a questionable life

by Luke Lively

  I had tried to change before, but failed. After finally talking about the guilt and emotions I had bottled up inside for years, I realized that this episode would be nothing more than a replay of earlier attempts to change. I’d crashed and burned in the fire of good intentions. Why would it work this time? I was the same man now as I was then. Benny’s voice brought me back to the moment.

  “Are you ready to go fishing, Jack?” Benny asked. I could tell Benny was anxious to get out on the lake.

  “Sure, let’s go,” I said, still worried that I would make a complete fool of myself. “You’re going to have to coach me.”

  “Fishing is like riding a bike—you never forget,” Benny said.

  “What happens if you only went fishing once and the river was so polluted there were more fish floating dead on top of the water than alive in the river?” I asked, stepping into the large main area.

  “Then you’re in for great fishing,” Benny said. “The odds are in your favor, Jack. You might catch something.”

  We grabbed the tackle box and cooler and walked from the cabin down a narrow dirt path to the lake. The shrubbery was thick surrounding the thin trail. Benny reminded me to watch for snakes. I was watching, though he hadn’t told me what to do if I saw one.

  We came to a small dock with a metal cover. You could not see the boat and dock from the cabin, since it was tucked in a small cove, enclosed by the thick overhang of foliage. It looked as though the water level was lower than usual, with a patch of bare, brown soil outlining the rim of the lake. “The lake looks a little lower than its normal level. Have you had a drought?”

  “That’s observant, Jack. I’ll make a fisherman out of you yet. The water level is regulated by the Corps of Engineers, but the lack of rain has brought the level down to one of the lowest for the lake since I can remember. But the low water level and cooler temperatures just might help our fishing today,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  Did he say “cooler temperatures?” Benny should spend a winter in Philly, I thought, tiptoeing my way through the brush toward the dock. “I’m ready to fish,” I said. I felt like a kid. When was the last time I felt youthful? I couldn’t remember. Besides snakes, I wasn’t concerned about anything other than avoiding the appearance of being the city boy I obviously was.

  Benny had climbed on board what he called his “bass boat.” Walking the last few steps to the side of the vessel I smiled, thinking about how people named boats after the type of fish they hoped to catch. I wondered if a sign was on the bottom of the boat alerting all sea creatures: THIS IS A BASS-ONLY BOAT. I handed him the gear I was carrying and lifted my left foot to step on board the wide, flat boat as if I knew what I was doing.

  “I’m okay, I don’t need any help,” I answered, carefully watching where I stepped. As soon as I put my foot on the boat, it started to move away from the dock. I suddenly found myself doing a split with Smith Mountain Lake under me. My mind was telling me to step back on dry land, so I quickly pushed off with my left foot to try to propel myself backward toward the dock, only making the boat move even farther away. Everything appeared to be in slow motion as I turned into a gymnast, my legs spreading as the boat continued its movement from the miniature pier. Seeing the gap widen between my feet, all I could think about was how stupid I looked.

  Benny said quickly, “Jack, take my hand!” I held out my left hand and Benny pulled me onto the boat. While it wasn’t pretty, I made it on board—in dry clothes.

  “You’re better at balancing than what you thought, aren’t you?” Benny said, laughing as he settled back into his seat, the craft still rocking from my entrance.

  “It wasn’t pretty, but at least it worked,” I said, feeling the red heat in my face. “I guess I did need a hand, didn’t I?”

  “Would you mind throwing off that line beside of you, Jack?”

  “No problem,” I said, “as long as I don’t have to step back on the dock.”

  As I leaned over and carefully unraveled the rope holding the front of the vessel to the dock, Benny said, “No one can live their life alone, independent of everyone else.”

  “At least not on a boat,” I said, still trying to generate some humor. As Benny started the motor and maneuvered the craft out of the cove into the wider expanse of the lake, I thought about what had just happened. While still embarrassed, what stood out about my near-fall into the lake was the fact I couldn’t remember the last time someone offered to help me. Tina, Cassie, and especially people I had worked with never offered me assistance. They either did what I told them or asked them to do, or they minded their own business, without any regard for me. Why was that?

  Gliding across the smooth waters of the lake, hearing the lapping of the waves I admitted to myself that I didn’t want anyone to help me. I had always believed asking for help was a sign of weakness. I always did things alone. But if Benny had not stretched out his hand, I would have been wet and stupid. Yet, I only took his hand out of necessity, almost too late. He had just said that no one could live independently of others—but I had always tried my best to do so. It wasn’t others failing to offer assistance; it was my resisting any help. How many times had I needed a helping hand and my ego had stopped me from asking? Even worse, how many times had someone asked for my help and I had ignored them?

  Benny guided the boat down the middle of what he told me was the main channel. As we made our way into an even larger section, I began to see some large homes dotting the shoreline and several other boats. The weather was perfect. A light breeze kept the air cooled, and the sun shone brightly on the water, making it sparkle. I was glad I had sunglasses on. Benny offered me some sunscreen to put on my arms and neck, but I told him I wanted to get some tan. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You can get burned pretty quickly out here.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I have the skin of an alligator.”

  “Okay, Jack,” he said. “We’re closing in on what the locals call ‘Catfish Corner.’ That’s where we’ll see if we can catch something for supper.” I remained quiet, waiting for Benny to tell me what to do. After placing the two reels between us, Benny broke out the bait from a small compartment near his seat. “Hellgrammites work great here,” he said, lifting one of the small but menacing creatures from its container.

  “They look like mini lobsters,” I said, carefully reaching down to snag one of them. Actually, they looked uglier. As soon as I grabbed one, I found out it grabbed back.

  “Watch out for their claws—they can put a little bite on you if you’re not careful,” Benny said—too late.

  “Yeah,” I said, jerking my hand back from my bait. “I just got a bite.”

  Benny took some time to show me the finer art of casting and after a couple of tries I placed my line in the water where Benny said I might get a bite. I was actually enjoying myself. It was remarkably quiet. You could hear birds chirping from the shoreline. The entire setting was like a giant amphitheater. I leaned my head back slightly to enjoy the breeze. It was tough to find a one-foot-square space of solitude in Philly. Here, privacy was available in vast quantities. I looked across the boat at Benny. He was angled to the other side of the craft, sporting a slight grin on his face. This was something he could enjoy whenever he wanted—no wonder he was smiling.

  “I haven’t shared the story about Ben with very many people. If you don’t mind fishing and talking, I feel compelled to share what happened after we lost our son.”

  “I’d like to hear,” I said. “I’m sorry I rattled on so long about my past and about my mother and father. I’m embarrassed. I’ve never talked so much about them.”

  “Jack, never apologize for being honest,” he said. “I appreciate you trusting me enough to share it.”

  I had never thought about it, but I discovered I had a habit. I often apologized for telling the truth. Being honest was not the most natural thing for me. Evidently I felt the need to announce it: “Jack Oliver is telling the truth—listen up!” Tina had tol
d me many times over the years that I had a habit of saying, “Let me be honest with you” at the beginning of statements that I was trying to accentuate. This usually came after I had told a lie. Cassie had said the same thing. Was I that obvious?

  The other problem I had was trust. Somehow I trusted Benny, even though I barely knew him. “I’m not used to being so open,” I said. “Believe me—I’m usually not that way.”

  “It’s a good habit—being honest and open,” Benny said with a smile. “There are a lot worse habits.”

  I knew a lot about habits—bad ones. Could he see through me that easily?

  “Why am I afraid?”

  The question leaped from my mouth before I could stop myself. Benny had been telling me more about what happened after his son died. I realized how much a lack of control frightened me. Benny couldn’t control what happened to his son. I was feeling fear—of the unknown. I was afraid what the future was holding for me.

  “I thought I had it all, Jack. I had a great family, career, and friends. The future looked bright. I had big plans. But my life changed in a morning, and I wasn’t ready for it.” He paused, turning to face me. “You wonder sometimes why you remember certain things. After Ben was gone, I remembered a section from Dante’s Divine Comedy: ‘I found myself in a dark wood where the right way was lost.’ Why would I recall that line? That line, from something I had read in college, was in my thoughts when Ann and I were driving to Ben’s funeral. It said a lot to me. I had lost the way in my life.”

  Hearing a fellow banker spout off a quote from Dante in the middle of a lake in Virginia was a little surreal. Even though I had what everyone said was a photographic memory, as soon as I had finished an exam, I forgot what I had learned. Like a computer, my mind deleted the files. I had passed the test and moved on to what was next. My attention returned to Benny’s story.

  “Death can be life’s greatest teacher,” he said. “Death taught me how to live. Until we lost Ben, I thought I knew how my life would progress, the stage was ready, and the next act was in progress. And it was comforting to a certain extent. I always felt like I knew what was going to happen. But when Ben left, my world fell apart,” he said. “I found that the things that worked before Ben’s death had little value or meaning after he was gone. Ann and I struggled to find peace between us. The bank I worked for was being sold. I was at a crossroads in every sense. I didn’t know what I wanted out of life.”

  As I listened to Benny, I realized that until now I had always known what I wanted from life. Now, I was unsure.

  “I was drifting along, allowing the current to take me where it wanted to take me. I was rudderless. Looking back, I see that even before Ben was killed, my life wasn’t going in the right direction. I was out of kilter—I wasn’t balanced.”

  As Benny talked he kept pulling gently on his fishing line, absent-mindedly going through the motions of fishing. I sat quietly, listening and paying no attention to my line.

  “When I had my own awakening here at the lake and decided to live again, I found that what I had done before wouldn’t work now. I had to acknowledge that my world had been turned upside down. I was trying to hold onto what worked before. But it didn’t work. I realized I had to live life differently, more effectively. I stopped letting the current pull me. I began to keep a journal and wrote down questions that I needed answers to. The very first question I wrote down was a question I thought I had answered years earlier: Who am I?”

  I had tried to answer that question recently. I didn’t like the answer.

  “That was a tough question for me, Jack,” Benny continued, jerking his reel slightly. “I didn’t know who I was. I had been Benny Price, bank president, but my bank had just been acquired. I didn’t know what the future had in store for me. Obviously, the same was true away from work. I thought I was Benny Price, father, but my son was gone—I was no longer a father. I thought I was Benny Price, husband, but my marriage was falling apart. I believed I was Benny Price, community leader. But I found no joy in giving my time to anything or anyone.”

  I couldn’t believe how much he sounded like me. How could that be? He definitely wasn’t like my father. My father would never admit he was wrong. I had been wrong in my belief that the two would be alike. Benny paused and turned in his seat to look at me.

  “It took total honesty to admit I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. It hurts to know you’re wrong, but it’s even harder to convince yourself you’re right when you’re wrong. It was tough to acknowledge it, but I was totally out of balance. That’s when I decided to make my life a life that could honor Ben. I had to change.”

  “But how did you answer the question—who am I?” I asked. I could tell he liked the question. He knew I was listening.

  “I was trying to be the same Benny Price—with a lot of baggage. I was holding onto a fantasy, the way things had been. I understood that I couldn’t change the past or dictate the future. I understood I had to change who I was and what I was doing—that instant.”

  I wasn’t sure his past could ever touch the dark corners of greed where I had lived my life of ceaseless want. But I could see our similarities. “I set out on a new question—a leading question: Who do I want to be? That was the beginning of a new chapter in my life, a second chance. I decided I wasn’t going to fail; fear wasn’t going to stop me. I wanted to have the courage to accept change as part of life.”

  “So you decided what you wanted in the future?” I asked.

  “No, actually it was almost the opposite,” he said. “I decided who I wanted to be in the present. I changed my intention and attention to the present. Now is where the past and future meet. We only have this moment to engage. Now is the only moment we have to become who we want to be.”

  “But you still had goals, didn’t you?”

  “They were goals of the moment. Not something I waited for, like a promotion. The biggest challenge I faced was change. The person I wanted to be was going to be fearless of change,” he said. “A person who learned from his mistakes and shared the knowledge he gained from his experiences. I wanted to be mindful of what I had learned—good and bad—to remember to be awake.” He paused and looked at me, as if to see if I understood what he was saying. “The past repeats itself when we choose to let it. Ignorance is ignoring what you know and making the same mistake over and over. I did not want to be ignorant.”

  “I’m at the same point in my life,” I said, still not comprehending everything he was saying. “I know I need to change but I’m afraid to change. Why am I afraid?”

  “Because you’re human, Jack,” Benny said as he turned to look at his fishing line, his smile lighting up the face shadowed under the bill of his baseball hat.

  “I hate my job with Merchants, but I loved my job before my bank was bought,” I said, the tempo of my words much more rapid than normal. “I spent too much time at work and not enough with my family.” I told Benny what I was sure he already knew. My marriage was over, my kids were strangers, and I needed to answer the two questions he posed—honestly. “But I know I could never change like you have—I’m not you.”

  “You and I are not so different,” he said. “We’re all unique and the same—all one. We want peace and happiness. We believe it is something we need to search for. Sometimes we even think we can buy it. But in reality, it’s inside of us, now.” After pausing, Benny leaned forward. “Happiness isn’t a destination, Jack. It’s a choice that resides inside of you, not outside of you. Happiness and peace are there for the choosing—a selection that you alone can make. I am responsible for who I am and what I do. Happy or sad, it’s my preference. There’s no one to blame but me. The same is true for you. The only way to understand your choice is to question your life.”

  “Why ask questions?” I understood part of what Benny was saying. But I believed life was a search for answers, not questions. “I want answers that make sense—something I can count on,” I said.

  “Questions lead,” he
said. “When I question my life, I find its purpose. The purpose is to transform my life—so I can be the best person I want to be. Asking the right questions is more important than having the right answer, if there is a right answer. Choosing the right way to live each moment—to be—requires constant questioning.”

  He held up his hand and pointed in a slow, circular motion around the lake. “Imagine being in the ocean, surrounded by nothing but water. You’re thirsty. You see what’s all around—it’s water! You drink it. But instead of satisfying your thirst, it only exaggerates your thirst. If you drink more of the salt water, you’ll be sick. Wanting does that to all of us. More isn’t the answer. Neither is the act of simply wanting answers. Asking questions allows us to think in a less concrete manner. It’s the ultimate reality check. Anyone can recite answers, but will the answers that work now be right tomorrow—or even in the next moment? Questions let us reexamine life closely and continually. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I like answers,” I said, still debating the old guy. I was growing agitated with the idea of questioning how I live. I had already revealed enough to feel better about myself.

  “We all do,” he said. “But without questioning your life, how can you change? You can’t rely on following in the footsteps of others—you’ll end up trying to apply their answers to your unique life. Each person must find their own way at a pace and place that is right for them. You can only find your own way in questioning.”

  Without taking any time to absorb what he had just told me, I asked about something that was troubling me. “What happens when someone does something harmful to you that you didn’t ask for or anticipate? It’s like you said about the person who killed your son. That wasn’t your choice. How do you deal with things like that?” Before he could answer, I continued, “If finding happiness is inside me, it must be deep inside because I haven’t found it.”