Claiming One’s Baggage: The Confessions of Friends

“Other acquaintances have cheated before my eyes to win a penny-ante pot, filled a purse lined with aluminum foil at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, and confessed to routinely shortchanging customers. I didn’t actually witness the latter, but the unforced admission was just as strong as if I’d been standing in the kiosk behind her as she swept another’s change into her purse.”—Skip Eisiminger

Skip the B.S.

By Skip Eisiminger

“Confessions are swords with which to parry/The guilt which ensues when lusting for Harry.” —The Wordspinner

“After scores of peccadilloes are confessed,/I long for a place where a sneeze is unblessed.” —The Wordspinner

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—7/27/2015—When my father and a handful of his best sappers came under friendly fire while crossing the Rhine, one of the men panicked. The night mission on March 23, 1945 was to sabotage the Datteln Canal, which ends at Wesel, not far from the Dutch border. It was a fraught mission from the start because, when the locks were blown, no one knew how much water would surge toward the flat-bottomed, plywood boat and the river, which was already near flood stage. And, of course, German snipers were always a possibility even this late in the war.

As it happened, the Germans must have been napping, and the river rose less than an inch when the canal was emptied, but when a nervous British soldier opened fire on the returning Americans and Dad’s lieutenant panicked, the commander was at his wit’s end. An angry call on a malfunctioning radio to the British finally stopped the machine-gun fire, but none of the enlisted men dared touch the hysterical officer. Staring at the starless sky, the lieutenant confessed to a litany of everything from masturbation to shoplifting. Once the squad reached the west bank, 300 meters away, only a dose of liberated cognac brought the compulsive confessor to his senses.

Though several of the volunteers had heard the panic-inspired admissions, no one in the 1698^th Engineer Combat Battalion ever spoke of them, possibly because the perceived embarrassment was penance enough. It was in Germany that Dad learned the word Schadenfreude, the joy that comes from the sufferings of others but, following the Rhine crossing and the revelations he’d been privy to, he had no taste for it.

Fifty years later, I had the opportunity to add Glückschmertz to my father’s vocabulary. This antonym for Schadenfreude refers to the pain that may attend a rival’s good fortune. Thus, when Dad’s neighbor smugly confided that she’d sold her house, when his had been listed longer, he had a word for what he was feeling.

When I hear an admission of bad behavior, I’m often reminded of D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake.” When the old “voices” of the narrator’s “education” overwhelm his mature judgment, he throws “a clumsy log” at a non-venomous snake which has come to drink on a hot day. “How paltry, how vulgar,” the narrator admits after his assault on innocence; “what a mean act!” After reflecting on the natural grace of the animal and the disappointment he feels in himself, he concludes: “And I have something to expiate:/A pettiness.”

As pained as Lawrence’s narrator sounds, I’m confident he won’t be sniping at “nature naturing” again. Light years from his self-knowledge and demonstrated growth are the petty scofflaws who find nothing to expiate.

Recently, my wife sent me to the grocery to buy some cold cuts for sandwiches. After selecting some pre-packed ham, I turned to leave and saw our lawyer, who was filling a clear plastic container with what appeared to be nothing but chopped lettuce. I stopped to say hello and, as we were chatting, I noticed that he was loading the center of his salad bowl with stuffed olives and marinated mushrooms. When he finished “helping his plate,” as my grandmother used to phrase it, we went to pay for our purchases. When I told my wife about this odd culinary combination, she said it was a swindle. The container the lawyer paid for was far cheaper than it would have been had the clerk seen the lettuce was loaded with imported delicacies.

Other acquaintances have cheated before my eyes to win a penny-ante pot, filled a purse lined with aluminum foil at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, and confessed to routinely shortchanging customers. I didn’t actually witness the latter, but the unforced admission was just as strong as if I’d been standing in the kiosk behind her as she swept another’s change into her purse.

My wife, Ingrid, has seen and heard enough of these voiced and unvoiced confessions that I sometimes call her “Oprah.” Television’s former high priestess not only heard confessions, but often assigned penance and defined penitence in the midst of a stew of accusations, denials, and tears. But I really can’t blame people for confusing psychotherapists and television hosts when the latter are merchandised that way.

Ingrid says that some of her former friends have made her feel like a “portable pallet.” She’s referring to those rough, wooden squares on which a forklift operator may load several items, lift the entire stack, and move it as one onto a boxcar for transport. In other words, her guiltless penitents have made her feel like a disposable tool. It’s rare, but when friends manipulate friends, one wants to say, “Let’s return to being strangers,” though that rarely happens. At most, the friends end up estranged without a word being spoken; indeed, on Facebook, they are quietly “unfriended” with the left click of a mouse.

However, when a former employer, long dead, “confessed” he was gay, something he had not told his wife or children, I was honored by the trust he’d placed in me though I suspect he had ulterior motives. On further analysis, I wish he’d told his priest. As the proverb states, “Love your neighbor, but don’t cut down the hedge.” Though homosexuality is far more widely accepted today than it was 50 years ago, I would never presume to tell the man’s children of their father’s admission. I wish he’d left me guessing, but writing a personal exposé and placing it in a safe-deposit box with the note, “Do not read until after my death,” is often worse than dying with your secrets.

Catharsis is one thing for Oedipus and something entirely different for a patient undergoing psychoanalysis. Oedipus is determined to cleanse his wounds before sewing them shut. I think we can all admire that, but baring one’s soul on national television (à la Lance Armstrong) is a futile recitation unless one also devotes a portion of one’s life and wealth to helping those one’s harmed. The British neurosurgeon Dr. Henry Marsh set the bar high when he succinctly explained to a patient that he’d failed: “Sue me; I made a terrible mistake.” Marsh may need to polish his bedside manner, but I admire his willingness to face the question, “How is love best served?”

I also admire the priests and psychotherapists who have come forward since the Tarasoff case was resolved in 1976 when a California court sided with the family of an unwarned victim. Indeed, had any of the German therapists come forward who’d treated Andreas Lubitz, the suicidal Germanwings pilot, 150 lives might have been spared. In the Lubitz case, love might have been served by a second-hand confession.