JERSIG

I

Never have I stepped foot on a field of war, but as far back as I can remember, I’ve engaged in ongoing battles. Battles pitted against devastating opposition, a formidable adversary that time has revealed to often be none other than myself. In essence, I battle an overwhelming need to quench the incessant thirst raging inside me. A never-ending hunger I’ve succeeded in temporarily suppressing with conventional methods of overindulgence, for a while at least. Practices that lost their appeal the more I lost touch with my soul; one of the main contributing factors for my move out of the dampness of the Midwest, to the beauty of the West in Alma Perdida Beach.

Here, I hoped to seek refuge amongst those who might better understand a heart routinely misunderstood. Those who, through time, emerged intact after escaping the inexplicable loneliness found only in excruciating apathy. I accomplished what I sought after. It took time and effort, but I did find relief; now, determining how to deal with the rest of my life was an entirely different story.

Before I go too far, let me quickly detour back a ways to help you better understand. When I was boy, I used to spend my summers outside daydreaming that sometime, somewhere, a person would come to me and offer the chance of a lifetime. Whether it was shooting baskets in the side yard of my childhood home, imagining Mike Krzyzewski driving through my neighborhood and yelling from the car, Hey, kid, you got a nice shot! Sink this next one and we’ll talk about you coming to play for me. Naturally, I always made that shot. Or if I happened to be walking home from a friend’s house, I’d imagine a rich man driving a yellow Ferrari pulling over to the curb and shouting, You look like you probably need this a little more than I do, as he tossed me the keys. And with a wink and a smile, he’d say, Take it, kid, you deserve it. But just as improbable as me playing basketball for Duke, grabbing the keys to that yellow Ferrari never came to fruition either. The older I got, the less and less I’d imagine these scenarios. I was told it was time to grow up. These unbelievable fantasies of my imagination wouldn’t serve me any longer. The belief in rare happenstance changing the outlook of my life simply wouldn’t suffice. So I did as directed, I grew up.

During that growth, summers slowly seemed to become less and less exciting. In fact, all seasons started melding together in a somber continuation of days, drab amongst dreary. And as another uneventful summer came to a close, a summer filled with all the misplaced hope and promise of phantom summers past, I found myself in a familiar place—adrift. Lost in the labyrinth deemed adulthood, with no clear path to follow.

At this juncture, I was twenty-six going on forty-six (surmounting adversity tends to do that to a young man). I worked as a healthcare consultant for a firm near the beach, determining whether patients fit the certain criteria for specific treatment services we provided or not. It wasn’t bad work, in fact often times I found myself enjoying what I did. Still, there lingered an ever-present desire for more that I could not overcome. So to best fill the void, to best process through the immense scope of varying emotions, I wrote. I found solace in writing.

At the time this story begins it must have been early September, but by the scorching heat radiating off the blacktop of Southern California, you’d never be able to tell. Fall really has no meaning here. The afternoon was winding into night as I drove Coast Highway from downtown Alma Perdida to my house on an inlet near the ocean. I shared a house with two friends I had come to know in the three plus years I had called this quaint beach town my home. They were on all accounts good men, hailing from the Midwest and the East Coast. We shared many things in common, traits that drew us to this Mecca by the sea. Like most young men we all wanted to be successful, to be draped and showered in the wealth of the world we had come to know through the screens of our cellular phones. Yet, through all of our commonalities the most important trait we shared went unrecognized, the unspoken reality of not knowing. We had no clue as to where to go with our lives or how to get there.

Arriving home around a half past five, as routine would have it, I unloaded my work case near the living room and comfortably sprawled out on the sofa. Clicking on the television I scrolled the vast selections of bad news, and even worse reality television shows until I reached the film section. Watching movies was usual for me. It did something to me, moved me and briefly connected me simultaneously. To describe its affect would be to imagine witnessing a truly great film for the first time. It’s where I sit watching, entranced, while allowing a certain feeling to consume my mind. A feeling of a place or a time forgotten in my memory. A destination I might have been to before or may very well have never been at all, but an all too certain familiarity nonetheless. As I sit, it plays, glowing in front of me. Mesmerizing my every thought. This feeling, it lingers there for the longest time it seems, transporting me elsewhere. Transporting me to a place I can only describe as a dream. A dream I might wish to live, wish I could have lived, wish I was a part of. A feeling so real, so pure, that all I want to do is drift there, to float in it for as long as I can. For as long as I am there in that moment, in that place, everything feels and appears to be...right. And as can be expected with age, repetition, it dwindles. But each time visited is as if for a split second, the originality of that first moment, that first complete fascination; the feeling of that pureness in heart returns. It propels me briefly to an alternate age, where time has no limits, more importantly where hope has no bounds. I believe that’s what has kept me going, the hope. It’s what has kept the spark lit through the tedious onslaught of meaningless tasks that have started to represent my life in young adulthood.

But today was not like that. No movie was worthy enough to capture me. All that filled my screen was bullshit. Films that no one should have taken the time to create. So instead, I deviated to having a bite for dinner, and reading out of the novel I recently began by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World.

A few hours passed, the adventure of the world forgotten by time accomplished in capturing my attention for the evening, but as it grew later, my restlessness persisted. I decided I had to get away and do something physical. I had to wear myself out; exercising seemed one of the only tools available to preserve my sanity at the present time. I’ve found endorphins tend to work miracles. So I headed to a local round-the-clock gym to throw some weights around until I felt tired enough to rest my head for the night.

Needless to say my plan worked, to an extent. I retained my sanity for another day, but I did not get much sleep.

The next morning, I woke earlier than usual, short winded on little sleep I required fuel for the day ahead. There was a cozy coffee shop-turned-restaurant, snugged tightly between the close-knit buildings of the harbor near my office. An ideal place for the hearty breakfast I demanded for hours of work ahead. After ordering a tremendous amount of caffeine, a sufficient supply of meat, potatoes, and fruit, I sat out on the quiet veranda branching off to the side of the building. My seating was close enough to the door to be able to closely observe the masses shifting about, gathering their javas and toasts. People watching is an incredible activity, one I enjoy engaging in thoroughly. I find watching the way they carry themselves—their clothing, tones, the many idiosyncrasies carried out otherwise unbeknownst to others—and the fictitious judgments I make about their backgrounds to be absolutely fascinating.

Today it was the normal sort of crowd: regulars. Businessmen boasting sharp suits, housewives and semi-retirees dressed in comfortable workout clothes, carrying a hint of the high society likeness familiar to Alma Perdida. Nothing out of the ordinary. Even as I noticed Jersig, a tall, athletic man in his mid-thirties, bolstering a large frame resting under a defined facial line. A cream leisure suit swinging unwrinkled with pants creased a few inches above a pair of navy topsiders, I thought nothing of it. Another wealthy son of Southern California’s booming commercial sector, much like anyone I’d seen a hundred times. After a few minutes had passed, Jersig collected his coffee and as he started to walk past my table, I’d quickly realized I couldn’t have been more wrong.

"Lost World," he said, acknowledging the worn book I had brought placed on the table in front of me.

Yeah, I replied, somewhat surprised.

There’s a sportin’ risk in every mile of it, he began. ‘I’m like an old golf ball—I’ve had all the white paint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and it can’t leave a mark. But a sportin’ risk, young fellah, that’s the salt of existence. Then it’s worth livin’ again. We’re all getting’ a great deal too soft, too dull, too comfy. Give me the great wastelands and the wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin’ to look for that’s worth findin’,’ he recited effortlessly from memory.

I sat, stunned. Thus far, that was undoubtedly my favorite passage of the book, and this seemingly run-of-the-mill beach town socialite spurted it out without hesitation or a seconds pause!

He reached out his hand. Jersig James, he said.

Q—Q.Y. Dettweiler, I replied as we shook hands firmly.

Pleasure to meet you, Q. Have a good morning.

You as well, I replied, still sitting dumbfounded.

And like that, he turned away and left. With my mind reeling in bewilderment, it seemed my pretentiously keen ability to accurately judge, the same ability from which I held myself in such high regard, had been unquestionably wrong. Not the first time it had been so. And as I ate my breakfast, the smile from my face couldn’t be removed, the pleasant surprise of being wrong about a person.

II

The next day and a half leading up to Friday night consisted of normal routine: wake up, work, go home, eat dinner, watch TV, sleep—repeat. I hated this pattern. I hated the process of routine my life had become. I was wrapped in the carousel of a monotonous existence, a life being lived incomplete. And even worse than living this sort of life was