at the age of 21, when life was beautiful and happy. At age 40, all he felt was the fiery sensation building in his belly.

“I hate you,” he finally said to the picture. He said it again. And again. With every repetition came more fire and volume in his throaty voice. He said it so many times that his hot breath started to resemble that of a dragon. He couldn’t care less how thin the walls in his apartment were. He didn’t care how many warnings he got from the superintendent. There wasn’t a whole lot about life that Spencer cared about. Just rage. More and more rage.

“I’ll pull you under, motherfucker!” he suddenly screamed before punching the glass-encased photo. Punching glass probably wasn’t the wisest move of Spencer’s life, but a middle-aged man’s wisdom went away a long time ago when the hateful dialogue poured from his mouth like snake’s venom.

The shattered glass cut deep into Spencer’s fingers, splattering blood all over his carpet. The screams were much louder and more barbaric, but this time it was out of mind-blowing pain. He wrapped his hand in his burgundy polo shirt, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. It kept pouring like a raging river and all Spencer could do about it was kneel to the ground and wait for help to arrive. Someone must have heard him and dialed 911 by now. The walls were thinner than a Catholic wafer sometimes.

The last few minutes of Spencer Henry’s consciousness were spent bleeding all over the floor and adding tears and snot to this hodgepodge of emotional fluids. Fading to darkness was probably the best thing that could have happened to him at this point. He wouldn’t have to think those hateful thoughts of himself any longer.

But the thing about being rescued by first responders was that the patient eventually had to wake up. The fuzzy brown and white-haired Spencer awakened slowly and painfully while wearing a paper thin hospital gown. He had wires and tubes going into his body as he lay there on a semi-comfortable bed. His previously bloody hand was covered thickly in white gauze and showed no distinction between fingers, like a mitten of sorts.

“I’m glad to see you awake, Mr. Henry. We thought we’d lost you there for a minute. I’m Dr. Josie Cosgrave. I was in charge of your hand surgery.” The good doctor sat at the edge of Spencer’s bed with a hunched over posture and her chin on her arms. Her pose suggested that she wanted to talk about more than just a few stitches or some medication. The look on her darkly-complexioned face suggested something far more serious. “Is there a reason why you punched a picture of yourself, Mr. Henry?”

He let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders before saying, “I’m just a little stressed out right now.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” said Josie with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “There’s just one problem. People who are just a little stressed out don’t unleash a Mike Tyson assault on a piece of glass. They also don’t cry incessantly and fight the same EMT’s who are trying to load them into the ambulance.”

“Wait a minute…I did all of that?” asked a weary Spencer.

“All that and more,” answered Josie. She meandered over to the side of her patient’s bed and held his good hand in a semi-affectionate way. “Something’s bothering you, Mr. Henry. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out one way or another. The answer just might determine if you need psychological counseling or not.”

“Yeah, like my insurance is going to cover that,” said Spencer while throwing his bad hand in the air sarcastically. “Oh wait, I forgot. I don’t have insurance. People who fry fish in the afternoon and write crappy novels at night don’t have that kind of luxury.”

“So is that why you’re so angry at yourself?” asked Josie. “Because you’re pissed off about how life has treated you?”

“What a mind,” said Spencer with even more sarcasm in his voice.

“You don’t have to be a wise-ass with me, Mr. Henry. I’m not your enemy here. I’m your friend. Yes, the hospital bill is going to be expensive, but I personally didn’t take this job as a doctor for a paycheck. It took it because that’s what I love to do. I love helping people like you get through their worst moments.”

Spencer shook his head and smiled unconvincingly when he said, “That’s it, huh? That’s the answer to my problems? Just love what I do and do what I love?” Silence overtook the room before it was broken with a sad sigh. “I really thought I could do it. I thought writing a novel and getting my name out there would give me a comfortable life. I thought I’d be a rock star by now. My novel, ‘Pull You Under’, has been edited countless times by countless people. God knows how many drafts I’ve got.”

Instead of interrupting the flow of the conversation, Dr. Josie Cosgrave squeezed Spencer’s good hand and gave him a look of concern. She didn’t want to talk at that moment, just listen. And damn, did Spencer have a lot to say.

“And then…just when I think I’m finally getting a big break…” A solitary tear rolled down his cheek. “Those asshole editors take their rubber stamp and brand my manuscript with the word ‘reject’ in beg red letters. Reject! That’s what I am to these people! I’ve spent the last ten years sending in that novel and all I ever got was a mouthful of battered fish and French fries for lunch! Every damn day! Every day, another fucking stamp! How many more times are they going to do it?! Why can’t they just say ‘yes’ for the first time in their lives?! Three fucking letters, one fucking word! Yes! Yes! Yeeeeeeeees!!”

The rage has finally boiled over for Spencer Henry. He ripped his good hand from Dr. Cosgrave’s clutches and tried to rip at the bandages and stitches in his hand. Josie tried to pin the furious man’s arms down, but he was much too powerful for her and shoved her to the floor. The man was so pissed off that he started foaming at the mouth with saliva. He was determined to rip his hand to shreds and put an end to his lackluster writing career forever.

Once again, the power of his fiery vocal cords brought help when he needed it the most. Dr. Cosgrave got up again and along with a team of blue scrubs nurses who just came rushing in held Spencer’s tensed up arms down. He put up a wilder fight than a raging bull being lead to the slaughter. Nurses were shoved backwards and more foam poured from Spencer’s mouth.

In one quick motion, Josie stabbed Spencer in the arm and pumped his bloodstream full of sedatives. He fought like a rabid wolverine for a few more seconds and then slowly, but surely descended into darkness once more. By the time he was knocked out, the spittle on his chin looked like he had a Santa Claus beard. The nurses all breathed sighs of relief while Dr. Cosgrave took a napkin and wiped the spittle off.

Spencer Henry didn’t wake up for another hour or so. When he did, his head was pounding and his jaw felt like he’d taken one of his own right hooks. His vision was blurry, mostly from the tears he shed, but it was eventually restored to where he saw Dr. Cosgrave at the foot of his bed again along with a team of nurses in the background.

“Truth is, Mr. Henry,” said Josie in a much more stern voice. “The writing business isn’t all frills and gimmicks. Rejection is common even for the most popular authors who are drowning in a sea of revised drafts. They have a name for going through that kind of hell: it’s called paying your dues. I know you felt like you’ve paid yours with one hundred percent interest, but you have no idea how much further you have to climb.”

“I…I didn’t mean to scare you guys like that,” said Spencer with a weak voice.

“I’m sure you didn’t, Mr. Henry,” said Josie with her arms tensed at her sides. “But we all know why you did it. You did it for the same reason that me and my nurses have: because you feel underappreciated. You’ve paid your dues time and time again. Well, guess what? So have we. So has anyone else who’s ever had a career. We as a society are all in this together. The sooner you let us into your world, the better off you’ll be. Whether you’re a writer, a doctor, a construction worker, a teacher, or otherwise, the struggle and the stress are both real. How will you respond to yours, Mr. Henry? Are you going to give up and flat line in that bed of yours? Or are you going to keep on fighting this endless war? We’ll fight for your life, but only if you fight for yours too.”

Spencer let out a deep sigh and said, “I want to keep going on. I want to believe there’s something out there for me. I just don’t know what it is and how I’ll get there.”

“That’s the beautiful thing about life: you don’t have to know, because it’s not laid out for you. You have to make your own destiny. Your medical chart says you’re 40 years old, but your life is far from over, my friend,” said Josie. She let her words resonate with Spencer for a minute and then she continued. “I’ve been saying that shit for a long ass time now. Some of my patients believed it, some of them didn’t. Those who believed it became successful in their lives or at least happy with what they’ve got. Those who didn’t believe it eventually grew up to be stored in our morgue’s body lockers.”

Spencer tried to calm himself with some basic breathing techniques as he thought about what the good doctor said to him. Was she right? She could be. But she could also be someone collecting more money than a professional fish fryer. Either way, it didn’t matter. The pissed off author was now calm enough to make his decision in his 40 year old crossroads. “Does anybody here know of a good editor I can hire?”

“Not off the top of my head,” said Josie with a satisfied smile. “But I can look it up for you.” As she pulled out her smart phone and did a Google search, Spencer relaxed into his pillow and let out a deep breath, thinking at last that he was on the right path once again.