Kent Leatham

Rory Douglas

On Hammocks (an excerpt)

My bottom hurt. I had been sitting on the hammock, watching the cars drive by, talking on the phone to my mom, when—suddenly—this pain shot through my tail bone and up my spine. What had happened? Where did this pain come from? Did I have cancer of the tailbone? I had cancer of the tailbone. I knew it. It had been coming to me for a long time. I hadn’t known when it would strike, but it was my due. Things had been too good for too long: peanut butter had been on sale at Vons, I had known the final question on Jeopardy, I hadn’t had any cavities at the dentist—life had been nearly perfect. And I didn’t deserve it: I had failed to acknowledge Memorial Day, I had eaten out of my roommate’s guacamole with my unwashed fingers, I had made brownies and fed them to the neighbor kids from youth group, and then noticed that the box was crawling with maggots. I had known for a while that God’s punishment was impending and would strike at any moment, and I was pretty sure it would be in the form of cancer of the tailbone.

After going through doctor’s appointments—"I’m sorry, son, but we’re afraid it’s malignant," the doctor told me, glancing just below my eyes—after chemotherapy, balding, wig-shopping, a bundle of blue balloons saying, "It’s a boy!" given to me by my brother in my hospital recovery room as a tactless joke, after looking the nurse in the eye and telling her, "oh yes, I will walk again, I don’t care what you and your modern medicine say, the human spirit will conquer," after my parents spent sleepless hours by my bedside praying for recovery, after going through all the steps of sickness and recovery and the triumph of the human will to survive, after all of this in a moment’s space in my head, I realized it wasn’t cancer of the tailbone hurting me. Instead, I had been dropped three feet onto my butt because my hammock had broken.

And this I also had coming: I had shabbily hung the hammock from the eave of our house with one or two small hand-screws, knowing it wouldn’t hold for long but would hopefully hold for long enough. The whole thing looked like a soggy home made by a drunken—and Mexican, judging by the color scheme—spider.

I was angry. Whenever I get hurt, I get angry. Normally, I just verbally lash out at the nearest person, dropping a string of Christian cuss words at a roommate or neighbor kid, even though it’s usually no one’s fault but my own. But this time, I knew I had no one to blame but myself; my fall was a result of my own depravity. I was pretty sure this was the worst thing to happen to me in my life. My bottom hurt really badly.

***

One of the four noble truths of Buddhism is that "to live is to suffer." This suffering, Buddha said, was a result of desire, and thus, the cycle of suffering can only be escaped by ridding oneself of all desire, living free and unattached. My bottom was suffering, yet I could not think of anything I had recently desired. Although unknown to me that day, I would soon desire something, something that did not rightfully belong to me. I am convinced my pain came as preemptive suffering for my desire.

For more "On Hammocks", purchase a copy of Rock & Sling Winter 2007 Edition