Departure
“Jackson Slater you’re an irrelevant bastard. You are going straight to hell. And no one will notice you’re gone.” says Haller Thomson.
Those are the final words Haller has chosen before we leave the shore. I keep telling myself this isn’t happening but that doesn’t change the circumstances at all. I can’t quite place the location of the boat with my eyes blindfolded. But north of the docks is as good as any guess.
What you have to understand is that I pretty much deserve to be in this position. A position that I created for myself. Although I wouldn’t have admitted it before now. Which is about 15 minutes after I should have admitted it.
I wasn’t particularly a great man or a man of character. On the whole I was a terribly shallow man with a talent for avoiding the obvious. Avoiding was a brilliant art that I mastered; especially when it came to people. People can be so incredibly co-dependent that you might say avoiding them helps them. One might say I wrote the chapter on avoidance and I would have corrected them by handing them an autographed copy of the book.
My own sense of vanity ran deeper than any river. The great Jackson Slater renowned for his looks. And I was. My personal routine involved several hours a day before many mirrors in a grooming ritual that would make a cat’s look amateur. For the most part I had lived my entire life pretending that nothing was happening around me. I hadn’t worried about such things.
And I couldn’t be more wrong. There was plenty happening all around me, I just didn’t care about it. Besides everything went away if you threw enough money at the problem. And if it didn’t, ignoring it often worked for me.
“Jackson, I want you to know this isn’t about the money. It’s a matter of my word. My integrity. I promised to come through on my end of things.” Haller tells me softly as the boat shimmies a little faster.
Unlike most people I was hardly the kind of fellow to be drawn in. As a matter of my own personal character I felt it was my duty to be exactly the opposite. I’m the type of man who would fervently deny that a building was on fire to save myself the trouble of becoming involved. It meant caring and that would not do. People want a piece of you and then that is one less piece you have for yourself.
And lack of involvement is exactly where I find myself this windy April evening. Somewhere in the bay I’m free of the mask and looking at the man…
Haller Thomson came into my life exactly the same way a freight train mows down your car when the engine stalls on the tracks. With the fury of an uncontainable beast, Haller came forth. And it wasn’t something I could have seen coming before it happened. It wasn’t money that he was after when he came. It was so much more.
A man with an offer only a shallow man wouldn’t refuse…
If you help me, I will help you. Give a little of this for a little of that. And I went along for it. Including the part where I had planned to double-cross the man. Because I only thought of what he could offer me.
Except it never works out the way we plan.
“Plan? I bet the great Jackson Slater wants to know. Don’t you? Well, Jack I don’t have a plan. Except for tying you up and gagging you. That. That’s a plan. Don’t struggle. We’re almost there.”
Haller wanted someone to help with a situation. It was a matter of vanity; as any man can attest to his own level of vanity. Haller was a bit different. He was concerned and wanted no more than a bit of help becoming more involved with others despite his own shortcomings.
You see, Haller wasn’t a good looking man. In fact, you might call him unattractive after he’s left the room. And for what it’s worth, I thought I did him a favor after I pocketed most of his money. At the time I thought there was nothing I could have done to draw flies to that level of hideous. But I did what I thought worked best… for me.
Haller took a new name, a new lifestyle, and a new set of bills thanks to me. He lived and breathed my routine of shallow and I gladly introduced him to the right people at the right places. And with a little less than luck he fell right into it. Haller took to it like a fish takes to toxic waste waters and grows a third eye. It wasn’t a gradual mutation either. Overnight there was a new fresh uninvolved man and it wasn’t me.
Haller began to see me, the great Jackson Slater as direct competition to his new persona. A person with an agenda that no longer matched his own. You have to wonder where the struggle began. Exactly right after he decided that he could do it without me. And for a lot cheaper. Once he realized I was taking him for a pretty penny, Haller Thomson decided that it was time to fulfill his end of things.
An eye for an eye.
And what was my request? I was tired of all that was happening around me. I wanted to escape from all of it; being Jackson Slater with the people, their nonsense, and their involvement. I simply asked this man to help to put me in a place where I would never have to deal with these kinds of situations ever again. And now much to my dismay, Haller is holding up his end of the arrangement.
“Jackson, it’s been fun. Now… get off my boat.” With the bottom of his boot, Haller shoves me out into the dark water. Despite what I expect, I don’t sink. As his tiny boat moves away from me, I watch without control as the cold water splashes against me.
This isn’t exactly the escape I’d hope for but I didn’t specify when I asked. I only wanted out.
Now I am.
Completely out. Out to sea. Adrift. Letting the waves wash over me.
Careful what you ask for. Even now as I sink slowly and my eyes watch the emergency buoy float further away from me I know that pretending that nothing else exists will be the thing that seals my fate. Because not one person will notice. I was so busy avoiding it all that it wouldn’t make any difference.
Departure. A little departure from the everyday 0rdinary never hurts now and again. You won’t know if something will work out if you don’t try. Matisse… Make up your own minds. Enjoy. kisses. m.
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