Crimson & Clover

Meet Adam

Prologue

Driving up a mountain during a snowstorm is never easy. On this winter evening it was especially treacherous. The snow was thick, so thick that the wiper blades barely moved. Only a small spot on the bottom of the windshield was clear.

I can do this, I repeated to myself over and over again as the semi-truck approached from the opposite direction. I can finally see the end. I can do this.

I steered the car into oncoming traffic as the semi-truck got closer. I had practiced this in my mind so many times before. Swerve past the truck & smash through the guard-rail. The drop is steep. Just a little to the left and it's all over.  I can do this.

What my mind desperately wanted to do, my body wouldn't allow. At the last second I turned back into my lane. I couldn't breathe, sweat poured down my face as my hands shook uncontrollably. I pulled over to the side of the road, laid my head on the steering wheel and cried.

I am such a coward.

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Why me? That is my question to whoever is up there pulling the strings...why me?

I am 29, married to a woman who is beautiful, both inside and out. I have a wonderful daughter who is turning four next month.  And that's where my good fortune comes to an end.  Then again, I often wonder if this is good fortune at all or if having a family is simply another form of punishment meant to torment me even further.

With a family comes the responsibility of earning a living. If I was alone I could handle the misfortunes thrust upon me from above. With a family however, the pain of failure after failure is more than I can bear. Believe it or not none of these failures were ever my fault. They were forced upon me by circumstances always out of my control. That's what makes it most painful of all, knowing that any venture I undertake is doomed to fail before it even begins.

At least I no longer have to worry about impressing women. I am not bad looking but I am definitely no movie star. Did I forget to mention that I was born with a complete lack of charisma? This would be an ongoing issue in my life. My first kiss came when I was  7, my second at 15 and my third at 24. Actually around 24 I started kissing a few women. I was even given a nickname; the marrying man, because, and this is the absolute truth, the last 5 girls I kissed all married the next guy they met as if kissing me said to them "to hell with this, it's definitely time to settle down." That should tell you all you need to know about my prowess with the ladies. Thank God that chapter of my life has come to an end. Earning a living, on the other hand, was even worse.

Here's an example of what I mean. A few years back, in 1993, I worked as a real estate agent specializing in commercial and industrial properties. I had spent an entire summer working on this huge deal, a large eyewear company wanted to relocate to a more modern facility. I found a perfect location that fit all of their criteria. A week before they were supposed to sign and earn me an $80 000 commission, the stock market crashed and the company decided to wait on the move in case the crash was a sign of an upcoming recession. (It wasn't, yet they still decided not to relocate). 

Similar events took place two more times during my one year in real estate. My grand total earnings for the year were $3000 of which I owed all of it to the broker for office expenses.

I decided to go back to school and change careers. My wife was amazingly supportive. Two years later my city experienced a huge boom in commercial and industrial real estate. I missed it.

At the time the only money I was making was in the stock market. I had knack for analyzing stocks. I was doubling my money regularly. Unfortunately I couldn't reinvest any of it because I needed the money for life's expenses.

One day a relative told me that the tech startup he worked for was about to go public. I bought in during the initial public offering. The stock tripled in price overnight. This time I decided to hang on to it. A month later the CEO was arrested for fraud. The stock was worthless overnight.

Nothing I do works out for me. I fail at every attempt to push away this enormous boulder of misfortune that blocks my path to success and happiness. It seems that no matter how hard I try something is always pushing back even harder.

I ask yet again, why me?

I suppose I could always find a regular 9 to 5 job but that would be admitting failure. I'd be finally stating once and for all that I was simply ordinary. The problem is that deep down in the pit of my soul I always believed that I was destined for something better; extraordinary. Why else would I have been born? Was I meant to simply to struggle through life with absolutely nothing to show for it? There must be more. So there you have it, my life in a couple of paragraphs.

So now, as I sit on the side of the road contemplating my pitiful existence I have to admit my last failure. I can't even take my life in order to make things right. I have a million dollar life insurance policy that would more than take care of my family. I always told myself that when life got to the point where my family suffered because of my curse then I would do the only noble thing left and end it all.

I had planned it in my head hundreds of times; drive on a two lane highway on a snowy night up in the mountains and when a trailer truck comes speeding towards me I would cut in front of him but at the last second turn away and fall off the side of the road down some steep cliff.

It would never look like a suicide, I thought to myself. I didn't want my wife and daughter to live with that kind of guilt, although as far as the money was concerned it wouldn't even matter if it was a suicide.

The idea first entered my head when I took out a life insurance policy for the very first time and the agent paraphrased the suicide clause.

"Don't kill yourself during the first two years of the policy or the insurance company will pay nothing," he told me.

Insurance companies will pay even if you kill yourself? I thought to myself, surprised by the absurdity of it all.  "And after that," I asked?

"Be my guest."

So here I am, planned death and all, and even at this I have failed. What am I supposed to do now? Why the hell me?!!!

It's strange, but it's times like these when I am at my lowest that images and memories would enter my head; memories that I knew were not my own. Memories from a very long time ago that I recall only vaguely, like a dream that slowly fades as you awaken in the morning. They were clearer in my mind many years ago, before I got married, yet even then it was as if I was the one suffering their karmic debt. That's how deeply they were imbedded in me.  I've always felt that those memories were the key to my misfortunes but even if I figured them out and discovered their inner purpose, what then? What would that possibly change for me?

Write your troubles down on paper.  It will help you sort out your thoughts and make sense of the incomprehensible, my step-father would always tell me.  I guess that's why the last thing I grabbed before I took my car keys was this note book.