Broken promises and life choices end the young man on his back in the sandy path.

SYNOPSIS:

True story, here it goes.

I was almost fifteen, working in a restaurant as a help waiting tables and working behind the bar to serve. The restaurant business was run by two men. Chef Dominique was cooking great dishes from the basement where the kitchen was. The meals and dishes were sent up or down with an small elevator. The restaurant was situated about 50 yards away from the beach. It had a very cosy look and worked very well with satisfied customers all year round. The mondaine beach town is connected to the Dutch borderline. The two are separated by a river that flowed freely, but became obstructed by sand. The river, long time ago, allowed ships to reach Bruges, that then was called the Venice of the North for the trading power it possessed. Michel, always did the mornings. He always had a Mona Lisa smile on him, was the quiet type and very polite. And Patrick, who always started late, did the evenings and nights. I usually worked with Pat, he was more fun and liked a laugh and a beer. One late night on a Friday we cleaned and closed up and left for his usual place to have a 'last' drink and he would gamble some money away on cards or dice with the owner of a club, in our town. It was still early for that place so Pat could gamble his way into the later hours and I sat bored at the bar, in an empty club, with my soda.

In came a familiar face, Jef. I know him from the karate club where my two year older brother Sam and I were placed by my parents, whom said that it would be better to lose our energy there, instead of fighting at home all the time and breaking stuff. Jef,about the age of my brother, entering the club, was dead drunk already coming in. Saw me at the bar and stumbled his way to me, asking if I would go back training in the sport club after the summer holidays. I replied I will and looked forward seeing him there again. He, ordering a full long drink of Bacardi Rum, no ice no lime, replied that I would not see him there anymore and that I will never see him there ever again. I watched him drinking the full glass of white rum like it was water. Shocked by his behaviour and getting annoyed as no normal conversation seemed to be possible with him, I tried to fix my attention to Pat and the owner of the club playing poker with dice for money. Jef, ordering the same drink to the bartender, grabbed my arm to get my attention. His other hand went in the pocket of his jacket, where he pulled out a rolled up rope, the kind that you use to roll up a roller shutter. A few inches in width, flat and very strong. He said that it was half of the rope that his best friend Eric used, to hang himself a few years ago. I looked at him with a confused face and tried to avoid him by looking to the game my boss was playing at the bar with the owner Alain.

That's when I started thinking about what he told me, as he was that drunk and his words were not clear all the time. And suddenly it sank in. I did hear about a story some years ago that a person committed suicide. Not so difficult to remember really, as it was all over the local newspaper at that time. I now started remembering details of that happening. Our small beach town only has a few thousand people living in it, so gossip went like a bushfire at that time. The newspaper told that Eric committed suicide by hanging, no more was mentioned then in the column. Later we heard that his girlfriend got pregnant at a very young stage in her life, he didn't have a job or income just getting out of school, was on the verge of being drafted for the army service. He panicked, not seeing an outcome how to solve this early troubles in his life as she didn't want to consider an abortion. Those were the gossips after the story got released. Eric, coming from a good family and screwing up his life this way, carried the pressure of his parents and society on his shoulders for months. Jef, from a working class family was Eric's drinking brother. They met, at one of the many cafés in town and spent endless hours and money on alcohol and lived a life without worries. That is until Eric's faith was decided when his girlfriend at that time revealed she was going to have his child. Eric tried to talk her out of it every time they met. But she wouldn't have none of it. She didn't come from a wealthy family and she saw this pregnancy as a road to her happiness. Eric sought help and advice from Jef, who didn't have any solution or strategy to get him out of this situation. One night, Eric, revealed his inner feelings to Jef, being his best friend, that it would be better to end his life than to live with this quilt, pressure and worries day after day, week after week. Jef, feeling empathy for him tried to talk him out of it for weeks. But every following weekend he could see Eric spiralling down deeper and deeper in a hole of despair. Jef, was having his own life problems with his parents, work and girlfriend at that time. Even worse, the more he spent time with Eric, listening to his stories the more he got drawn into his plan ending his life. Alcohol, in late seventies was used in overflow and almost everyone was getting drunk and crazy every given weekend. This did not help both of them to get away from the destructive path they were walking upon. One night, both having enough liquor in their blood sitting in the back of a bar, they made the pact of darkness. Eric showed a long rope cut into two equal pieces. He held his hands in front of him, with each hand holding a piece of rolled up rope. They promised each other to hang themselves in the following days to both end their misery. In those days helplines for suicidal guidelines didn't really exist or had any impact on society. I believe the only helpline at that time was a number to call and you would be connected to an answer machine. Alcohol played it's part strongly as that same night, Eric left the world and his unborn child by committing suicide by hanging himself with his part of the rope. When Jef heard that news in the following days he was devastated and broken.

Now, Jef is standing before me, drunk as hell and committed to perform his horrible act this night, feeling guilty of betraying his best friend years ago. I left him for a moment and I went to my boss Pat and told him in short what Jef's plans were. He, already sufficient drunk at that time, looked at Jef trying to keep standing up, leaning on a bar chair, laughed it away and said this is just drunk talk, an I should not worry that much. That is when Jef emptied his third full longdrink of white rum and stumbled his way to the exit door. I followed him outside and asked if he would get home safely. He replied: 'I am gonna make an end to my life, I have enough of this life.' I reacted to this by saying to him not to move and I would call him a cab in the club. I ran inside, asked the bartender to call a taxi and ran out quickly again to help him. He was leaning to the parking wall and mumbling words to himself. He looked to me when I approached him and said that his life is over and I should leave him in peace. He continued this pointless conversation for some minutes as the taxi arrived. The driver got out and I could immediately see on his face that he was not very happy with what was standing in front of him. Jef refused to get into the cab, the driver got upset, I ended up paying him half of the fare as he left angry and upset.

Jef took off as well and I saw him walking to the left, direction golf course, our town has. I remember thinking, as I know he lives on the opposite side, where the hell are you going Jef ? I went back in the club and told the last happenings again to Pat and he seemed even less interested than before. I just couldn't let it go that he walked to the left knowing that he lives to the right. At that time I was not imagining myself anything. Why should I? At fourteen of age, I had little life experience anyway. It kept bothering me and I said to Pat that I would check upon him quickly just to see if things were alright. He knotted. At that time, it must have been around three thirty in the morning. I walked quick, direction golf course. The course has a water tower that gives access to the golf parcour. The fence was open, I continued my walk to see if I could find him here. The golf course is divided in two by a narrow sand path, fenced on both sides by chicken and haywire. About six small stone bridges are built over the path. The stone bridges have iron railings on both sides to hold yourself when passing them at hip and knee height.

That's where I saw him sitting... on one of those bridges. The lower iron railing in front of his chest and his legs hanging of the bridge. Rope around his neck, knotting it to the lower part of the iron bar that goes vertical into the cement bridge. While doing this, he was moving from left to right as if he was sitting on a sailing boat in stormy weather. Me, behind in the bushes about fifteen yards away, kneeled down and watching the scene. I remember there was enough moonlight that night to see his actions. The morning fog just above the grass and shrubs made the whole scene even scarier and I remember thinking to myself over and over again, he won't do it, he won't do this, he would never..at that time he already lowered his bum off the bridge and held himself at the lower horizontal iron bar. I jumped up, as a rabbit suddenly ran just behind me,my heart jumping out of my ribcage, realising what just occurred, I turned back to see what was happening on the bridge...and his hands were gone...I ran to the bridge as fast as I could, grabbed the iron bar and looked down and there it was..his eyes open, bloody and red..his face, color purple..his body slowly turning around, the rope making ticking sounds while stretched by his weight. Trying untying the knots was like trying to squeeze your fingers between steel cables, I managed to untie two of them but the last two were impossible, his full body weight pulling on the rope.

Without thinking I jumped over the handrail and landed next to him in the sand path. Frozen for a second I remember thinking: 'do something, don't just stand here'. I grabbed both his legs by the hips and lifted him up. So brutal, he hit his head on the cement stone bridge and started bleeding like a gutted pig. The blood ran half over his face. He started to breath again and gargle at the same time. Spewing the blood out in bursts that was running into his mouth, from the now gaping wound on his head. Standing there with a half dead bleeding corpse in my arms, hung up by the neck, in the middle of a golf course at four o'clock in the misty morning, screaming for help, to no one's ears. After several minutes, Jef's weight, about a hundred and ninety pounds,started tiring my arms, no one was responding to my repeated screams. I did not know what to do, as my arms unforced slowly lowered him and hanging him again. I mumbled: 'no,no..no' softly to myself. My heart skipped beats, hanging him slowly by the neck until he abruptly stopped breathing again. I let go off him.

Knowing what I just have done, the next episodes in my mind, happened in slow motion. I climbed over the haywire fence, ran up the slope to the bridge, where on my way I stumbled over a red iron ball. I kicked it so hard that the iron ball came out of the ground and was rolling in front of me. It was the ladies tee-off marker. The markers are placed in the ground by a ten inches long pin attached to it. I started rubbing the pin against the rope, connecting his neck with the bridge. I guess his weight and my unnatural force on adrenaline made the rope tear seconds later and I heard a duff sound of a body hitting sand. I looked down, and there he was. Face up, his heals behind his ears. I jumped the railing, stretched his legs to a normal position and I ran as quickly as I could to the club. Patrick and Alain were practically still in the same position at the bar as I left them earlier. My appearance, in panic, sweating and with bloody clothes, quickly made them realize that something out of the ordinary happened. They called an ambulance that was accompanied by the police. They took me in for questioning after he was placed in the ambulance. I told them the whole night's story.

I never spoke to him again for the last four decades.

I told, what happened that night, to a few close friends of mine, whom seemed more in shock after hearing it, then delighted to hear this kind of stories. I don't know how or when it happened but I guess through mutual connections, Jef and I, became friends on Facebook a few years ago. It's nice to see, after coming so close to his end, that life still had so much more in store for him. The Universe can be beautiful and cruel I believe. I guess being somewhere in time and place can change a course.

THE SANDY PATH