And there he was, standing in front of the Man, facing his life, facing his fate. It wasn’t like they usually said it is: the light, the smoke, the tunnel, the virgins, the nice shiny day in the beautiful park with some relaxing music by the greatest composers playing in the background. Everything seemed too casual for the afterlife or whatever that place is called in between where you yet to be decided by God to put your sorry ass into for eternity. It did seem a very bizarre experience when Bob was standing there facing the Man.
“What’s your name?” the Man asked.
“Bob. My name is Bob Cooper, Sir.”
Bob answered with a questioning look on his face. Bob was 53 years old, alcoholic, and a selfish asshole. He had a family, a wife and two kids, daughters. Bob liked to watch sports on TV, drinking beer, vodka, whiskey, and pretty much anything that would give him a buzz. He worked for the union, a construction company, all his life, and he drank and smoked for about as long as he could remember himself. Bob grew up in a typical middle-class family in rural Pennsylvania, to the parents of a school teacher and an engineer. Bob left his home at 19 and started to live his own life because he wanted to make his own money and be his own boss in life. Bob was an asshole all his life. Even he was surprised how in the world he managed to get married and have children and remain in a marriage as long as he had. Bob never paid too much respect or spent too much time with his family. He was providing, and he was drinking all the fucking time. Nothing else mattered besides the booze, his friends, sports, and his union job.
Bob’s drinking affected his looks and health, but he didn’t care too much about it. He looked much older when he actually was. He had a heavily featured swollen face; his skin was wrinkled and old. He chain-smoked and drank something all the time. Even on his job, he was trying to slip some whiskey into his coffee. Drinking was affecting his mood and his behavior severely. He was rude and disrespectful to other people, and he was rude and disrespectful to his wife and kids.
Bob had two kids, two gorgeous girls who were always ashamed of their father. If Bob was sober more often, he would be ashamed of himself also. When drunk, Bob was becoming a religious fanatic and was praying aloud all the time. He would go around and preach to everyone. He would be talking about God and how he was a special person to be here on Earth, suffering for everybody’s sins. When he sobered up, he was not talking about God so much; however, he felt like he had to become a priest instead of becoming a nobody somewhere deep in his mind.
“Yes, welcome, Bob. Think I should know who you are? In fact, I do know who you are, and I do know more about you than you think I do. So, what brings you here to me today? Oh, wait for a second. I do know this as well.”
“Sir, I am so sorry. I think I’m dead. I’ve died tonight, didn’t I? The last thing I can remember was drinking to access and then darkness… Nothing else. And here I am.”
Bob looked around. He was trying to figure out where exactly he was. Why he’s awake and not hungover. Who is this Man, and why is he asking all these questions? Is this God?! He must be. Why does this place look so ordinary? What’s going to happen to him next, and thoughts like that were racing in Bob’s mind.
Bob was facing the Man in the nice suit with a necktie, well-groomed, the mustache, the beard, the hair, the whole thing. The Man seemed to be very well mannered and calm, and his voice was the most soothing voice he ever heard. The room they were in was very simple. It looked more like a dining room or something like that. It also looked awfully familiar. Bob was trying to remember if he has been in this room before. His brains were all soaked in alcohol, which affected his memory, and everything was a painful haze for him.
There was a dining table, and the Man sitting in the middle of it, two empty plates on the table, two empty wine glasses, the walls were covered in some retro-style paper with some bright-colored flowers. There was an old-school phone on the cabinet, a closet next to an entrance with some old-style cloth. To the left was a kitchen with some retro appliances, and to his right was a hallway to the rest of the house. There was also a TV box, the huge one they used to have back in the ’60s or ’70s. The light dimmed in this room, and the rest of the house seemed to be all darkness, so Bob didn’t see what else was out there.
“Look around, Bob. Does this place look familiar? Think way back, think about the early days.” Said the Man in his polite manner. Bob looked around one more time, and then he’s finally got it.
“This place looks like my childhood house? The house where I grew up when I was a kid. Isn’t it?” He was all puzzled and confused by the circumstances and the place and the Man.
“You are right. It’s been a long time since you’ve been here, Bob.”
“Yes, I haven’t been here too often since I left it when I was 19, I think. I rarely came to visit my parents either. The last time after they died twenty-some years ago.”
For the first time since Bob was in this room, he felt pain in his chest. A sharp, very tough pain in his chest. The only thing that felt real to him at the moment. He bent forward slightly; tiers came up in his eyes. He didn’t remember himself crying ever, except for when he was a child. He always was a tough guy. Now, something felt different and way too real.
“I miss my parents.” He said with a dry voice, tiers rolling down his face. He didn’t bother to wipe them down. “I am such an asshole, for I never spent enough time with them. They did a good job raising me, but I didn’t care too much. I was a selfish idiot who always did things my way.” Bob was trying to recover some of his childhood memories.
“Why don’t you sit down and we’ll watch some TV, Bob?” Said the Man in his tone, Bob obeyed, feeling a slight relief on his used-up body and soul. He looked at the Man, and the Man turned towards the TV set, the old TV set, which now started showing something on the screen.
“Sure, thanks.” Said Bob. He turned his face towards the TV as well.
There were this same house and this room, and there were two young people, dressed in the retro cloth, looking pretty modern for those days, and the woman seemed to be pregnant. Bob looked closer, and he saw that these people were his parents when they were young. His father scored an excellent job as an engineer and was able to finance this house. His mother, a school teacher, was now on maternity leave. Bob should’ve been born soon.
They both watched the TV, the Man, and Bob. Bob was watching the two people on the TV screen, barely breathing. The new screen came up, and the little child was born. The two parents were holding it in their arms, dancing with a child, singing to the child, changing diapers, putting the child to sleep, and playing with the child. They seemed like a nice and typical family. There was nothing strange about them. Bob was too young to remember those early days of his life and now watching it all on TV just like a movie was a unique experience. Every minute of this movie was fast-forwarding, and the child was growing up faster, and the parents were getting older as they did. Bob started to realize now how much his parents loved him. Bob saw his parents going to work and took care of him and their house and how hard they were trying to make his childhood a good one. He remembered that he never thought about his parents this way. He always felt that he has to have what he wants and he never thought about what effort it took and what price his parents had to pay to make him a happy child with all the necessities.
The next episodes that followed were Bob’s high school and college. The most problematic years in his life. Bob never liked the school, but he never tried hard enough or simply never cared to try. When you are not focused on school while in school, you will be focused on things that will distract you and others from getting their education. He was a pain in the ass. All those jokes, and disrespectful things he did to his teachers and classmates, don’t look so fun anymore. Sometimes we all need to look at our lives from the side to see how it seems to others. How everything might look stupid, meaningless, and idiotic from the perspective of a stranger. Bob cringed when watching certain episodes from his early days. He wasn’t too proud of himself anymore. Bob felt terrible for his youth. The youth was supposed to be the most exciting time in anybody’s life, but not for him. He watched how he disrespected a girl in his class who liked him, and he made her cry multiple times. He watched how he beat up other kids and took their possessions, how he lied to others to make them do stupid things he wanted. Bob watched his favorite teacher, Ms. Thomspon, crying after the class when Bob wasn’t paying attention and making jokes out loud and distracted other kids, creating chaos in the classroom.
Growing up, little Bob was out of the house for the most time. When coming home, his mother has a hot plate meal for him ready. Little Bob ate and left his plates on the table, walking into his room right after eating. Then his friends would stop by, and he would leave the house for another half a day. Meanwhile, in the movie, his mother worked hard around the house, fixing meals, cleaning, crying, and worrying about her child. He saw how the hard work affected that tiny woman on the TV. That woman was his mother, his poor, loving mother. She was getting older, she was getting tired, she looked more tired with every minute on the screen.
His father worked full-time for a corporation and was the primary provider, often staying late at work and providing as comfortable life for his family as he could. He was at work most of the time, and Bob never had built a good father-son relationship with him. His father developed cancer later in his life and was hiding it. He worked until his last days. Nobody knew what happened, but one day he didn’t wake up. Bob didn’t come to his funerals; he couldn’t even remember why. Maybe he was too drunk on yet another drinking binge. Bob saw his father in the coffin and cried like a child. He would have been 30 at that age and living out somewhere on his own. Seeing his father at his very end of life was unbearable. The Man looked at him for a moment and then turned back towards the TV set.
There were many things on the screen, and the more it showed, the worst Bob felt. The Man was watching his reaction from time to time and made the video pause or fast forward. Bob was focused on the TV all the time. He didn’t even notice how his life passed in front of his eyes, on the TV screen, just like the movie. This was his last time to see how it all really went down, and now was the time to reflect on his life. There was nothing else for him left in this life anymore. He wasn’t even sure if he was alive or not and what would follow next.
Next, the TV showed Bob’s younger years after college, him dropping out, getting arrested, getting drunk, fighting, and arguing with other people. Bob spent a lot of time working odd jobs. He never had a real good friend who would help him and guide him through his life. All his ‘friends’ were random people he worked with temporarily and a few drunkards he met at the bar. There was a lot of drinking involved in those days and many more since. Bob was watching his life spent or instead wasted in the bars, in the factories, ruining his young body and mind and destroying any good opportunity that might have happened to him. He watched himself suffer one more time. Back in the days, he could get drunk and forget, but now there was no chance; he had to witness everything himself sober. There was no escaping reality anymore.
Somewhere during those confused young days of his life, he met his future wife. She was a few years older than him, and somehow, she saw something in Bob. Or maybe she was just running out of time, and the clock was ticking, and there was nobody else to fill the woman’s needs, marry her and make her a mother. Bob’s best decision in his life was to marry this woman. A sad tear rolled down his unshaven chick when he saw him and his wife meeting for the first time when they were young and in love. The love piece didn’t last too long, and Bob even forgot what it felt like. Everything has become a commodity, an everyday thing, uninteresting, unadventurous, and meaningless. The only thing that changed in Bob’s life after marriage was that he was no longer roaming the streets and sleeping anywhere else but home. However, his behavior worsened over the years, and the TV showed everything as it was.
Bob himself couldn’t recall some of these episodes of his life. The Man was watching the TV and Bob’s own reaction to whatever was happening on the screen from time to time. Bob would forget about the Man in the room, sitting by the same table as he. Watching his life running before his eyes in its true colors was consuming him entirely. Bob didn’t even notice how the room they were in changed, and now they were in his old one-bedroom apartment’s living which he and his wife moved into together.
Very early into his marriage, Bob was trying to change and become a new man. He watched himself buying flowers for his new wife on the major holidays and birthdays and sometimes for no particular reason. It didn’t last too long. However, it felt good to watch from the side. Bob’s face was full of quiet emotions; he would lose everything he ever owned to be back in those days and to be able to change the course of his life. It was too late now, as they say, you’ve made your bed, pal. TV showed a young couple having a child. Bob remembered that moment in his life. Alice was a cute little girl, didn’t cry too much, listened to her mother, seldom caused any troubles. Bob was happy to become a father back in the day. He watched himself as a young and loving father paying and bringing up a little girl.
Things have changed for him with the birth of his second daughter. June was born three years after Alice, and the family life was different now. Bob saw himself drinking every day. On some days, he was barely able to wake up and go to work. His relationships with his wife were non-existent. The family life was outgrowing him and became a burden. Bob spent more time outside the house, drinking at the bars with his friends and some random people. This has become his new life. He would come home, and he would start a fight with his wife. He would preach to God and cite the Bible and make her guilty of everything, in the same way taking all the blame and the shame out of himself. He was a different man when he was drunk.
His wife was raising two children on her own and having a part-time job, shopping, cleaning the house and cooking, and everything else. Bob never appreciated that. He wasn’t even thinking about those things. Bob would come home drunk and start talking shit to his wife, and then his children would see and hear all the screams and arguing. This would drive him even crazier, and he would lash out at them as well. His wife would take the kids out to another room and lock them there. Bob on the screen became furious because they did so in his house, and he would come to the door and knock and talk some more nonsense. The kids would get scared and cry, his wife would cry too. Bob wouldn’t give a damn; he just screamed louder and became more furious.
Sometimes, kids would be in bed, and his wife would be in the kitchen fixing something to eat, then Bob came home, drunk as usual, starting an argument. They fight in the kitchen, and he beats his wife up. The TV was showing some real horror movie scenes now. Bob watched how the kids in their room woke up terrified in the middle of the night, waiting for this to be over. The wife went into her room, locked herself up, and then Bob came and tried the door, knocking arguing with her through the closed door. His wife was screaming back at him, crying, and Bob screamed louder. This will go on for hours until Bob would fall asleep on the floor or on the couch, all filthy and drunk, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes and terror. The wife would not fall asleep until the morning, then she woke up afraid to leave the room until he was gone out of the house. She knew she had to fix him breakfast and lunch for work, so she would go to the kitchen and do that. Kids woke up and saw the father sleeping in his clothes on the floor with no air in the room. There is nothing more disgracing and traumatic for the young minds to see their father like that. They all looked sad and followed her mom around the house, afraid to be in the same room with a drunk father on their own. This lasted for days, months, and years.
This was torture to watch on the TV screen, leaving Bob speechless.
The Man looked at him and said:
“How do you feel, Bob?”
“I…I… I am just so sorry about all of this…It is tormenting to watch. I truly don’t deserve to live.”
“You now realize how life has been living around you. Your family didn’t deserve this kind of treatment, Bob. You had a nice family. Your wife was always faithful to you, which I cannot say about you. Your kids are terrific kids who love their mother, they do good in school, and they would have nice lives and nice families on their own in the future. They will always hate alcohol and drunkards, and they will always feel bitter when they will think about you and their childhood. You’ve scared them for life, Bob. Is this what you wanted? Is this how you wanted to be remembered? Is the legacy you wanted to leave behind? You only remembered about God and what the Bible said when you were drunk and furious. And even that didn’t help you to be a better person, to change, to behave, to respect your family and other people.” You’ve always managed to push the limit.”
“I was such a selfish, stupid asshole. I am so sorry about all that.” Said Bob with a dead look on his face.
“You said so, Bob.” said the Man watching Bob sobbing and bursting into tears.
“If I could only go back in time and change everything…” Bob choked.
At least he was crying sincerely, thought the Man; at least this helped him to understand.
“Let’s watch some more TV, Bob. I would like to show you something else.”
Bob nodded, and all of a sudden, he noticed that they were in another room, the room he’d never been before. It was a nice room; everything around was well designed with style and class. Bob never was in the room like that.
The TV now showed some family’s dinner. There were two young women, two men, one older woman, and five kids at the large dinner table. They all seemed to have a lot of fun. They talked and laughed, enjoying their nice meal. It seemed like a holiday. The room they were in was the same room Bob was sitting in right now with the Man watching them on the screen. It took Bob a few seconds to figure that he is watching his daughters with their families and his old wife. They all look a bit different now, matured, and his wife was looking aged as well. Bob did not recall this scene in his life. Well, that’s because it never happened. TV was showing the future – the future with no Bob in it. The future looked so much better and brighter, and the future that had damaged people making it through and living their new, improved lives. One would never say that these people went through so much hardship and harassment. They all looked happy and healthy and just like one great family enjoying their time together.
Bob felt a sad relief. He sighed and smiled, and the tiers of happiness rolled down his face. At least he knew that his loved ones were at peace now, and he wasn’t a problem for them anymore. They deserved a better life.
The Man looked at him nodding. His job was done. When a man comes around, he has a reason. When you meet the Man, you will see what the reason was. Nothing will go unnoticed as everyone will pay their dues. Watching your life rolling in front of your eyes and looking at your behavior from the side puts everything in the right perspective. Things that one never saw will be visible, and feelings that never occurred will cut you deep like a knife. The road to redemption lies through sincere confession.
“…There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won’t be treated all the same
There’ll be a golden ladder reachin’ down
When the Man comes around…”
Johnny Cash
“The man comes around”