Lost in Life

Lost in Life
by J.A. Messi

Several weeks earlier, nobody could have foreseen what was now being described by James’ colleagues as his complete breakdown. At twenty-eight, James was on the fast track to becoming one of the most prominent lawyers in New York. Arriving just three years earlier straight out of law school with no professional contacts, James had quickly topped everyone’s A-list. His presence was requested at every major social gathering organized in the tri-state area and he had been personally invited on several occasions to dine at Gracie Mansion by the mayor himself. Life was going according to James’ master plan.

But now, just two weeks after closing on a stunning penthouse apartment overlooking the East River, James had disappeared without so much as leaving a note. He had called his secretary and left her a voicemail stating that he would not be coming to work anymore. But, he had not notified his bosses, nor had he mentioned anything about it to his friends.

Now after thirty-six hours of driving, James brought the dilapidated 1984 Buick LeSabre that he had purchased yesterday in Chinatown to a stop outside of a small shack a few miles south of Key Largo in Tavernier, Florida. Having only taken but a brief nap earlier that morning after being awakened by the screeching sound of the car scraping against the divider on the parkway, James was utterly exhausted. He forced the badly damaged door of the LeSabre open and staggered to his feet. The sun beat down on the back of his neck with an intensity that he had not felt since he was still in college some ten years earlier. James closed his eyes and took a deep breath that seemed to rejuvenate a spirit that had long since been crushed. The smell of the sea and of freedom overtook him.

With the look of a man who was now completely at ease, James slowly made his way up onto the front porch of the shack. The wooden boards creaked as he battled his way through the cobwebs toward the area where one would expect a front door to be located. The small screen door that swayed in the entrance way no longer functioned as a barrier to entering this shack. The holes in the screen were large enough to allow giant dragonflies to pass freely in to and out of the house and the frame of the door was bent out of shape and rested a good six inches off of the ground. But, James was certain that nothing other than the oodles of rodents, reptiles and insects that now took residence here had entered this shack in several years.

The shack consisted of only four small rooms. There was a tiny kitchen that was barely large enough for two people to fit into comfortably, a modest bedroom, a small living room and a bathroom that needed some major renovations before it could be functional. James made his way through the tiny shack stopping several times to look at the furniture that had been left behind by the thieves who had clearly ransacked the place years earlier. The smell of mildew emanated throughout the shack.

For only a brief moment, James began to wonder what he had done. But before he could even complete his thought, the window in the back of the living room caught his eye. He cleared away the spider web that engulfed the shattered window frame and was immediately struck in the face by the blinding rays of the setting sun. Unable to move, or to divert his glare from the scene that he found his gaze fixed upon, James watched the sun set over the Florida Bay for the next forty-five minutes, until the last ray of reddish-orange light was no longer visible.

Tears flowed freely down his face. Partly from the pain caused by staring directly at the sun for such a long period of time and partly because of the overwhelming feeling of pure joy that he now experienced for the first time in years. The sun setting over the sea had looked as picturesque as any postcard he had ever seen. He had seen the silhouettes of sailboats as they sailed into and away from the setting sun. And for the first time in his life, there had not been a single sound that had forced him to divert his gaze. No nagging voices, no beeping of horns and no cell phones. The only sound he could hear was that of the water gently flowing into the badly worn out dock that sat in the back of the shack.

Just forty-eight hours earlier, he had stood in the window of his new penthouse apartment staring out at the East River admiring the beauty of the city and thinking about the world he was set to conquer. His view of the Brooklyn Bridge was breathtaking and for a minute he lost himself in thought. His brief moment of tranquility had been the first he had allowed himself to experience, since arriving in New York three years earlier. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in that feeling, but had abruptly been interrupted by a phone call from his office requesting his presence at work immediately.

Later that night, James returned to his apartment and again looked out at the skyline of the city. Only this time it was not in admiration of the city’s beauty. Instead, it was an overwhelming disgust with everything that he saw in his window. The endless stream of yellow taxicabs. The bright lights. The black suits and the evening gowns. The subway stops. The colossal buildings. The people. Himself.

Nothing at work earlier that night had been any different than the day before it, or the day before that. He had walked into a meeting with his boss, a man whom he considered to be his mentor, and had drafted the appropriate documents as requested by his clients. He had left the office with a smile on his face, said goodnight to the few colleagues who were still in the building and departed for home as he had done countless times before. It was not until he stood in his black pinstriped suit, staring out the window at the ominous city that an overwhelmingly destructive sensation struck him in the face with an unspeakable force.

He had never experienced hatred of this magnitude at any time in his entire life. And the hatred was directed inward. He hated everything about himself. His wardrobe. His profession. His business acquaintances that he tried to pass off as friends. With the purchase of this beautiful apartment, he had achieved every objective goal that he had ever set for himself. He finally realized what he had sacrificed to get there. He had sacrificed himself. He had associated only with those people who were in the right social circle and had neglected to make real friends. And worse, he had neglected to find anyone to share his success with.

He quickly started scrambling through some old boxes that he had failed to unpack in search of anything that could remind him of who he truly was. He emptied the contents of box after box after box only to find that there was nothing left of himself here. Taking off his suit jacket and tie, every muscle in his body suddenly tensed up and he collapsed onto the floor unable to move. In the background he could hear the sound of his cell phone ringing and of paper being shot out of his fax machine. He was powerless to move.

To James’ surprise, the paralysis was a welcome change. He could now justify not answering the phone or checking his email. He took a deep breath and lost himself in his thoughts. No longer could he even hear the ringing of the phone.

Sometime during the night his muscles began to relax and his thoughts became clearer and clearer. His thoughts drifted from one event to another as he analyzed each part of his life from early childhood through the present. Suddenly his thoughts turned to a seemingly insignificant event that must have occurred when he was no older than sixteen. His great aunt had passed away and he remembered sitting at her funeral. Several people briefly eulogized the woman whom he had never met, but surprisingly nobody was able to speak in depth about this woman. She had apparently abandoned her family some ten years prior to her death and moved somewhere in Florida. James remembered that soon after the funeral, his mother had told him that he had inherited the land that his great aunt had lived on.

James had never visited this land, nor had he actually paid much thought to it. His grandfather had paid the property taxes on the almost worthless land until he passed away four years ago, and for some unknown reason James had paid the taxes on the land since his grandfather’s passing. He had never given it much thought. It was less than $100 each year and James had felt that there could be no good reason to give up the property when it cost so little to keep it.

Motivated by the thought of this land, James exploded onto his feet and raced toward his desk. He found the key to a safety deposit box located just five blocks from his apartment. He threw on his slippers and took off for the door for the first time in years without stopping to comb his hair or to change his clothes. His heart was racing as he exited the elevator and walked toward the front door. Herb, the doorman, greeted James with a smile and politely asked James why he was up so early. It then struck James that it would still be four hours before the bank opened and he would be able to retrieve the deed to the land.

James returned to his apartment and found a pair of jeans and a Hawaiian shirt that he had long since forgotten that he owned. He hung up his suit, shut off his computer and washed the dishes that had been soaking in the sink for the past two days. He placed his cell phone on the charger. He stood in the doorway and looked back at what had just hours earlier been his dream apartment as the sunlight gradually began to illuminate the sky over the East River. He managed a brief grin and left for the last time.

Now, a little over fifty-five hours later, the tears were flowing freely down his face as he looked back over the most beautiful place he had ever seen in his entire life. This run down, abandoned, insect infected shack was more beautiful to him than any million dollar apartment in New York.

It needed a lot of work. Most of which James had no idea how to complete. But he was going to learn if it killed him. He knew that he could never return to New York without dredging up the horrible feelings he had experienced while standing in the window of his new apartment, nor could he bring himself to profit from the work he had done while there. He wanted nothing to do with the place. He knew that some day he would have to contact someone back in New York and that he would eventually run out of money. But for the time being, the apartment in New York would remain vacant and his portfolio would remain untouched. He would make use of the money he had in a small savings account given to him by his grandmother while he was still in college to start his new life. And when that ran out, who knows.

All that James knew was that for the first time in his life he was happy and ready to live his life.