Theo is my therapist. I’ve known him all of two years, but I can already tell our time together has done a number on him. When we met, he had taut skin and a slick, soul-stirring smile, a commanding presence that pried your attention open like an oyster knife. Today, sitting across from him, a drab IKEA coffee table propped between us, I can spot crow’s feet and waddling jowls in place of that gleaming smile. I’ve wrecked him for good.
We meet every Friday morning. I knock on the front door, and he greets me at the threshold with a cup of coffee in hand. I gingerly wedge my way through the narrow opening, fearful that his vicious dog might pounce at my throat and rip off an artery any second. Then we sit down and I vomit out a week’s worth of pain and panic over the course of fifty miserly minutes.
I hate his dog, but I don’t have the heart to tell him, fearing without it the roles might reverse and I’d be sitting in his chair, listening to his horrific accounts of childhood trauma and abuse. The dog—an Argentine Dogo the size of a Greyhound bus—seems to be Theo’s only companion. He tells me he’s married, but I’ve never seen anyone but him and the damn dog in the two years I’ve been coming to his place. Not a single family picture on the mantle, not a plaintive voice emanating from the kitchen, “Theo, I’m having lunch with a friend. Don’t wait up for me.” The place is desolate, and I’m convinced it’s just him and the dog, so I’ve been putting up with the annoying overtures of the damn thing for two years, flashing an uncomfortable smirk every time it jumps at me, “Good dog, good dog,” etc, etc.
Today we’re discussing my upcoming trip. I’m leavin my two-year old son in my mother’s care and flying to Edinburgh where I’ll join up with my spouse after a couple of days. I should be excited to leave the capricious critter behind, but I’m having second thoughts about going, I tell him. I don’t really want to go. Why, he asks. He knows, the fucker. I’ve told him that I’ve been riding low-grade waves of panic attacks for months and that they’ve recently intensified. Edinburgh will be a solo trip, the first half of it, anyway. And given how things are shaping up with my panic attacks, I can see a scenario where, two days in, I’m wheeled out of my hotel room lying face up on a gurney, the paramedic bellowing in his imposing Dunediner accent, “Watch out, dead man coming through.”
It’s a great opportunity to measure yourself against your fears, to rise to the occasion, he says. You should go, he says. I should, I say. I mean it as a question, but it comes out as a half-hearted statement of intent and the rest of the session is spent untangling childhood trauma per usual.
Pulse: 88
Pearson Airport. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ll be travelling coach to Edinburgh. It’s embarrassing, really, for an aspiring bon vivant who once came close to racking up five hundred Instagram likes for a centre-punched picture of himself dressed in a vintage Ralph Lauren Houndstooth double-knit gilet. Not once have I flown beneath Economy Premium in the past five years, to the continual chagrin of my ever-so-practical, penny-wise spouse. Let us feel important, if only for a fleeting seven hours, lofted high, some 35,000 feet above the drudgeries of terrestrial life, let us be somebody, I’d beseech her. Yet now, I’ve acquiesced, seeing that our credit card statements have ballooned past any conceivable hope of ever making a substantial dent.
Coach it is. Bad food, third-rate entertainment, seats designed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, mid-air brawls, flatulence. It’s a mess.
Touched down in Heathrow followed by a cab ride into SOHO that costs a hundred sterling pounds. I’m fiending after KILN. A Thai fusion restaurant recently profiled on Fck, That’s Delicious*. Action Bronson, the host of the show, is a personal hero of mine and I’d sooner commit to an Abrahamic slaughter act, offering up my only son to God, than second guess his taste for grub. Fish prepped over wood-burning ovens, green curry, noodles, wine. I can get used to this. In fact, I have, and it’s a problem. The ballooning credit card bills are a testament.
Two-hundred pounds later, I step out the restaurant and get into the wind, head a little soggy with Pinot Noir. Jaunts to Sunspell and Officine Générale land further blows to my credit card statement, but at least I have expensive white tees and a boxy overcoat to make me feel good about myself.
It’s 7:30 pm. We’ve been sitting on the tarmac for a good twenty minutes, waiting our turn to take off and everyone’s beginning to get a little antsy. This is supposed to be a fifty-minute flight, gate to gate. The captain, evidently telepathic, decides to make an announcement. But not as we’d hoped, to alleviate our angst by reassuring us take-off is mere minutes away. No. He opts instead to give a foreboding account of the inclement weather in Edinburgh, and ends the transmission by saying that we should, “brace ourselves for a rough last twenty minutes,” as we approach the airport. I don’t like hearing this and immediately feel my heart drumming an off-kilter rhythm that makes breathing a struggle. I don’t like flying coach.
It's 8 pm. I look out the window. The plane is surrounded by unending sheets of black cloud that, every once in a while, sparkle with thunder bolts. I don’t like this. I need a visual reference, something to approximate the plane’s distance from hard earth, ballparking exactly how long the freefall will last the moment our flimsy ride eventually disintegrates midair and we’re flung outward into thin air. I close my eyes and picture the scenario. A deafening whoosh wailing past my ears, I look around and see other passengers mid-drop, some are flailing their arms, screaming their heads off, some already succumbed to a fear-induced stroke, dead, some holding on to loved ones, others to their untethered luggage. I’m oddly at peace with my fate. Not a word uttered, not a scream emitted until final impact. Cut to black.
Back on the plane I glance at my watch—a Blancpain GMT Virrlet I pulled the trigger on at 2 am while browsing Chrono24—and realize we’ve been airborne for well over an hour. That, coupled with the plane’s gnarly circular patterns, sets my bowels alight, prompting me to clench my arsehole tight for fear of fouling my drawers and making the morning paper. Captain takes his time, offering another ominous cameo on the PA some ninety minutes into the flight. “We’re in a holding pattern as advised by the control tower at Edinburgh airport. Three flights ahead of us had to abort landing and activate go-around procedure due to torrent winds. I’ll keep you abreast.” Keep us abreast? We’re dying over here. My heartbeats are more Afrobeat than sinus rhythm.
We’ve been airborne 2hrs. I’m certain we’re all going to die soon. I look around the cabin, surveying the faces of nearby passengers for some sign of confidence, calm. A group of octogenarians, men and women, occupying three back-to-back rows is giggling away. What’s there to laugh about? Can’t they tell we’re all going to die? Are they giddy cause they’re confident we’ll all make it safely on the ground, or resigned to their eventual demise cause, you know, they’re 80-something and have nothing to lose? I can’t use this bunch as cudgel against fear. My bowels are bulging and burbling under the weight of the moment. I must find someone else. I wring my neck a little farther askew and find a 50-something year old in an aisle seat. Amidst the sea of darkness and tumult that is the coach tier, bathed in shadows, his lone figure is illuminated by a feeble reading light from above, marking him as an almost celestial apparition. He’s the apotheosis of calm as he reads his book. I’m happy to have found him. I stoop slightly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the book cover. What could be so engrossing so as to keep so imperious a fear at bay while one sifts through words and cunning turn of phrases? I’d like to tap him on the shoulder and quiz him on the book, see if he’s retained any of it? Describe the character arcs? Do they rise to the ocassion, learn a lesson, grow? Name some of the literary devices used by the author. Then, as he lifts the book off his lap to throw one leg over the other with breezy indolence, I spot the cover. It’s Harold L. Hume’s Men Die.
Fuck!Why must I pick this dude out of all the passengers on this plane? He’s clearly a sociopath. Why else would you be reading Men Die, so serenely, as your plane nosedives into oblivion with all onboard? “
Pulse: 180.
The plane lands. I don’t die, not just yet. But I’m certain I will, soon. Perhaps tomorrow at the third- stream café I read about on Conde Nast. I’ll choke on a pistachio croissant, my oat cappuccino spilled all over the upcycled Universal Works wool suit I bought on eBay. What a way to go. I’d prefer to wither in a more heroic way, while saving someone from the precipice of death. I have this recurring dream where my partner and I are walking across a busy street when a truck looms on the horizon, barreling towards my partner, intent to squash her. Anticipating the impending tragedy, I step up to circumvent fate. I push her out of harm’s way, gingerly, making sure she’s not hurt in the process, before stepping up to the mark, squarely in front of the fast-approaching truck. From the relative safety of the sidewalk my partner stares at me, teary-eyed. I stare back and smile a heroic smile. Then I’m gone. Categorically squashed past the point of recognition by a three-ton truck.
Pulse: 0
A steady succession of panic attacks the first three days. What a wimp. I’m ashamed of myself. I wish I were stronger, I wish I could rise to the occasion like Theo mentioned, to thwart the barrage of panic with sturdy stoicism. I wish I were a Marcus Aurelius. Once, on my way back from a brisk walk to Royal Mile (a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town), I fell into such a rampant panic that I blacked out. When I came to, I found my legs dangling like cheese strings from the brawny hands of a Scotsman. A retired nurse, he tells me. I thank him for looking after me and ask him to kindly set my legs down, but he ignores my plea, proceeding instead to comment on my cologne. I tell him it’s Frederic Malle’s Portrait of a Lady, notes of Turkish rose, raspberry, black currant, cinnamon, clove, patchouli, sandalwood, incense, ambroxan, benzoin and white musk. It’s delicious, he says. Bad way to describe a cologne. Worse yet, he’s still holding onto my ankles and they’re beginning to hurt. Just then my phone rings. I use the momentum of fumbling through my pockets to wriggle my ankles free and move away from this assertive good Samaritan. He seems hurt by my resuming a vertical stance again, defeated somehow. I hold the phone receiver to my ear while staring at my savior. It’s my partner, reminding me that she’ll be arriving this evening. I find it my duty to tell her about my horrid flight and warn her that she’ll likely die on her way to Edinburgh, but all I hear on the other end is a dismissive chuckle. Did she hear me at all? The nurse’s still looking in my direction. Does he expect me to lie prone on the floor as soon as I’m done with the call? My partner hangs up, but I go on talking to an empty telephone, slowly moving away from the nurse. Look, I’m serious, I almost died on that plane ride, you might want to take the train instead. You hear me? What, you’ll do what? Don’t you dare! Then I break into a mad sprint in the direction of my hotel. The nurse likely still waiting for my return.
I’d brought two Thom Sweeney suits, but it never stops raining here and I never wear anything but my Aspesi Brushed Cotton-Gabardine Field Jacket. It’s a respectable look, but I’ve made reservations at Timberyard (a family-owned, 1 Michelin star joint with a dazzling menu of locally sourced artisanal produce in hip, industrial-chic former warehouse space) this evening and my field jacket is more The Killing Fields than All The President’s Men. I share my apprehensions with my partner, but she’s too busy responding to her Instagram DMs. I ask the waiter for their driest, low- intervention, high-elevation Pinot Noir and he brings a Clunia. I asked for their driest pinot, how dare he? Gypped by a third-rate waiter dressed in peach seersucker polo and a brown corduroy suit. A clown. I’m grinding and grating my teeth so intensely I can taste the enamel in my mouth.
My partner tells me she’s getting a promotion. I’m happy for you, I say. Not sure I am, I think to myself. She’s moving up the corporate ladder rapidly. I feel small. The last ten years having been markedly fallow for me. Stagnant, uneventful. Should I beat her to it and stage a breakup? I don’t think I can stomach being dumped at this age. I’m 37. No one 37 should be dumped. Some time away from each other, a short break, let’s see other people for a while, sure. But, dumped. That you don’t recover from, not at 37.
The next morning, my partner takes me to a bookstore. I’m percolating head to toe from a cappuccino I had earlier and really don’t want to peruse aisles of dusty hardcovers from the 1800s. I want to go back to the hotel room and lie prone until my panic has gone away and I can breathe right again. But I must be a good partner, I must tag along. As I wander through the aisles, my eyes fall on a familiar book title – Harold L. Hume’s Men Die. I pick it up, curious to understand the sociopath from the plane a bit better. Maybe I’ll buy it. Maybe I’ll read it on the plane ride back. The back cover is riddled with shmaltzy praise, “A brilliant philosophical exploration of life, of men's vulnerabilities, fears, and eventual acceptance of their own mortality.” Word? It’s not a morbid treatise on death? Not a manual for self-harm?
Back on the plane home, I’m praying for a quick death. I don’t want a drawn-out scenario, parabolic ups and downs before finally blowing up into smithereens. Let it be quick I ask God, Marcus Aurelius, anyone who’d listen really. I hear ragged breathing, turn around and land on a bulging pair of eyes fixed in the general direction of my loins, staring at my book, Men Die. Yes, I bought it, chiefly for moments like this when I can for once be on the other side, gloating over someone else’s rising anxiety. I reach for the book, maintaining eye contact with the poor sap, and slowly part the pages. Right at that moment, the engine roars on takeoff and I’m pressed back into my seat. The terrified passenger looks away, closing his eyes, mumbling indistinct prayers under his breath. I smile widely.
Back at Theo’s the door swings open and the dog, for once, isn’t there to snarl at me. I want to inquire, but he charges by the hour and I rather get my money’s worth. Theo he asks me if I managed to rise to the occasion, valiantly meeting the challenges and transcending above them? No, I succumbed to the dread and angst. I start to tell him about the panic attacks, the flight, the sociopath and his book. He tells me he’s read the book and feels bad about my ordeal. I tell him I bought the book and used it to scare a passenger on the plane. I want to tell him the fading moment was oddly empowering, but before I’ve said a word a blissful voice issues from the kitchen, “Theo, I’m going for lunch with a friend. Don’t wait up for me.”
Time’s up, see you next week, says Theo.