Boredom & Frustration

There is something about the middle years of life, the forties to fifties, that makes a man take a long, hard look at himself, his works, and his future. For then it is that he comes face-to-face with the ashes of his dreams and realizes that he is most definitely not going to write the Great American Novel. Or become President of The Company. Or even A MultiMillionaire.

The great majority of men pass through this stage by simply gritting their teeth and continuing right on schlepping. A very, very few become so depressed they commit suicide. A larger number, also profoundly discouraged, commit the "revocable suicide" and disappear with the thought that they will leave their troubles behind. Sometimes it works.

The "social scientists" call this the "Gauguin Syndrome" after the French stockbroker who chucked it all to paint and contract syphilis in the South Sea Islands. In the interests of accuracy, Gauguin did not change his identity--only his lifestyle and goals. He was really a run-of-the-mill dropout, not a disappearee.

One slow evening in the bar at the Old Shasta Royal Lodge above Dunsmuir, California, I was idling away the time in casual conversation with a traveler who had taken a room for the night. My companion, a well-turned-out man of about fifty, became avidly interested when I mentioned I was researching a book about the techniques of disappearances. When the conversation came around to the reasons for disappearing, he said musingly, "You know, the situation that a very near friend of mine found himself in may be of interest to you."

Naturally I made all the appropriate noises and he continued with his story.

"My friend was married to a small-town New England girl. Together they had raised three fine children. He worked as a teacher for a small school system on the Cape, which was fine enough when he started. After seven years he established tenure, but the pay was barely enough to make ends meet. He noticed that more and more he had a feeling of being trapped; he was bored and dissatisfied with his job, but with four mouths to feed he didn't dare give up his tenured position for a job at some other school, and other high-paying jobs are hard to come by in resort areas like the Cape.

"He and his wife began to squabble about their finances. As the kids got older the debts started to pile up. In order to pay the bills and keep peace in the family, he took a summer job as a pump jockey at a nearby gas station. Can you imagine the humiliation of a forty-year-old man pumping gas, or the anger that grew inside him every time a neighbor or colleague pulled in for a fill-up? It became unbearable."

He paused, realizing that his emotion recounting these events was giving away the true identity of his "friend." I could see he was debating whether to continue so I prompted him to get to the heart of the story.

"It doesn't sound to me like your friend could last very long in a situation like that," I said, reestablishing the pretense of the "friend."

"You're right about that. A man will sacrifice a lot for his family, but when he gives up his pride and dignity he becomes something less than a man. Even with the extra cash, matters got worse at home, the fights became more frequent, his marriage became miserable and intolerable. Every time he looked at his wife he was reminded of the dreams he had set aside for her sake. Eventually the price he was paying didn't seem worth the relationship and they decided to divorce.

"His wife got the house, the car and custody of the kids. Suddenly my friend realized he had absolutely nothing to show for his years of hard work. He got stuck paying alimony and child support, which meant he had to keep both jobs and continue working through his summers. That summer vacation was about the only thing he enjoyed about his teaching job and now that was gone like everything else.

"The final blow was a bill from the orthodontist for fifteen hundred dollars. His wife was obviously out to get as much as she could out of him before the kids became legal adults and the child-support ended. That bill would have wiped out the meager savings he had been able to put aside. He called his lawyer who advised him to pay the bill. He could fight it out in court but he would end up paying both the bill and his attorney's fees and court costs. My friend got so depressed he seriously contemplated suicide.

"What probably saved him was an article he remembered reading about a man in Providence who was in similar straits and simply walked out one evening and never returned. He took a hard look at his life and recognized that everything he had worked for was gone along with his enthusiasm for the future. He loved his kids, but they would soon be adults building lives of their own. He wouldn't have even considered disappearing if his children were still at that youthful stage where they need to have a father around. So he rounded up all the cash he could get his hands on and hopped on a bus for Boston late one summer night, and he's never looked back."

"Have you seen your friend since he disappeared?" I asked. "I wonder if he had any regrets."

"Yes, I'm still in touch with my friend," he said, with a smile exchanged between those who hold a secret, "and he has had regrets, of course. He misses his kids terribly. But he figures his wife got enough out of the divorce to take care of the kids until they're old enough to start their own careers. And as for his wife, hell, it might do her some good to have to work for a living. Maybe she'll understand the kind of pressures that finally got to her husband.

As for my friend's new life, it couldn't be better. He's not a teacher anymore, nor a gas station attendant. Let's say he found a job far more interesting than he ever imagined he could get. And he's with a wonderful woman now who earns her own keep, to boot. Yes, even though he has some regrets, they are far outweighed by the fantastic improvement in the quality of his life."

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 874