JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Saturday, September 03, 2005
So that just gave me more reason to keep driving and get this over with. This is insanity. I am nobody. Why does it feel like people know who I am? I feel like I have crashed on to The Planet of the Apes. Then something else happened. I had crossed the state line into Oregon and I was heading west along the interstate making my way to the Portland area where I would turn south. I was in Oregon, it was night, and I stopped at this convenience store. There were two people behind the counter and one made a strange comment to another that I initially dismissed but then it started gnawing on me as I was driving. One asked the other something about whether she wanted to help somebody or another. The other replied that she “didn’t care”. I thought about that a long time because something about it was nagging me. And then again I realized they knew who I was. I had no idea where I was, I had never even driven through that area, I couldn’t even pick it out again on a map, it was just a random stop I made at some store, but yet these people know who I am. It is staggeringly insane. I am Truman freakin’ Burbank. So I thought more about those comments. I realized that they knew who I was, they knew I was on my way to die, and in response to a question about giving me any help, the answer is “I don’t care.” That really hurt. Even after all this anguish I had been feeling, something new would come along and teach me another lesson about pain.
I would keep thinking about it more but I later reached a different conclusion. Maybe they didn’t actually know where I was going. Maybe they didn’t know my plans. They knew who I was but they didn’t know what I was planning to do. They thought I was just taking a road trip to try to clear my head or something. I was still a trivial person to them in the sense of leaving me alone, concern for my private life was just a triviality, but maybe what the other person meant was that she didn’t care about my private life. She was trying to express that she objected to the way I was being treated and she didn’t want to participate in it. Later, when I was near Portland and literally at another crossroads, going south meant death, turning north meant going back to my apartment to continue looking for clues that would steer me out of this tormenting experience, it was that alternative interpretation of her comments that made me turn north, along with another reason I will describe later. I had to give it a lot of deliberation because I was almost out of money and if I wanted to go south again, I would have to do it on foot.
That wasn’t the last time someone’s behavior influenced me into not jumping. Something like that happened early into my journey to Gas Works Park. But I’ll write about that later. There are some other details about that trip through Oregon that I want to describe, but I’ll save that for later too. This is exhausting. I have been fighting with this for years now. I just wish I could get back to work and feel again like I am making a difference. Only then can I get back into my Ironman triathlon pursuits. I was planning to complete at least one Ironman triathlon every year until I get too old to finish one. That is the good life for me. This, today, these past few years, is just torture. What have I become? Who am I?
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 3 September 2005 excerpt ends]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106977/quotes
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Memorable quotes for
The Fugitive (1993)
Dr. Richard Kimble: I didn't kill my wife!
Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard: I don't care!
