1974: Bakersfield, Ca.
V.A. Outpatient Clinic
 
It’s not that I don’t care. I do.
 
I have been trying to untie this knot in my life for so long without any success that it just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort anymore.  Believe me. I have been trying ever since ‘Nam without much success, none really.
 
I thought surfing would solve it. But for whatever reason, I can't bring myself to go near the ocean.
 
I've got a couple of surfboards in my garage that are nothing more than dirt and dust magnets. The board wax softens and melts, then hardens again, building another layer of dirt.
 
I can’t bring myself to clean them.
 
And yet, I have to if I’m ever to surf again.
 
That’s why I’m here.
 
I didn’t expect to have to write anything down.  I don’t know. Maybe there’s some merit in it.
 
I doubt anybody will read it; this is the V.A., right?
 
I'll give it a try. But, if anything, it'll just be one other thing that doesn't deliver.
 
I know I can be a jerk at times, but this knot thing has me frozen in place.  I just can’t seem to stay ahead of all the relentless and unexpected twists of fate in my life.  The knot just keeps growing bigger and tighter.
 
It’s driving me nuts.
 
The result is another painful layer of hopeless confusion; I can't sleep.
 
I hate it.
 
I really don't give a rat's ass about a whole lot of things anymore, yet I am aware of the areas in my life that I need to stay on top of to avoid making a knotty mess of them.  I try, but the more I try to avoid them, the more the threat of entanglement looms before me.  If I try to battle-plan or strategize a different approach, I become burdened with dilemmas and seemingly desperate circumstances.
 
What should I do?
 
Just let it all go?
 
Let the board wax build another layer?
 
I'm starting to get pissed. I've got to do something, the Polar Ice Caps are melting, and the tide is rising.  It won't be long before this place is underwater. That's why I moved inland, but I think I'm gonna have to move even further away.
 
What a mess.
 
Should I let the board wax and knot load up and continue to become what they will; one big rigid, screaming ball of ever-expanding and tightening shit?
 
Maybe that’s it.
 
Maybe I should just give up but, how long would that last?  How long could I lie on my kitchen floor and stare at the clock on the wall? With each tick of the clock, another knot would grow upon another as they morphed into one big hellish knot of knots.  The metastasizing beast would continue to grow larger and larger, filling each room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
 
The knot would soon lift the roof off, and the neighbors would know I had left it unattended and given up. Quit.
 
They would see that I’d lost it.
 
At this point, I'm beginning not to care what anybody thinks.
 
Does it matter?
 
Why should it?
 
No one seems to know how these knots got started in my brain. No one seems to know what the knots are made of or how to begin unraveling the ties that got me all bound up.
 
Yes, I've seen a doctor at the Free Clinic, and I didn't have to fill out any forms either.  He said I have some kind of anxiety disorder and wanted to prescribe some sort of drug.  I don't need any more drugs from a doctor or anybody else.
 
He doesn't know shit. I told him no. I just want to surf again and live without all the bullshit.
 
Is this possible?
 
Is it possible to live free, or am I born into lifelong bondage, unable to escape the pressing reality that I have very little to say in the matter?
 
Can I then, ever, even give up?  Sometimes I want to, but then I don’t even know how to do that.
 
Give up on what?
 
Give up to the reality that there is no giving up, that there will be no relief or time out or Dáu Hàng? 
 
What cruel event seeded the thought that somehow there is a resting place as a reward for the surrender of my will? 
 
Ya, give it a rest, but I can’t.
 
I want some answers.
 
How had that thought grown into this tormenting delusion that follows me like a lost whining dog that there will be no rest and that I have no choice but to try and untie the un-tieable knot?
 
What’s the point?
 
Is there merit in attempting futility?
 
Will I be able to sleep again?
 
Will the effort to free myself be as close to a true and balanced understanding of why things are so screwed up? Or should I accept the inevitable and harsh reality that there is just no way out of the dilemma?
 
Rest?  Try having a good night’s sleep with that.
 
I guess then troubled sleep is better than no sleep; I’m not fully asleep, and I’m not fully awake. During the day, it’s the same, except I shuffle wherever I go.
 
I feel like a zombie.
 
Half the time, I don’t know where I am or how I got there or what I was supposed to do when I got there.
 
I do know this one thing; if I could find a hardware store that sold a woodman’s ax, I’d buy it and cut this damn knot in half.
 
Scary, I know.
 
It’s all board wax and bullshit and a knot that just keeps growing.
 
I am so tired.
 
I’m tired of worrying about it, and I’m tired of no resolution in sight; I wanna see some action before the tide rises and covers my head.
 
And don’t ask me to fill out any more forms either; I’m tired of that too.  I didn’t have to fill out all of these forms when they shipped my ass to ‘Nam.
 
Michael J. Sullivan Jesus Gordian Sanchez, a volunteer V.A. counselor and only son of a Korean War veteran, looked up from reading a Vietnam veteran's 'free-flow' life assessment. He observed the articulate and tormented patient staring out the office window with a blank look on his face. The other Vietnam veterans in the Thursday night support group called him 'Mike Boat Mike.'  Jesus thought it was an odd nickname but considered that the burn scars on Mike Boat Mike's face had something to do with it. Now that he was having a one-on-one session with Mike Sullivan, he was about to find out.

Jesus underlined ‘Board-wax and Bullshit’ then wrote ‘Tired’ next to Mike Sullivan’s name.
 
Jesus was a full-time Psych Tech for the county's Mental Health Department, working in the county hospital psych ward and county jail.  His supervisor turned a blind eye to his 'volunteer time' with the V.A. as long as his county caseload was kept up to date, which, not unsurprising to Jesus, included a fair number of Vietnam veterans. The VA reciprocated by providing Jesus business cards and a small office with a single window overlooking the parking lot. 
 
Jesus was not one to brag about himself and avoided hanging merits of achievement or a copy of his bachelor’s degree on the walls.  He understood that impressing troubled veterans with fancy calligraphy and Latin phrases was not going to help anyone.  His office was sparse; a couple of hardback chairs, a small credenza, and a grey metal government desk with drawers that, surprisingly, did not bind or squeak. The desktop was clean and uncluttered except for an appointment calendar, notepad, pen, and one 5X7 black and white photograph mounted in a simple wood frame. The picture was of his father, Jesus 'Sunny' Sanchez, and his mother, Gloria, with a baby cradled in her arms. Sunny stood tall in his 1949 Army dress uniform as Gloria looked up at him with love and adoration.  It was a perfect picture of tenderness, strength, and mutual admiration before Sunny shipped out to Korea.
 
Sunny hadn't been gone a year before coming home, minus his lower left leg. When he hobbled down the gangway from the troopship in San Francisco, he carried a fireworks show in his head and images of his severed leg lying atop frozen mud.
 
Gloria, who lived with her parents in a small, modest Fresno home didn't have enough money for the bus trip to meet her Sunny at the dock. Instead, she waited anxiously for him with her precious infant boy, Jesus, asleep on her lap.
 
Sunny had been surprised to see so few people waiting for the returning injured soldiers. And it didn't take long for him to see that Gloria was not there either. He looked around the dock for a cab or a bus, and when none were to be found, hobbled off the pier into the first bar he saw and started drinking like a camel.
 
Soon enough, though, Sunny found that the oasis in his mind grew smaller with each drink, leading him to drink more and more while chasing a mirage of normalcy.  Six years of drunken laments, protests, and accusations finally came to an end one rainy night, when, after smacking Gloria around for being stupid, uncaring, and a lousy cook, Sunny fired a single 30 caliber round from his M-1 carbine into his war-torn and alcohol-soaked brain. Jesus reached past Mike Boat Mike's life-assessment form and carefully adjusted the picture frame to face the window where the sun's shining light  revealed the life and hope in Sunny’s and Gloria’s 1949 eyes.
 
Mike Boat Mike sat perfectly still and stared out the window with one leg crossed over the knee of the other. To the untrained eye, it appeared he was in a trance or perhaps catatonic. However, Jesus saw a twitch; it was barely noticeable, but he saw it. The twitch could have been due to Mike Boat Mike having crossed his ankle over his knee, causing his foot to move ever-so-slightly in rhythm to the blood pumped from his heart.
 
Or it could be a nervous tick from an anxious but short-circuited brain; whatever the cause, Jesus saw it.
 
Jesus usually saw everything.
 
“Where are you?” Jesus asked.
 
The cheap, tired through-the-wall air conditioner barely cooled the room as Jesus placed Mike Boat Mike's life-assessment form down in front of him and waited patiently for an answer. Then, noticing the keloid scars on Mike Boat Mike's face and neck began to shine with sweat, Jesus waited just a bit longer.

“Outside.” Mike Boat Mike answered, still looking out the window.
 
“In the parking lot?” Jesus glanced out the window at the cars broiling in the August sun.
 
"No, outside." Mike Boat Mike turned, uncrossed his leg, and looked at Jesus. "Outside the line-up."
 
Jesus leaned forward and placed his folded hands on Mike Boat Mike's life-assessment form. "What is the 'line-up,' Mike?"
 
Mike Boat Mike also leaned forward and looked Jesus in the eye. "Waves, it's a line-up of waves."
 
“Are you swimming?”
 
“No.”
 
Jesus raised an eyebrow. “You’re not walking on water, are you?”
 
“No, I’m sitting on a surfboard.”
 
“Ah."Jesus smiled and sat back in his chair and tapped his fingertips together. "You’re a surfer trying to catch a wave.”
 
“No, I’m outside from where the waves form.”
 
“If you’re a surfer, why would you place yourself where you can’t catch any waves?”
 
"Sometimes….” Mike Boat Mike glanced back out the window. “A wave comes along with great velocity and volume of water that cause it to form further out from the predictable smaller waves.  It's larger and more powerful than the other waves and will break on everybody in the line-up, wipe them out and wash them to shore or suck them back out into a riptide. The challenge is to stay in the line-up but keep one eye on the horizon for anychange of the rolling and forming swells."
 
Jesus, somewhat amazed this articulate man was a surfer living more than two hundred miles from the ocean, asked, "So you want to catch that wave, that giant wave and ride it, surf it?  Whatever you call it?"
 
Mike Boat Mike looked back at Jesus. “No, I’ve done that… I barely made it. I did everything right.  I heard the weather report and knew a large undersea earthquake had occurred in the Western Pacific.”
 
“An earthquake in the ocean?” Jesus picked up the pen and began writing on the legal pad.
 
“Ya, huge, bigger than anything previously recorded. I knew larger swells were coming, so I placed myself a little further out than usual and waited.  Small swells grew larger and rolled up under me and lifted me higher, allowing me to see the horizon more clearly. Then I saw it, a thick swell moving fast, a giant!  I saw it before anyone else.  I barely had enough time to paddle out to it; it was jacking up so fast.”
 
Jesus nodded his head with understanding as he continued to write.
 
"I should have warned the other surfers, but I didn't. I wasn't thinking about them. I was paddling my arms off to avoid getting crushed.  That wave was on me before I knew it, and the next thing I know, I'm paddling straight up a wall of water twenty feet high. I thought about punching through the lip and try to come out the backside, but then, this thing happened."
 
“This thing?”
 
Mike Boat Mike tilted his head and looked up at the office corner where the walls met the ceiling. "I'm not sure what it was, but for a second or a century, I don't know, I felt a change in the wave and my inner being. I know it sounds weird, but it was as if the wave and I had become one dynamic thing."
 
Mike Boat Mike paused as he brought his gaze down from the ceiling. "As quickly as the sensation energized me, I turned my board around without thinking… about anything.  My mind was a complete blank when I paddled a few easy strokes before nailing a near-vertical drop.  I wanted to carve out a solid bottom turn, but both the wave and I were going as fast as a freight train on meth. It was impossible. It was also exhilarating beyond words, then suddenly, terrifying.  I couldn't make the bottom turn and ended up surfing over other surfers in the line-up who hadn't made it outside."
 
"They were surfers, right?" Jesus looked up from his writing. "They knew the danger out there, right? You shouldn't -"
 
"Two of them died." Mike Boat Mike interrupted.
 
Jesus put his pen down gently and studied Mike Boat Mike's scars and focused eyes staring out from an expressionless face.  He considered Mike Boat Mike's comments about the earthquake in the ocean and asked, "How did they die?"
 
“What’s it matter? They’re dead.”  Mike Boat Mike looked down at his scuffed and tattered jungle boots held together with mounds of faded duct tape.
 
“Mike….” Jesus chose his words carefully, “Was there an earthquake or an explosion that caused the massive wave?”
 
Mike suddenly jumped up from his chair, knocking it backward, and leaned forward with his knuckles on Jesus' desk and raised his voice, "Explosion, earthquake, how the hell do I know.  All I know is this massive wave shows up out of nowhere and tries to kill me.  Don't you get it, man?" Mike Boat Mike took a deep breath and briefly studied the photograph of Sonny, Gloria, and Jesus. Then, with blinding fury, backhanded the photograph off the desk against the wall.  "That wave was pure evil; I was minding my own business and doing my own thing when it tried to wipe me out for good, right off the planet.  It nearly killed me."
 
Jesus didn’t flinch.
 
Mike Boat Mike turned away from the desk, picked up the broken photograph, and walked slowly to the window. He gazed past his tired reflection and considered the drought-stricken shrubbery dying along the edges of the parking lot, and said, "Sometimes I wished it had."
 
Jesus leaned back in his chair and considered the many times as a child he heard his father's drunken lament about losing his leg.  And how his country had abandoned him and that no one would hire a cripple.  He also remembered how his mother's terrible screams ripped the night apart when she found Sunny face down on the front lawn next to his rifle and, how a week after the funeral, their house had become quiet.  Quiet beyond quiet.
 
It seemed to Jesus that when his father left this world, a large part of his mother's hope and joy went with him. And, for many, many years after, Jesus did not know what to do or say about his mother's silence; she had changed forever, just as he had.  In retrospect, he wished there would have been someone other than a good neighbor she could have talked to, that both could have spoken to, someone who understood loss and grief and helplessness. But such a person did not exist in 1956.

Jesus stood and stepped to Mike Boat Mike's side, crunching broken glass as he approached.  He placed his hand on Mike Boat Mikes' shoulder and spoke to his sad reflection in the window. "How can I help you?"
 
Mike Boat Mike looked down at the broken photograph in his hand, recognized Sonny’s uniform, and muttered, “7th Infantry… Korea.”
 
“Chosin Reservoir.” Jesus said. “He…we paid the price.”
 
“We?”
 
“Our family, and yours?”
 
“What about ‘em?”
 
“Your parents… they alive?”
 
“They’re fine; vegetating away in a Condo Village down in Corona Del Mar.”
 
“You visit them?”
 
“Not really.  I don’t like going down there; it’s too crowded.”
 
Jesus enforced the positive. “Corona Del Mar… what a beautiful place, right there on the shore of the big blue Pacific Ocean.”
 
“Crowded, I said it’s too crowded.  I don’t like it there.”
 
“What about the waves? You can surf there, right?” Jesus expressed hope.
 
Mike Boat Mike turned and thrust the broken photograph into Jesus’ hands and said, “Hell with the waves, man.  Aren’t you listening? It’s too crowded.”
 
Jesus looked down at the smiling images of his parents.
 
Mike Boat Mike saw what he thought was a balance of joy and pain on Jesus' face and said, "Sorry about breaking your picture."
 
“It was already broken,” Jesus said.
 
“I shouldn’t have done it.” Mike Boat Mike looked down at the floor.
 
Jesus looked up at Mike Boat Mike with understanding. "It's okay Mike, we all do things we shouldn't and don't do things we should. But, when it's all said and done, the results are reminders we should consider."
 
Mike Boat Mike avoided eye contact with Jesus and surveyed the room before settling his gaze upon Jesus. “Easy for you to say here in this little room, you’ve never served our country, have you?”
 
“No, not in uniform.”
 
“That’s rich, and you’re trying to help me?”
 
“I am trying.” Jesus walked past Mike Boat Mike and set the chair upright.
 
“You really don’t know what it’s like, do you?” Mike Boat Mike challenged Jesus.
 
“Combat? Only what others tell me.”
 
“Great, just great. I don’t think this is going to work out.”
 
“It could.”
 
“How… you don’t even know what a Basic Load is.”
 
“I…”
 
Mike Boat Mike interrupted Jesus and raised his voice with passion. "I'll tell you what a 'Basic Load' is; its ammo and time, time and ammo, you choose, doctor.  When the shit hits the fan, you're always going to need one or the other, and you're never going to have enough of either when you need them the most."
 
“I’m not a doctor. I’m a counselor.  What are your needs, Mike? What’s your basic load?”
 
“You tell me, you’re the shrink.”
 
“Counselor.” Jesus corrected.
 
“You are persistent, aren’t you, Counselor?"
 
“You can’t get from here to there without persistence.”
 
“Clever, Counselor. Have you ever seen what a bullet can do to a man’s persistence?”
 
“Yes, but more than that, I know time; how valuable it is.”
 
“Time won’t help a dead man.”
 
“But it can help a dead man walking.”
 
Mike Boat Mike leaned forward. “Listen, there is no such thing as extra time, more time, or enough time.  There’s no reason to hope for, wish for or beg for more time because all we get is what is here, right now.  And what do we get out of it? Nothing but mocking possibilities that will never, never in a million years provide a solution.”
 
“And yet you’re still here.  I’m still here.  The clock has ticked once more, and we’re both still here.  You deny solution.  I consider solution.  How can that be without the gift of time?”
 
“Ah, the Clever Considerate Counselor, how do you come up with all of this esoteric bullshit about time. What could you possibly know about time that you haven’t read in a book?”
 
“Loss mostly….” Jesus placed the photograph face up on his desk. “And time I can never get back and time never realized in the future with my father and my mother... together. My father chose to steal that time from us in a fit of despair and self-indulgence.”
 
Mike Boat Mike tried to insult Jesus. “What, he was a drunk and abandoned your sweet little family?”
 
Jesus took note of the slight but ignored it as he began to pick up shards of glass. “No… and yes; he wasn’t a drunk in the classic sense, but he was an alcoholic nonetheless.”
 
Mike Boat Mike tried to minimize Jesus’ loss and said, “And he hurt your little feelings and crushed your mother’s heart, and now you’re trying to show him you can save the world one vet at a time.”
 
"Not really. There's nothing I could've done or should've done; I was a child.  He made his own choice.  And, just like the opportunity before you, you have to make a choice. I've already made mine."
 
“So what? You made peace with your daddy leaving you behind. Lots of guys run off and shack up with some sleaze.”
 
“Na… he blew his brains out in the front yard.  It was messy spaghetti.”
 
“Messy spaghetti?”  Mike Boat Mike raised his eyebrows.
 
“It’s what my mother cooked for dinner that night.  It took me a long time to resolve his empty kitchen chair and an uneaten plate of spaghetti with his body lying face down on the front lawn. The back of his head was gone. It looked like a plate of spaghetti had been dumped into the empty hole.” Jesus looked at Mike Boat Mike with the image clear in his mind.
 
“You never forget it.”  Mike Boat Mike said as he recalled Robin lying in the mud with the top of his head gone.  It was messy spaghetti.

“Yep, never do.  I was six years old, and you were what, nineteen, twenty when you found yourself in Vietnam?” Jesus found footing on common ground.
 
“What war are we talking about, counselor, yours or mine?”  Mike Boat Mike sensed the room becoming smaller.
 
Jesus spoke carefully. "You tell me, Mike.  Is the battlefield an individual place where one must stand alone, or can we stand together as Brothers in Arms seeking understanding and peace?”
 
"What a bunch of crap.  You just can't erase what happened with feel-good words."
 
“And you can’t undo the damage by reliving it over and over in your head then deny that more damage will not occur.” Jesus was not about to give up any turf.
 
Mike Boat Mike gave his last reasoning for refusing to admit he was wounded. “Look, I didn’t ask to be drafted.  I didn’t volunteer to go to Vietnam.  I just wanted to be left alone and to surf.”
 
Jesus spoke with controlled authority. "And you didn't ask to be born.  Life is hard, cruel, and can be vicious.  It will eat you alive if you let it.  You can wallow in self-pity until the day you die and miss so many golden opportunities to enrich your life."
 
Smug but uneasy Mike Boat Mike asked, “That’s it? Just more of your feel-good words?"
 
“Mike, listen to me.  Is it more honorable to live a hopeful life or to die alone with a bitter heart?"
 
“Either or…?”  Mike Boat Mike turned to the door.
 
“Live or die.”
 
“It’s not that simple.”
 
“The understanding is but the application, I’ll admit, is not. Do you think about dying?”
 
 “No.”
 
“You don’t?”
 
“No, I just said I didn’t.”
 
"You said earlier that you sometimes wished you had died… from the giant wave… the explosion…."
 
"Sometimes I do."
 
“How often do you think about living?”
 
 “What good would it do? It’s going to happen with all its shit whether we like it or not.”
 
"Don't you think it's good to be prepared to live the life you choose?"
 
“By thinking about dying?”
 
“I’m just saying that there are no options in death; it’s final, period.  But, if you give death the dark consideration it deserves, you’ll see that the options of life are not so overwhelming after all.”
 
“Living?”
 
“Yes, what do you want most out of life, Mike?  I know there is a spark in you that can grow brighter if only you let it."
 
“You don’t understand.”
 
"Mike, I do understand; the only thing stopping that light from shining is you. It's not some confused memory of a giant rogue wave that is threatening you. YOU are that giant wave, and you are fearful of finding out who you are and what you are capable of."
 
Mike Boat Mike clenched his fists, and his face began to quiver with emotion.
 
Like a skilled surgeon holding a scalpel considering the incision to be made, Jesus raised his voice carefully, "Go ahead, say what it is that you want to say but don't believe."
 
Mike Boat Mike licked his lips and cocked his head, warning Jesus not to push the matter.
 
"We both know you think it and that you can say it and have said it, but don't believe it."
 
Mike Boat Mike forced measured words through clenched teeth. “There was an earthquake...”
 
“No!  Quit dodging the issue. There was no undersea earthquake in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Mike.  You were in Vietnam.”
 
“You’re going too far, Mr. Counselor.”
 
"And you haven't gone far enough. Something happened in Vietnam, say it, Mr. Mike Boat!"
 
“This is too much.”
 
"You are wasting my time.  Other veterans are waiting outside this room, so get with the program or get out." Jesus pointed at the door.
 
"Okay, okay, something did happen, but I can handle it, okay?"
 
“Really, you believe that?”
 
“Ya, and I can handle you too.”
 
"I don't think so, and I don't think you truly believe that."
 
“I said it didn’t I?”
 
Jesus cut deeper, "Loud and clear, but you didn't say what that something was that happened.  What was it, Mike?  How did those two surfers die?  Did you kill them while freefalling down the face of a giant wave?"
 
Mike Boat Mike bowed up, ready to unleash hell upon Jesus, when a groundswell of vertigo hit him and buckled his knees, causing his head to spin.  Suddenly he heard and felt a distinct crack within his skull as the repressed image of his discarded cigarette drifted away in the prop wash behind his 'Mike Boat.' Then, the loud SWOOSH of an RPG ripped through his subconsciousness, opening his inner eye to full exposure with lightning speed and clarity.  And, just as he did six years earlier, he closed his eyes as the rocket penetrated the starboard side of the LCM and exploded in the wing tank.
 
Jesus stood silent.
 
Mike Boat Mike opened his eyes slowly. “They weren’t surfers. They were soldiers.”
 
Jesus kept the pressure on cautiously. “Now say what you don’t ever want to say.”
 
“I didn’t come here to play silly games with a wanna-be shrink. Back off.”  Mike Boat Mike’s face swelled with growing emotion that hinted rage was about to boil over.
 
Jesus saw Mike Boat Mike's bluster as a well-used wall of denial. “Is that right, well then, let’s get real.  You’re the one that has to say it, but you don’t want to because you know it’s true.”
 
Mike Boat Mike clenched his jaw tight.
 
Jesus cut deep to the bone. "Mike, listen to me; right now is right now. It's not going to get any easier so, say it or leave."
 
Mike Boat Mike crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t kill them...”
 
Jesus watched Mike Boat Mike patiently while the government wall clock ticked softly in the background. Then, finally, Mike Boat Mike took a deep breath, lowered his head, uncrossed his arms, and let his arms slide down to his side.
 
Relaxed, Mike Boat Mike spoke softly to the front of Jesus’ desk, “… and I think I need help.”
 
“Think?”
 
“I’m lost, confused. Nothing makes any sense to me.” Mike Boat Mike looked at Jesus.
 
“And?”
 
"And I can't handle it.  I can barely walk to the mailbox without freaking out."
 
Jesus was relieved Mike Boat Mike had finally let his guard down and open the door of resistance even if it was just a crack.
 
"Good, this is a good start, Mike. You can do this.  Now again, what is it you want out of life? What is it that you want more than anything else?"
 
Mike Boat Mike tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath through his nose, and tried to remember the smell of sea air and the sound of waves rolling onto the beach.  He tried to remember seagulls flying and soaring through the vast blue sky as he stepped into the ocean with his surfboard.  He tried to remember how bracing and revitalizing the cold ocean felt when he plopped down on his board and began to paddle out.
 
But he couldn’t.
 
Instead, he saw himself standing barefoot in the sand at the water's edge beneath the Corona Del Mar pier. He wore tattered surf trunks and his Army Class 'A' dress coat with the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star adorned over his heart.  He held his dinged and battered Dewey Webber surfboard tucked beneath his arm close to his side. Before him, massive, creosoted wood pilings encrusted with barnacles and mussels stood as sentinels of support, enduring the constant battering of wave after wave. His gaze panned overhead to the underbelly of the pier, where dozens of pigeons rested on wood cross-members and preened themselves.
 
The pigeons seemed oblivious to a grey pelican struggling in the water as it attempted to free itself from a discarded fisherman's line wrapped and knotted around its foot.  The fishing line, entangled in barnacles and mussels at the high-water mark, was just long enough for the pelican to fly out from beneath the pier into the light of the sun.  It didn't fly far before it was jerked down into the white water of broken waves rolling toward the beach.  Rolled over and over by relentless waves, the pelican beat its wings frantically to lift its heavy water-soaked body into the air.
 
The pelican's effort seemed futile.
 
Mike Boat Mike watched from his mind's eye as the pelican struggled against the knotted line and rise out of the water haphazardly.  Struggling to fly back beneath the pier, it tried to land on one of the cross-members and join the pigeons. But, its wings were too large and its bill too heavy, causing it to fall back into the rolling waves.
 
As curious pigeons tilted their heads to observe the mottled mess floating beneath them, Mike Boat Mike wondered if the pigeons cared that the pelican would soon drown.  He considered wading into the surf to save the bird.
 
But he didn't, couldn't. There was that knot.
 
It seemed virtually impossible for him to make a choice.
 
He just stood there.
 
Why was the fisherman so careless?
 
Instead, as the air conditioner in Jesus’ office gurgled, hissed, and fell silent, Mike Boat Mike opened his eyes, turned and faced Jesus, and said, "What I want…." His face relaxed, and his eyes moistened as he exhaled a tired shallow breath. "What I want... is to want to surf again.”
 
“Mike, sometimes wanting to want isn’t enough; it’s an excuse. You have to step up and claim it.”
 
“It isn’t that easy.”
 
“Didn’t say it was. What I’m saying is that the knot is not un-tieable; it just appears that way.  You have to reach for whatever thread you can find and begin to pull on it, hang onto it, and never let go.”
 
“Did you even read what I wrote, heard what I said?  It’s a mess, my life is a mess, and it keeps growing.  How do you expect me to…?”
 
“Step up?  Because you’re here, and you’re angry and frustrated and, most of all, weary.”
 
Mike Boat Mike sighed with agreement.
 
“When you perceive you are that beleaguered and that the whole world is closing in with a crushing weight, you might consider that the door to relief and wellness of being is unlocked from inside.”
 
“Wellness of being?”
 
“Yes, BEING… being YOU… being able to relax and to accept things as they are and to allow others into your life; you are on a path, and you don’t have to walk it alone.”
 
“But that giant wave… the explosion.”
 
“It’s you, Mike, all of that is you…. Think back to the very first time you experienced a wave, the very first time.  Grab that thought, that small thread, and begin from there.”
 
Jesus' office had gradually become warm and humid, giving rise to Mike Boat Mike's repressed memory of trying to survive on a muddy riverbank.  Anxious and desperate, he tried to leave the memory behind and, without saying goodbye to Jesus, quickly turned and walked to the door as if he could just walk away from the effects of combat. But, instead of bolting through the door he stopped and placed his hand on the doorknob. He wasn't sure what he was doing or why.  Did he want to leave or let  fresh air in? In his hesitation, he turned to see Jesus picking up broken pieces of picture frame glass off the floor.  Jesus filled his hands with shards of broken glass and stepped carefully over a growing pool of rusty fluid weeping out from beneath the silent air conditioner.
 
“Mike, please keep the door open,” Jesus said as he approached the trash can.
 
“Right.” Mike Boat Mike turned the knob and swung the door wide just as Jesus dropped the shards of glass into the metal trash can next to his desk.
 
The sharp discordant sound of the glass falling into the trash can disturbed Mike Boat Mike. He regretted his earlier taunting words and wondered if he'd gone too far with his arrogance for Jesus to continue to help him.
 
Jesus checked his hands for glass and found a small piece stuck in the meaty part of his palm.
 
Concerned and feeling responsible, Mike Boat Mike watched Jesus dig at the tiny sliver of glass with his thumb and forefinger.
 
Jesus pulled the sliver of glass from his hand, held it up to the overhead fluorescent light, and examined it.  "It's amazing how such a small, beautiful sliver of glass left unattended can cause growing discomfort and possible infection."
 
Mike let go of the doorknob. "What, you okay?"
 
“Sure.” Jesus flicked the piece of glass into the trash can, turned, and looked directly into Mike’s eyes. “And it’s only dirt.”
 
“I thought glass was made from sand.”
 
"Sand… dirt… mud, same thing, in the end, it's all dust."
 
Mike Boat Mike met Jesus’ stare and felt a trickle of sweat roll down from the nape of this neck as the memory of being face down in the mud drifted away.
 
Jesus stepped closer to Mike and made a fist, and thumped it to his own heart. "What I mean is…try to keep the door open."
 
Jesus smiled, unclenched his fist, and reached out to Mike Boat Mike with an open hand. “Thanks for coming in, Mike.  I hope to see you again.”
 
Relieved, Mike Boat Mike wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and shook Jesus’s hand. “No, thanks back at you, Doc.., Counselor.” Mike looked past Jesus at the broken photograph on his desk. “I hope… I hope your mother’s doing well.”
 
“She is. She met a good man. They moved to Phoenix and opened a traditional Mexican restaurant.”
 
“She must be a good cook.”
 
“Learned it from her mother.”
 
Mike Boat Mike nodded approval.
 
"She's okay, Mike, but she's never cooked spaghetti again."
 
Mike Boat Mike stood still, silent.  He felt strangely balanced.
 
“It’s alright, Mike. I’ll see you next time.”
 
Mike Boat Mike looked forward to the time he and Jesus would meet again and, at the same time, felt a lightness of being, that a load had been lifted and a clear path had been revealed.  He turned and walked through the open door and followed the red painted line back to the main lobby. He paused and considered the veterans sitting in hardback chairs waiting for their names to be called.  They all looked familiar as if, even though time had weathered their skins like aged oak trees, he knew each one as a Brother in Arms, and yet they seemed so distant.  He wondered where they were and where he was. So many had been wounded. So many were half dead, and too many were already dead.
 
“May I help you?” a gentle voice asked.
   
Mike Boat Mike turned to a young intern wearing a name tag: Nancy, V.A. Volunteer.  She looked as if she could have been a granddaughter to anyone of the waiting veterans.
 
“You have to sign in, sir, and I’m afraid it’s going to be a long wait.  As you can see, there are many men in front of you, and we only have one Counselor available today."
 
“One counselor. Mike Boat Mike, thought to himself. One stinkin’ counselor for all of these men; Jesus Gordian Sanchez.”
 
“Sir?”
 
Mike Boat Mike gazed upon Nancy’s friendly but concerned face and considered Jesus’ prodding to think back to what drew him to waves.  “Thank you. I’ll be going. I just came from Counselor Sanchez’s office.”
 
“I hope it went well. Mr. Sanchez is an excellent counselor.”
 
“It did. He was very helpful.”
 
“Do you need to make another appointment?”
 
“No, not at the moment. I’m going to let his advice soak in for awhile.”
 
"Well, thank you for your service. Please feel free to consider any of the V.A.'s Education and Vocation programs," Nancy said while pointing to the welcome counter. "The brochures are right over there."
 
Mike Boat Mike raised his eyebrows. “Thanks.”
 
Nancy smiled. "Have a good day, sir. But unfortunately, I have to go now."
 
Mike Boat Mike smiled back and watched her approach a veteran struggling with a walker trying to open the door to the restroom.
 
Turning toward the exit door, Mike Boat Mike thought about the first time he saw ocean waves as a young boy.  They weren't large, maybe two to three feet high, and yet their glassy tubular form enticed him to step from the beach until he was chest high in cold frothy white water.  He struggled with a slight undertow and was surprised when a small wave knocked him off his feet. However, he surfaced unharmed and spat saltwater at the receding wave with a sparkle in his eyes.  He held that memory for a moment as he approached the exit door. It opened automatically, revealing the brightness of the day, and stunning him with a blast of 106 degrees of Bakersfield heat.
 
Momentarily caught off guard by the oppressive weather, Mike Boat Mike's inner vision of small waves evaporated into thin air.
 
He stood alone in the doorway.
 
He hesitated as he gazed across the shimmering parking lot.
 
“Live or die.”
 
Simple.
 
He located his beat-up V.W. van then took a firm step onto the broiling walkway.  Ignoring the heat and encouraged by the reborn thought of his first wave, Mike Boat Mike admitted he was tired of living off cheeseburgers, beer, and bad dreams of ‘Nam.
 
As he approached his van, he looked beyond it, 160 miles southwest, to Corona Del Mar, and wondered if oceanography classes were available in that area for veterans.  He also wondered what his parents might be doing; maybe they would take a walk with him on the pier. He would tell them about Counselor Sanchez's challenge to accept himself and his past and, to step forward into the future with a firm grasp on the slightest thread of hope.
 
Mike Boat Mike knew as he inserted the well-worn van key into the rusty door lock that, with humility and determination, nothing could keep him from reaching up through the beautiful blue sky and grabbing a handful of waves.