by Dermot Davis
Focusing his consciousness on his body, he pulled his mind away from thoughts of panic and the fear of not knowing what to expect in this alien environment and experience. Concentrating on what the body was feeling as it floated in weightlessness, he realized that the body needed to feel of substance to have it feel like it even existed. Without anything pressing against the body, like gravity on one end and the earth on the other, and touch, the sensation of temperature and texture, breezes and weather, and so forth, it was very easy for him to imagine that he didn't have any body, at all.
As he lay in the silence and the darkness he remembered his prior experience of being out of his body entirely. That too had included a feeling of weightlessness, although he had been able to see everything about him, even if those around him could not see him then. Compared to his present circumstance, the out-of-the-body experience had more of an ethereal or an unreal quality, whereas the one he now found himself felt very real and earthbound. Or then again, it occurred to him, the more he was able to relax, the more that that would change. Or maybe not, perhaps it was too early to tell.
The thought then occurred to him that he was thinking too much. Thoughts raced through his head and took most, if not all, of his attention. He should be quiet in his mind and then see what would transpire. Was it even possible to stop thinking, he then wondered? Was there ever a time in the history of his life when his brain wasn't thinking of something or another? If he stopped thinking, wouldn't that be considered sleep? He then wondered about the time and of how long he had been in the tank already.
How would he know if it was time to end the session and get out before Dowling decided that he should take himself off to bed? Was it safe to fall asleep? If he fell asleep and somehow turned over, would he drown? Has anyone ever died in one of these things? Even if Dowling was hanging out outside, what if he had fallen asleep?
As Andrew's mind raced, he could feel his heart start beating faster. His body began to squirm like he couldn't find a position with which he could remain comfortable. He wished he was at home in his own bed and he didn't even know why he was doing something so stupid. Was he so desperate to get along in life, to fix things up with Fiona, that he was trying anything that promised him even a glint of relief or understanding? How did he end up stark naked lying in a pool of salt water in the dark in somebody else's friggin' junked-out garage?
The more he asked questions that had no answers, the more he felt angrier and angrier. Rage rippled through his weightless body and being. Although he couldn’t feel his body, he was entirely present to the intense anger that he felt. Even though he knew that he had a habit of blaming other people for his misery, he now felt like he wasn't angry with anybody else in this moment; he was angry with himself. Yes, he'd like to blame Simon for messing up his life. He wanted to blame Fiona for leaving him, especially since she promised that she never would. But most of all, the person he really wanted to blame—for everything—was his no-good, useless, dead-beat father. When had that guy ever been there for him?
What a messed-up, lousy, SOB that man turned out to be! What a D-bag!
Who leaves their family to go off someplace else and right away, start up having another one? How effed up would a person have to be to leave their wife and son to fend for themselves and not give a flying fart when the woman he had sworn to provide for was forced to move to a tiny shit-hole of a house in one of the worst neighborhoods in LA? And then he had the nerve to never even contact them ever again? Meanwhile, his father was probably taking the new kid on outings and loving him. Andrew saw red, for a moment, at that thought.
What did his mom ever do to him that his father would treat her in that way? What did Andrew do to him that would make him get up one day and walk out the door, for good? Was his son a disappointment to the father? If Andrew had been different in some way, would he have stayed? What if Andrew had been as interested in sports as he was? Even though his father had taken him to all of the Angel's home games, could he tell that Andrew wasn't really that into it? The man had loved baseball and he loved the Angels even better than the Dodgers but Andrew didn't even care... is that why he left?
Andrew felt a wave of hopelessness replace his rage. He wasn’t much of a son, was he? Most kids would so appreciate the time and money and attention that their father spent on them, that they would love the things that their dad shared with them. He was a failure, as a kid, as a son. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming. He felt like yelling his head off!
The more that Andrew fretted in the tank, the more he realized that he wasn't making much sense, even to himself. He was sounding like a kid that was having a childish tantrum. Did he really believe the questions he was asking? Of course the man didn't leave because his son wasn't as crazy about baseball as he was; that was a pretty dumb notion. People left. They fell out of love. People were irresponsible. It wasn’t his fault.
Then again, even if it were a dumb notion, from the point of view of who he was as a ten-year-old boy, it was still valid. He was sore at his father for leaving and who was to know why the man had left like he did? The feelings of a ten-year-old boy were just as real and important as anybody else's. The father obviously did not love the boy enough for him to stay and watch him grow up. Even though he wasn't himself thrilled about it, Andrew had grown up to be a very fine baseball player, thank you very much. Had his father attended all of the winning games that Andrew had played in growing up, then his father would have been very proud; very proud indeed.
Andrew snapped out of his ranting when he realized that he was crying. The salt water from his tears would blend nicely into the salt water in the tank, he smiled. What the heck, this was supposed to be a relaxation exercise! Pursing his lips with anger, he blamed his father for ruining his sensory deprivation tank experience of rest and tranquility. He was supposed to be going on a trip of the mind; seeing visions and gaining spiritual and other wisdom, for crying out loud. What wisdom was he going to gain from venting over the past; a past that he couldn't change or recreate to his advantage? Where were his theta waves and spiritual visions and his feelings of relaxation?
His father really did a number on him, he then considered. Lying naked with his heart bare in the nothingness of nowhere, Andrew, for the first time in his life, recognized that he didn't love his father, after all. Thinking that he loved his father had been a lie, all along. In truth, he hated his father. He hated his father with a vengeance; he hated him with a passion so strong he almost wished him dead. He didn't want to kill him personally, but he could, if he really had to, if it came down to it. The man was a terrible father. That made him a terrible person, didn’t it?
He would have been happier if the man had left them by dying rather than walking out on them, leaving on a pair of healthy legs and in the prime of his godforsaken life. And then he got himself a new son? And a new daughter? What a piece of no-good crap the man was. His first son wasn't good enough for him that he had to replace him with another? His father had left his beautiful, hardworking mother and gone off to screw some other woman and live happily ever after. The realization, and awareness of how much it angered him, deep down inside, made him feel as if he were consumed by hatred.
Andrew again felt like screaming. Apart from the time that the woman he loved had left him, he had never before felt like screaming. Now he could scream his friggin' head off. He could scream and scream and shout obscenities that would make his mother blush. Not that she was any saint, either. She obviously didn't do enough to make his father stay. Did she drive him so crazy that she forced him to leave? He could see that. His mom drives him crazy, most of the time.
Maybe she worked all the time and ignored the man. Maybe she nagged him. Andrew could think of a few ways in which his mother might have driven his father away. To heck with the pair of them. He never even needed them, anyway. He had learned to take care of himself years and years ago and he wasn't going to change any time soon. Andrew didn't need anybody.
&n
bsp; When the lid opened suddenly, Andrew's eyes shot open. Looking like a wild animal, his hair standing on end, Andrew looked up at a shocked-looking Dowling and glared at him.
Dowling stared at the crazy-looking body of the young man in the tank and, with one hand holding open the lid, he almost closed it back shut. "I heard you screaming, so I thought that I should check in on you." Dowling at last said apologetically, wondering if he had done the correct thing by opening the tank.
"I was screaming?" Andrew asked as he gradually took on the appearance of his old self.
"For a long time," Dowling said, still unsure about Andrew's state. "You didn't know that you were screaming?" he asked diplomatically.
"No, uh, I guess," Andrew answered, clearly disoriented. "I was feeling pretty angry in there, pretty much," he said, trying to get his mind straight. He looked around the garage. He felt shockingly alive. The lights seemed brighter in the dim garage. Sounds seemed louder. He could clearly hear the noise of cars on the street and children playing outside in the neighborhood. He inhaled deeply and noticed that the air almost tasted dusty.
"I thought, maybe, you were stuck or in trouble," Dowling said, like he was apologizing.
"Oh, yeah, no, you did the right thing," Andrew answered, feeling more and more like himself with each minute that passed. "If you heard me screaming, sure, you had to, right?"
"Do you need some time?" Dowling asked, now feeling a bit awkward standing over the young man's naked body. "Why don't I leave the lid open and you come out to the kitchen for a nice cup of tea when you're good and ready? No pressure."
"Yeah, sounds good," Andrew said as he flexed his limbs to feel his muscles and get the blood circulating again. "How long have I been in here?" he then asked, looking around for his phone. "Felt like just a few minutes."
"Over an hour," Dowling answered. "This is a good place to stop, for your first time."
"For my last time," Andrew joked. "Yeah, I'll be along," he said as he nodded to let Dowling know that he was going to be alright.
“An hour?” Andrew asked himself. That didn’t seem right at all. It had felt like several minutes in the tank, at the most.
"I made you some tea," Dowling said when Andrew reappeared in the kitchen, fully dressed and looking like he had aged a few more years. "Whether you want some or not."
"Oh, I want some now," Andrew said, looking like he needed something hot. "It got a bit chilly in there." He looked around and was acutely aware that the colors in Dowling’s kitchen seemed more vibrant. He listened intently as the older man picked up a spoon and it clinked against the ceramic mug. Everything in reality seemed hyper real. As horrible as the emotional experience had been, he was hyperaware that being in the tank, deprived of all stimulation, had made his five senses much more acute.
"You survived?" Dowling asked as he poured the hot tea.
"Can't believe I was in there for an hour," the young man said, taking a seat at the table. "I didn't get any visions," he then said, sounding disappointed. "A bit of a letdown."
"An experience like that takes a while to evaluate, sometimes," Dowling suggested as he sat at the table. "You should remain open-minded and give it some time."
"How do you mean? I didn't get any benefit from it. I just couldn't relax enough to let my mind see the visions."
"It's not all about the visions, Andrew," Dowling said softly. "Sometimes it's our response to things that can teach us the most about ourselves and the world."
While sipping his tea, Andrew thought about what Dowling seemed to be implying. "So, if my response was, I don't know, feeling like the whole thing was a waste of my time?" he said, like it was a question.
"Was it a waste of time?" Dowling asked pointedly. "Or did you have a new experience and possibly learn something about yourself? I have no agenda, either way. I mean, it's fine if your time in the sensory deprivation tank was a washout; I'm just playing devil's advocate."
"Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I was hoping for more; I was hoping for some answers, I guess."
"I understand that. But sometimes the answers don't come that easily. Sometimes we have to do a bit of work to get at those answers. We can’t control how wisdom comes to us. We seek. We have an experience. We try to interpret that experience and gain some kind of meaning or answers. And sometimes, the answers we get, we don't want or we'd prefer if they were different, that's all I'm saying."
"Yeah, well, I still think it was a waste of time," Andrew said, not even wanting to revisit his experience. He really didn’t feel like sitting there with Dowling and rehashing the experience, when everything in reality seemed so loud and bright and sharp. "I appreciate all the work you did, I really do. You're like only one of the few people in my life that cares. I don't know that many people that would have..." he said and stopped because he was still feeling raw from his session and didn't want to get all teary-eyed. "Anyhow," he then said, as if to shake it all off. "What's been going on with you?"
As Dowling related all of the proposed tests he'd like to be performing on subjects and the ideas that he was generating to apply for cutting-edge research grants and so on, Andrew was so preoccupied with his own stuff that he didn't really listen or hear what the man said.
For the rest of the evening and following on into the next day, all that Andrew could think about was his father. He wasn't wondering about his father in terms of how he was keeping or what he was doing with himself but, rather, in terms of the feelings that he had discovered about his father. All along, he had convinced himself that he and his father were on the best of terms and truly loved and cared for each other and yet... it wasn't true, at all, none of it.
Andrew was as shocked as anyone else probably would be to think that he actually hated and despised his own father; what a horrible and shocking revelation to have? It was obviously not as clear-cut as that; he also knew that he loved his dad or, rather, he loved the memories that he had of his father. However, even if it were only partly true that he hated his father, it was a pretty shocking self-discovery. He wondered how his mind had hidden such a thing from his own awareness. It was like he had discovered a secret that he had been keeping from himself.
And now that he had become aware of how he truly felt, what was he to do with that information? Should he call or go visit his father and have it out with him? Did he need to hear his father tell him that he was not so fond of his first son and would prefer if he had never been born? Should they confront each other and have an all-out shouting match? What good would all of that do? If he did shout obscenities at his father, for a good long while, maybe it would make him feel better; he'd be getting it out of his system.
But then, what if his father had no idea that Andrew was feeling that way and his feelings got hurt? What if his outburst ruined whatever relationship they currently had and spoiled the chance of their having a closer connection in the future? What if his father thought that his son was crazy and, with all of his swearing and ranting at the man, Andrew convinced his father that he had done the right thing, by leaving when he did, after all?
Sitting at his office desk, with the view of sprawling Los Angeles at his back, Andrew stared at his computer screen and pretended to be engrossed in his work. The only thing that he had left that had once belonged to his father was his Angels baseball cap. Actually, it belonged to Andrew because his father bought it for him on their very first visit together to the Los Angeles Angels stadium in Anaheim. He had since treated that cap like it was a crown jewel and had worn it so much that it barely resembled a baseball cap anymore.
Remembering that he had left the baseball cap in his bedroom, back at his mom's house, he felt the strong urge to go and get it and throw it into the nearest fire and burn it to black dust. He would then be free of having absolutely anything in his possession that was at all connected to his father or that reminded him of better days with the man. It would be like a cleansing ritual to burn the cap, as if he were purging himself of something that he no l
onger needed or required, releasing something that no longer held any relevance in his life. Although he loved the Angels, and hated to do it, he had to. It would be like he was burning away a lie.
Deciding to make a quick visit to his mom's house, Andrew decided that he would take an early lunch and grabbed his jacket and left his office. On his way to the elevator, his phone rang. "Hello?" he answered.
"Hey there, stranger," a familiar voice said warmly.
"Oh, hi, Lily," he said in a neutral voice. "What's up?
"Well, I do have a work question," she said in a hushed voice. "But I can't ask it over the phone, Andrew."
"Oh," Andrew answered, wondering to himself what kind of question she needed to ask him. Was she still in trouble from before? There had been fallout in various branches of the organization.
"Lily, I'm just getting into the elevator… so we might get cut off," he said as he pressed the button for the parking garage. "Hello? Hello?" he then said. When she didn’t reply, he realized that he had been cut off already. He entered her number into his contact list and made a mental note to call her back.
Andrew parked his gleaming black Mercedes outside of his mom's house. Feeling instantly out of place in the mixed ethnic neighborhood, Andrew felt over-dressed in his suit that cost more than many cars parked on the street. "Hi, mom," he said, surprising his mother who was outside of the small house doing a bit of gardening. "Wow, the garden looks great," he said, noticing that new plants and flowers were growing where once there were only weeds.
"Andrew?" his mom said, standing up and looking like she was shocked to see him but not surprised in a good way. "What are you doing here?"
"I used to live here, remember? Great to see you, too," he teased as he went over to give her a brief hug.
"You should have called first," Angela said, rushing ahead of him to be first through the kitchen door. "You never come to visit," she said loudly. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's fine," Andrew said as he looked around at the many changes in the house. "Have you been redecorating or something?" The place looked fresher and prettier.