Maybe Not the Wrong(est) Man, But…

[Image: a so-called “Bergonic chair” in use. The device, according to Wikipedia (where I found the photo), was used during the World War I era “for giving general electric treatment for psychological effect, in psycho-neurotic cases.” Particularly noteworthy: there’s no sign of its application to the patient’s, y’know, cranium. Alas, I have not yet uncovered the source of the device’s name, presumably from someone named, uh, Bergon? The photo is reproduced at numerous sites; of these, one of the most informative — while adding nothing specific about the Bergonic chair itself — provides some good context.]

James Thurber’s story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” tells of a very ordinary man possessed of an extravagant imagination. As he interacts with everyday life, each little twist in its events fuels high-flown fantasies of what might be happening instead. For instance, at his wife’s insistence, he stops by a shoe store to pick up a pair of overshoes; when he forgets what else she asked him to bring home, the simple task balloons. It culminates, in Mitty’s mind as he stands on the city sidewalk, in a riotous courtroom scene — in which he remembers everything:

…he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb’s, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But [his wife] would remember it. “Where’s the what’s-its-name?” she would ask. “Don’t tell me you forgot the what’s-its-name.” A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

…”Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. “Have you ever seen this before?” Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. “This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80,” he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge rapped for order. “You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?” said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. “Objection!” shouted Mitty’s attorney. “We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July.” Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. “With any known make of gun,” he said evenly, “I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.” Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty’s arms…

(James Thurber [source])

During our Road Trip 2021 adventure, I harbored my own fantasies of an exciting life. Unlike Mitty, though, I became not the triumphant hero, but the Charlie-Brown goat, in contests not against monstrous evil, but against faceless bureaucrats. For instance, our car was totaled about a week after we left Florida; for weeks — months! — afterward, I’d wake up in a cold sweat, or not fall asleep in the first place, worrying that our car insurance and/or registration had gotten bollixed up in the transfer to the replacement car… and that my driving privileges were thus also in jeopardy. (As it happened, yes, at one time or another the car insurance had gotten bollixed up, the registration similarly tangled, and my driving privileges indeed in jeopardy. It was all straightened out by late November, but it was a hell of a way to “enjoy the road” in the meantime!)

My usual Friday-blogging inspiration, whiskey river, offered me one single tidbit this week — an excerpt from a Stephen Dunn poem, “Traveling.” (See the full thing here.) While meditating on the full poem and the excerpt, I flipped back and forth in the source material to see if anything else triggered an association. And that’s how I came across this gem:

On Hearing the Airlines Will Use a Psychological Profile to Catch Potential Skyjackers

They will catch me
as sure as the checkout girls
in every Woolworth’s have caught me, the badge
of my imagined theft shining in their eyes.

I will be approaching the ticket counter
and knowing myself, my selves,
will effect the nonchalance of a baron.
That is what they’ll be looking for.

I’ll say “Certainly is nice that the
airlines are taking these precautions,”
and the man behind the counter
will press a secret button,

there’ll be a hand on my shoulder
(this will have happened before in a dream),
and in a back room they’ll ask me
“Why were you going to do it?”

I’ll say “You wouldn’t believe
I just wanted to get to Cleveland?”
“No,” they’ll say.
So I’ll tell them everything,

the plot to get the Pulitzer Prize
in exchange for the airplane,
the bomb in my pencil,
heroin in the heel of my boot.

Inevitably, it’ll be downtown for booking,
newsmen pumping me for deprivation
during childhood,
the essential cause.

“There is no one cause for any human act,”
I’ll tell them, thinking finally,
a chance to let the public in
on the themes of great literature.

And on and on, celebrating myself, offering
no resistance, assuming what they assume,
knowing, in a sense, there is no such thing
as the wrong man.

(Stephen Dunn [source])

Now, that spoke to my traveling self, all right!

Addendum: Just before hitting the “Publish” button on this post, I came across the following… which I really had to include here:

Reality seemed so paltry next to castles—dungeons—in the air

(Pico Iyer [source])