Sleepless

I broke a guy's neck once.

More than anything I ever did while I was working there, or even since, that one moment has resulted in more sleepless nights and second thoughts.

I hadn't planned it.  It was not part of the assignment, but I had to do it.  The guy was in my way and there was not enough time to work my around him.

Like everyone of the plays we made, the schedule was impossibly tight and the difference it would have made was big enough, so through the guy I had to go.

It wasn't even close.  I must have had a hundred pounds and a good six inches in height on him.

No sooner had he recognized that he didn't recognize me then he was in a submission hold and starting to black out.

If he went to sleep like a good little soldier I could get to the rendezvous right on schedule.

And then the elevator door behind me opened.

I turned quickly to assess the situation and I brought the top of the guy's spine with me.

I remember reading somewhere that the old radio shows used to use celery and iceberg lettuce to create the sounds of body parts breaking.

It's pretty close.

It's not the same, but it's pretty close.

That was it:  in the blink of an eye, from the sound of a vegetable to actually being one.  It was that quick.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about him.

He was just doing his job.  We were both just doing our jobs and it worked out that I walked away and he...couldn't.

Every day is a reminder that I changed his life.  Is that what he signed up for?  Is that what I signed up for?

I talked to a bunch of the old-timers, the ones lucky enough to make it to the sheet cake round, and they all said the same thing:  it's the questions that you ask yourself that take you out of the game.

When you start reliving the moments that could have gone either way, but didn't, the ones that everyone else put down to luck, but you know different; when you find yourself trapped in that echo chamber of second guessing, that's when you are better off putting in your papers, or stepping in front of a train because your life in the field has become a ticking clock.

Different times through the years I tried to find out what happened to that guy.  Asking for trouble, I know, but it was either that or give up sleeping entirely.

I did manage to find the guy's daughter and I made sure she got her college.  I don't sleep any better, but at least I did something.

Didn't I?