Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones

Author:Jack Jones [Jones, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77996-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

Mark David Chapman awoke to a birdlike pecking against the car window. He twisted his head, opened his eyes, and peered through a vaporous mist. An elderly Japanese man with a fishing pole smiled back at him.

“Just want to see if you are all right,” the fisherman said apologetically, as Chapman cranked down the window. He was groggy and he wondered briefly if he had died—if it was his spirit stepping out of the car and back into the world that he had wanted to escape. He turned around to look back into the car, to see if he had somehow stepped out of his body.

As the fisherman ambled away in the direction of the beach, Chapman walked to the rear of the car. Below the exhaust pipe he found a pool of molten plastic. With amazement and relief, he took the melted hose into his hand. He prayed.

Chapman prayed earnestly and deeply. He thanked God for giving him a sign at last—a sign that he was supposed to live. In spite of the pain, he decided after a single failed suicide attempt that he was going to live. He had known all along that, no matter what he might ever try to do, he couldn’t cause it to happen unless it was God’s will. No matter how foolish or violent his ideas might sometimes seem, he believed God would prevent him from carrying out any act except those he was destined to carry out.

As he stood with the burned hose in his hand, Chapman realized that he had been foolish and selfish to think in the first place that his life had been his to end. From that day forward, Chapman knew that God would talk to him. Even when he was depressed or angry and unable to see the signs, he knew that God would show the direction for his life. He looked around for the fisherman. The Japanese man had disappeared. Chapman smiled a knowing smile. The man with the fishing pole, he knew in his heart, had been a messenger sent by God to save him.

“Angel,” he said to himself. “Thank you, God, for sending one of your angels to save me from the small part of myself.”

Seized by the fear of what he had almost done in his depression and confusion, Chapman also understood something more fundamental, something that he had known all along: More than anything, he needed the attention of other humans.

“Maybe now,” he said to himself, “somebody will pay attention.”

He disassembled his defective suicide machine as hastily as he had put it together and drove himself back across the island to Honolulu. From the car rental office, he walked about three miles to a mental-health clinic near Waikiki Beach. He had been advised by the suicide counselor to visit the clinic a week or so before. They had given him pills that he had thrown away. Finding no one on duty in the evening hours, he walked another several blocks to the familiar façade of the Moana.

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