by James Nicola
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. . .
—Robert Frost
It’s not two roads that diverge, Mr. Frost, but two a day, at least. And the wood’s not just yellow, but black-and-blue as well, particularly when the sun is swallowed by night, rain clouds, or thickets of unfriendly foliage—even crimson at times, when the forest’s afire as with pangs of impetuous passion. And the ground underfoot might be of quicksand and mire and swallow you whole—or of lava, and scorch you before it burns you up. That’s what a day’s stroll is like today, Mr. Frost, in the forest of life.
Often you don’t even know when you come to a crossroads, especially if the woods are dark, until a friend with a flashlight comes by and shows a better way, just off to the side, suddenly rendered obvious. Or the path might be lit, but you’re heading toward the darkness, needing only a fresh pair of eyes to blink and blurt, “Look over there!”
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I met Brian, a superb stage manager with a sweet disposition, during summer stock. We were just out of college a year or two. That fall he landed an entry-level job at a national cable-TV channel (still a new phenomenon) and made the big move to New York; in his case, Jersey City, a quick commute during daylight hours. One of the anchormen at the station—telegenic, friendly-if-not-flirtatious, and married—was noticeably nice to everyone, but particularly nice to Brian, who fell heels-over-head-over-heels-over-head-over-heels.
He shivered when he told me of his unrequited affection. As in the Dorothy Parker poem, his sun went dim and his moon turned black because the one he loved didn’t love him back, only appreciated him, albeit a lot, while filling his world nine hours a day. Brian could not stop the shiver, and I grew concerned.
I asked him if he ever had chills and sweats, too. “Every night.” “And you feel like you want to throw up for no reason?” “Every day. How did you know?” “What you’re suffering from is called anxiety. How long has this been going on?” “Six months,” he said. “You’ve been shivering like that for sixth months, non-stop?” Almost choking, he nodded, big. “You’ve gotta get a new job.” “It’s a great job.” “Not if it makes you feel like that.”
I knew because I had had a few friends in college who’d been mired in similar situations with charming and handsome males who were sexually ambiguous, thirsty for adoration, and insensitive as vampires to the untried hearts they pierced, mutilated, and destroyed. Several of my friends were psychology majors and told me about anxiety attacks: “They arise when anger is misdirected toward oneself that should be directed elsewhere.” Such an attack would subside, but only with time and distance, which my friend sorely needed and sadly lacked.
Now, this television host could have just been a very nice, very attractive guy. But attractive people are called that because they attract. When such a person is your boss and clasps your elbow tenderly and whispers, “Really good job, Brian,” so softly in your ear that the scent of his after-shave lotion makes your breath skip and your heart miss a beat or two or ten or a thousand; and later, when he discovers his mug has been surreptitiously filled from the pot of coffee he knows only you could have brewed, so from across the studio he mouths you a silent thank-you with that certain smile and oh-so-secret wink… Well, you can understand how big-hearted, virginal Brian fell as he did from the cliff into the abyss.
Then I got a telephone call in the middle of the night. Brian had swallowed a whole bottle of pills. “What pills?” “Aspirin, I think. I feel like I’m going to die.” Cab fare was not accessible at night (this was before ATMs), and Queens to Jersey City after midnight, via subway and PATH train, proved to be a very long trip. But finally I got to his apartment. I buzzed. No answer.
I buzzed again. No answer.
I held the button in. The door buzzed back. Thank God. He had simply fallen asleep. We called 911—I made him dial, as if I knew he’d be needing the practice—and I went with him while he got his stomach pumped.
At dawn he seemed grateful, possibly even receptive to another blast from my flashlight of common sense. “Get a new job.” “But I have a great job.” “Not if you end up dead.” “It’s a really great job.” The crossroads was new; the dialogue, painfully old. But I did impress upon him the danger he was in. “There are other jobs you’d be good at. Great ones, even.” “I love my job!” “At least you’d be alive.” That shut him up.
I pointed out his other options. The safest and smartest was to quit his current job cold turkey, like a bad habit. He had friends (like me) who could help tide him over with funds, even a couch to flop on, if finding another post ended up taking a long time. He rejected this with “I’m repaying college loans.” “You won’t be repaying anything if you’re not around.” He didn’t argue that point, but neither was he convinced. “At least start sending out resumes.” “It really is a really great job and I really do love it,” he stammered, his mantra finally fading into the unreal nonsense it really was. But Love, even unrequited Love, does not give up without a fight, for just then his shivering swelled, not unlike a distant thunder-roll of doom. The Black Bog Monster was smacking its lips and drooling.
I began noticing a pattern in myself, though, laced with its own darkness. You see, Brian was not the only friend that year to call me in the middle of the night while contemplating the final act.
Years earlier, those psych-major friends suggested to me that, though I might have made a terrifically compassionate therapist, I did not have the temperament for the profession. For when a friend told me their woes, sure, I would listen—till the wee hours of the morning, if necessary. But, alack-and-alas, I would get upset, too, as if I could ease their misery by assuming some of it the way a sponge absorbs moisture, crazy as that might sound. Friends used to tease me for my uncanny knack of finding the saddest person at a party, plopping down next to them, and invariably ending up wretched, or nearly, myself.
But a shoulder worthy of being cried upon, I was beginning to realize, could not be made up exclusively of sponge material; it needed at least a skeleton of steel, which, in my early twenties, I lacked. Sponge, after all, can get waterlogged and soggy as any bog or quicksand; steel, which makes up the casings of most flashlights, can withstand a surfeit of such moist things as tears, blood, and spewing guts.
There was something else about my temperament that cast a deep shade: I would never forgive myself were I to lose, even through no fault of my own, a patient, client, or friend. And Brian’s situation was way out of my league. Think of that midnight phone call. He had asked me to come to his apartment to hold his hand, or whatever, and I couldn’t say no. But all the time he was waiting for me, he was in danger! Why hadn’t I the common sense to insist he call for an ambulance as soon as he told me what he had done?
I later learned that my pattern of behavior defined a psychological archetype not unknown in shoulder-to-cry-on personalities: the persona of the Rescuer, or Savior. Well, I didn’t want to be an archetype or a persona; I wanted to be a person.
A few weeks later, my phone rang again after midnight. This time I made Brian promise to dial 911 immediately, then call me right back to confirm that he had done so.
That dawn, his stomach pumped for the second time, I suggested that I wasn’t doing him any good, since he was never going to take my advice and change the situation that was making him miserable. He wasn’t even going to try! When he didn’t disagree, I knew I was right. Unable to succeed as his savior, I had somehow become his enabler.
The force of Brian’s inertia was so strong, I felt, if he kept reaching for my hand to pull him up and out of the pit, one of these days he would pull me down instead. I was at a crossroads of my own; I couldn’t make Brian come with me, but needed to find, for myself, a path with solid footing—and light.
So once I confirmed that he was keeping his weekly therapy appointments, I told him two things. First, I thought that his doctor’s number was a better one to call in the middle of the night than mine. Second, I would not be seeing him again.
The Buddhists call this cruel-to-be-kind-ness “ruthless compassion.”
Through a mutual friend, though, I kept up on Brian’s progress. Within a few weeks—guess what—he got a new job. And stopped shaking. And I, at last, exhaled.
Today, I still listen when people tell me their travails, but I no longer get morose myself. Rather, I steel up, try to be effective rather than emotional, and, if they ask for advice, offer it. Then I exhale.
And when I do think of Brian, at times like this, it is with the fervent prayer that all souls overly fond of the dark manage to travel in woods that are verdant and bright, on footpaths where the ground is solid and sure, and that the air there is sweet-scented, as by honeysuckle, after a rain.
James B. Nicola’s poems have appeared stateside in the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews, Rattle, Tar River, Poetry East, and in many journals in Europe and Canada. He is the featured poet in the current issue of Westward Quarterly, having once received the same honor from New Formalist. A Yale graduate, he won a Dana Literary Award, a Willow Review award, a People’s Choice award (from Storyteller), and four Pushcart nominations—from Shot Glass Journal, Parody, and twice from Trinacria—for which he feels both stunned and grateful. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His poetry collections are Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), and Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018).