[22]

Treat the apparently dead first

In 1981, Buckley dropped out of the University of Arkansas, not because his grades were poor, but because he didn’t fit in there. He couldn’t talk to anyone, and after the Martin Merriwether incident, the student body treated him as if he were a sideshow freak. The only people he actually spoke to were Dr. Jack (who was paid to listen) and the cafeteria cook, Mr. Schumacher, who—after the Martin Merriwether incident—said, “Boy, you is troubled. I’d get to a church or find a good woman or both.” Based on past experience, Buckley ignored Mr. Schumacher’s advice, leaving Arkansas forever.

He left his courses, the dull professors, the chipper cheerleaders, the jocks, the social workers, the psychiatrist, and his lightning experiments. He left poor Martin Merriwether still suffering amnesia.

He wrote to Joan Holt, who passed the news on to Paddy John, who was doing well with his own charter fishing business in Wanchese, North Carolina, and Paddy John sent Buckley five hundred dollars to get him started.

Paddy John wrote,

His first day in New York, Buckley got a job working as a dishwasher for an Italian restaurant, Damici’s. During the interview, Frank Damici, the owner, asked Buckley if he had family in New York. “No, sir,” Buckley said.

“What brings you here?”

Buckley shrugged. “Seemed as good a place as any.”

“Do you want to be an actor?” This was a question Buckley would repeatedly be asked.

“No, sir. I want to work. I want to wash dishes.”

“Where’s your family?”

“Galveston.”

“Why don’t you go there?”

“I’ve been there.”

Frank Damici could no more understand how a person could live in a city, or anywhere for that matter, without family than he could understand this crap with people not believing in God or Pope John Paul II’s infallibility, or these lesbo women’s-libbers moaning about their failing Equal Rights Amendment.

He had thirty-six grandchildren, all of whom crowded the Damici restaurant at some point during the week. “Family is everything,” he said to Buckley, who once more shrugged.

Right away, Frank Damici suspected Buckley was some kind of atheist because he never mentioned church. Then he suspected Buckley was Baptist or Pentecostal because he said he was from Arkansas. Then he suspected Buckley was homosexual because he was never with a woman and he kept the kitchen immaculate. But Frank Damici knew that Buckley couldn’t be a Baptist or Pentecostal or any type of Christian and be a homosexual, so he figured Buckley was just strange. At least the boy was a hard worker.

Smelling of grease and garlic, Buckley was tired from a ten-hour shift washing dishes and working the grill. The sidewalk outside his walk-up on 172nd Street smelled like sweet-and-sour sauce.

He’d recently begun researching lightning at the midtown branch library, and he had an idea for an introductory section of his work-in-progress, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors. It was a project Buckley initiated to match the aspirations of the waiters and waitresses, the would-be actors and actresses, he worked with at Damici’s. He was a writer. In 1981, he kept a spiral notebook scribbled with lightning victims’ stories and statistics.

He started the project after one of the prettier waitresses, Carol, asked Buckley, “Are you an actor or a singer?”

“Neither.”

“What do you do?”

“I wash dishes.”

“Be serious. Are you an artist?”

Buckley didn’t say anything. He thought of Clementine. Carol could be Clementine if Clementine had lived. Buckley dunked another plate in the soapy water.

Two weeks later, having not spoken to Carol since their initial conversation, he stopped her, her hands full, carrying a tray of outgoing orders, and Buckley blurted, “I’m a writer. I’m writing a book about lightning.”

“I’m kind of busy right now, but good for you.”

Buckley could sense when people thought he was retarded. Carol probably thought that about him. In his head, he rehearsed, I’m a writer. I’m writing a book about lightning strikes. About people who survive. It’ll be a handbook for them. Something easy to understand.

Buckley, remembering his first weeks at Damici’s, dug for his keys. Carol didn’t work there anymore. She actually landed some off-Broadway role playing a woman named Purple. He’d been to see the show, leaving during intermission. It was a strange sort of performance piece lacking a story line.

Buckley carried a large ring of keys. Oftentimes he was in charge of locking up the restaurant and the walk-in freezer where Damici kept his meats. Flipping through the ring, Buckley came up with a line for his book: When lightning strikes, treat the apparently dead first. He’d always believed that his mother could’ve survived, if she hadn’t been directly struck, if she hadn’t fallen off the dock, if she hadn’t been burned. Too many ifs. In Arkansas, Dr. Jack had said, “You said that her brain was showing.” Buckley remembered Dr. Jack pointing at him, his face stern. “There was nothing you could do. Nothing.” Buckley knew from research that others had survived. The majority of people struck survived, even after “appearing” dead, even after their hearts had stopped. He couldn’t save his mother, but maybe his book could save someone else. It was possible. Treat the apparently dead first.

Treat the apparently dead first. Write that down.

Finding his key, he raced upstairs to his apartment. He felt fortunate that most of the other tenants were quiet, keeping to themselves. He unlocked his door, dropped his knapsack on the floor, and finding a grease-stained paper bag, wrote in red marker, Treat the apparently dead first. It was important. His book would be important.