The searing heat beats down as it has for the past week and a half, melting the steering wheel slick and waxy so that my hands come away with hot pink marks striped across the palm. Damned if I didn’t forget to put the white t-shirt over it again. Me and my air conditioner curse. Ever since I can remember driving my own vehicle, I have never experienced the blissful summer respite of driving around town in an air conditioned automobile to call my own. I’ll buy the car, get all the way around the calendar to the beginning of the hottest part of the summer, and the air will inevitably go kaput. Dampened, I roll down the windows, hoping for a cool breeze to develop as I drive through Virginia’s wet summer atmosphere, so thick with perspiration that she might well be a professional athlete.
A man in a lawn service vehicle flashes past in my peripheral vision, holding what appears to be a gun to his head. I’m fairly sure, after a second thought, that it was only an innocuous cell phone propped lazily to his ear. But then I get to thinking, what if it really was a gun? What would have made this man decide to off himself at an exit ramp to Route 3 just outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia, during mid-day? Things like this happen every day. I’ve read about them, but I certainly haven’t ever been witness.
So what would push this average Jeff, Jim, or Jerry to blow his brains across the exit ramp? I suppose any number of things could take a person to that place. Life these days can get fairly dark and one tragic news story, one more tax hike, one misplaced phrase on the other end of the cell phone might be the difference between life and the coroner’s table. Hell, if the heat doesn’t let up soon, I might be right there with him.
As it happens, I’m no stranger to death’s enchantments. So easy does it seem, when times are truly difficult, to believe that drawing that line and jumping over it will solve all the problems. That’s a pretty promise death makes: the struggle gone, free to be me, la-dee-fucking-dah. And who knows if it’s the truth or not? Faith would tell us that death, for those who behave themselves in the earthly realm, will bring us closer to some kind of contentment. It doesn’t really matter which flavor is your favorite; ultimately, most traditional religions teach that you become something other than what you are right now - be it earth, wind, or ice cream.
In the end, who really understands what anyone, let alone this solitary lawnman, is going through? Maybe his wife just left him; or maybe he’s been stealing money from the petty cash fund at work and someone is blackmailing him. Maybe it’s something more heartbreaking and unforgivable, and death seems like a good resolution for the New Year. I want to tell him to keep the faith, brother, but there’s no stopping now that I’m a mile down the road and the light in front of me is good to go.