Wrestling the Invisible – James Constantine
November 16, 2025
“He wrestled with him until the breaking of dawn…From that day, Israel learned that to strive with God is to limp, and to limp is still to go forward.”
—Midrash Rabbah, Genesis 77
It was getting late when I realized I’d been doing cocaine for twenty-four hours straight. I was downing Jack Daniels because the jitters were getting unbearable. I’d been lying on my bed for many hours, throwing a ball up and down and trying to catch it with my foot. The sense of restlessness was getting worse.
I was paging through a book of sayings by the world’s great mystics. I found one by an Indian yogi that resonated with me. It was about how “We don’t suffer as a form of punishment, or because there is something is wrong with us. It’s simply the nature of the world.” He goes on to add that “turning to the Divine is the only truth in life.”
It was the part about reconciling with the Divine that turned me off. I threw the book aside and stared at my ceiling. Then at my bookcases—two thousand volumes but now no reason to read a single one of them. All the objects in my room looked menacing. Especially the wrestling awards I‘d bothered to display—my plaque for winning nationals in high school, the NCAA All-American trophy, my state gold medal. They used to have some meaning for me. Now they just made me sick to my stomach like Sartre’s Nausea.
I knew this was not a temporary mood. It was my new reality.
I couldn’t remain in this room a second longer if my life depended on it—the savage anger was beyond my capacity to control.
I had to start moving or I would burst. I was already in a pair of black casual shorts that I often wore around the house. So, I went into my closet and found a matching all-black T-shirt. I thought this might make it more likely a car would hit me before the coke wore off and I had to face the horror of the comedown.
The coke comedown had floored my pal Davey and me several times. The feeling that we’d used up ten years of serotonin in seven hours. It left you with a searing loneliness and a sense of desperation that was literally unbearable. I knew the pain I was choking down over Danielle’s betrayal would surge up into a holocaust the second the coke wore off and the music stopped.
I’d been playing Johnny Cash’s greatest hits nonstop for the past two days. He was our favorite.
We’d been engaged for six months. I discovered later that she was married and living with her husband the whole time.
I laid out one more line, snorted it, then took a swig of Jack to balance my hammering heart. I went downstairs and out into the night.
The trees, moon and sky were as foreign and menacing as the objects in my bedroom.
I decided I would run to Ingomar Elementary School—exactly a mile away. It was where Danielle and I used to walk.
The sky was clear—I could see all the constellations with shimmering brilliance: Cassiopeia, Virgo, Sagittarius. I knew them all. It was one of the things Danielle used to enjoy hearing me talk about. Now, their magic was gone—just Pascal’s horrifying immensities.
I turned up my cell phone and hit repeat on “Walk the Line.” It was the song that seemed to sustain me. One I never get sick of. The synthetic fire of the cocaine was still lighting me up. And I ran hard to stay ahead of the pain.
I felt the ache of early onset of arthritis in my right knee. Twenty years of constant wrestling had taken its toll. The two-days lack of sleep made it worse.
As I sped up even more, I raised the volume as high as it would go.
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
The whole thing was enwoven with Danielle. There was no escaping that—everything was. But I was focusing on Johnny’s guitar rhythm more than the lyrics. It was close to midnight so I knew the blaring music might disturb some people. I didn’t care.
After my scare in the classroom this morning, when my heart felt like it was beating three-hundred beats a minute—I had to call Davey because I feared I really was at the point of overdose.
“No, you aren’t dying. Trust me, brother, I’ve been there a hundred times. This is just a panic attack. You are not going to die. Close your eyes and breathe.”
It was enough to calm me and get me through that day of substitute teaching.
Maslow talks about peak experiences. I was having an inverted peak experience. An inverted sublime where I saw reality stripped of every illusion and consolation. I sprinted the final half mile to the school. Beech trees lined Harmony Road, and countless fireflies gleamed out amongst their leaves.
This would have seemed magical to me yesterday. Now, it made me sick. A bunch of goddamn bullshit. I decided to sprint the final quarter mile to the school—even though my heart was already racing. I thought it might lessen the nervousness.
When I got to Ingomar Elementary, I walked down the small hill that led to the baseball field and a swing set. It was the same baseball field where I used to play pitcher in little league—till I gave it up to devote all my time to wrestling.
I sat down on one of the swings. Danielle and I often sat there together for half an hour or so—talking and swinging—before making the return walk to my house.
The coke was still doing its job, but it was just barely keeping the real horror from bursting through. To make sure I kept it that way, I helped myself to another snort.
I was swinging back and forth while Johnny was playing. To add a little variety, I clicked on a different hour video of Johnny Cash Greatest Hits. The first song was the cute and clever “A Boy Named Sue.”
My daddy left home when I was three
And he didn’t leave much to ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
As a poet, I appreciated the artistry. It’s slangy but well-wrought. His “Man in Black” was similar:
Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine
I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin’ cars
And fancy clothes
But just so we’re reminded
Of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be
A man in black
That’s poetry, plainspoken, but Cash makes it sing. It dawned on me that I too was wearing a man in black costume. I smiled. I wasn’t wearing it for the sake of the poor and oppressed. I was wearing it in protest of the cosmos being a thinly disguised hell.
The thought brought a grim smile. I was now swinging as high as I could—like when I went to school here.
“That’s right, Johnny, fuck rainbows!” I called out into the night.
The next song was “Cause I Love You.” It caught me off guard. I couldn’t bear to look at the video because of its close associations with Danielle. I figured just hearing it would be OK. I was fine till the lines
If you wake up in the darkness, I will put my arms around you
And hold you till the morning light comes shining through the trees
In the hotel, after she’d said, I love you with my whole heart!—the time I thought she was asleep, but she was awake thinking of me as I’d been of her. Then she sang those two lines, as she put her arms around me.
That’s when it all came up.
Exactly like when you have to vomit and can’t make it to the bathroom.
I got off the swing and collapsed to my knees—and just started sobbing. I thought of that time in the car as teenagers—there are a thousand people in my class and not one of them remotely compares to you.
And then all the cruel and heartless things I said on the phone this morning.
Yet it was my own heart my words eviscerated.
I couldn’t bear to think of the other things I said. I knew they could never be taken back. She deserved them. But even if I ever wanted to apologize—which wasn’t likely—I shattered it beyond repair today. At least the part that made it beautiful.
I couldn’t stop sobbing—my tears were dripping into the dirt. About five minutes later I regained some composure. That’s when I had the eerie sense of being watched. I got up and looked around. “I can feel you’re here. Why don’t you come out like a man and face me?”
No reply. Just eerie silence.
I was in a heightened, uncanny state now. When I was kneeling, it was like a part of me was standing a few feet away and observing myself—a literal ex-tasis.
When I got up, I felt some new power—divine afflatus—inside me. The unbearable sadness turned again to white-hot anger. I directed it at the invisible figure I sensed was nearby.
“Why do you always cause heartbreak and pain and then hide like a cosmic clown?”
Still no reply.
“You can hide all you want. But you did this to me! Danielle might have been the immediate cause, but you? Providence my ass. You planned it from the beginning, didn’t you? Just so you could sit there in the shadows and laugh at me. It’s a real riot, isn’t it?”
I took off my shirt. I was starting to sweat. “Come on, why are you always hiding up there in cloud-cuck-me-land?” I kneeled down and made one more small line on the mirror I kept on me for the purpose, then snorted it up.
Further emboldened, I said, “Just come and face me for five minutes, that’s all I ask. And don’t give me the whole “who pulled the great leviathan in with a fishhook” bit. What a stupid book that is. You wrecked Job—killed his kids, stripped his livestock, covered him in boils—then strutted out the like The Wizard of Oz: I’m way stronger than you—so shut up, little worm! That’s your holy writ? Its only possible justification is black humor. It certainly shines no light on you.”
“And all those idiotic Sunday School stories. About how you came down and wrestled with Jacob. Is that why you’re so afraid to come and face me now?”
I was shooting single and double leg penetration steps into the hard ground as I was saying this. Faking, level-changing, weaving—I’d turned the Johnny Cash video back to “Walk the Line” again and cranked the volume all the way up.
My knees would punish me in the morning for abusing them like this, but this was the real McCoy—Dionysian frenzy.
None of it was acting—my challenging words came up as inexorably as my emotional vomit. It would’ve been impossible to stop them.
“You and her dad are two peas in a pod—both cold and unrelenting sons of bitches. It’s why he’s so fond of you. And why he listens to all those halfwits like Jerry Falwell.”
“I just offered you a formal challenge, big guy. You refuse to come down? Afraid I’ll hobble you like Jake did?”
I was still circling and shooting at shadows. The motion and the music played into my boldness and flow of words. Only it was not me anymore. Since the time I stepped out of my body I was Dionysus.
At a certain point my vision intensified. Cocaine and alcohol don’t make you see things that aren’t there. But with me, when I’m in a visionary, intoxicated state, the beings and images from the subtle planes come into my brain in a vivid way.
“I was a loyal servant too. Has any man had more heartfelt awe for your Potemkin-cosmos! I’ve written how many poems celebrating the beauty of your world? Yet you betray me like this? You’re a real piece of work!”
I imagined hitting a blast double on someone who looked like Michelangelo’s Creator.
I started concentrating and visualizing him more intensely—sitting on a chair on the other side of the field-mat. The version on the top of the Sistine Chapel. He was starting to come into focus. The more I moved and challenged, the more substantial he became. Till I looked towards the opposing corner of my makeshift field-mat—and he really seemed to be sitting there!
I walked over to the chair he was sitting on. Regal and aloof. I circled around it, observing him from different angles. His impassive face just kept staring forward. Like I wasn’t even there.
He was muscular and sinewy beneath his body-length robe. I was not impressed, and told him so. “You lack all feminine grace. Your outside is as hard as your inside.”
I walked ten feet back to the center of the field, halfway to the pitcher’s mound. “We don’t have to go six minutes. Just give me two minutes and forty-three seconds.” The length of this video.
I hit replay on “Walk the Line” one final time.
At first, he just sat there—like he hadn’t heard, like he’d just wait me out.
But when I said, “Man, you got no balls!” he stood up and began walking toward me.
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I could see he was not going to say anything, so I filled in the gaps. “I’m only 170 and you are clearly over 215–loaded dice. I’d expect no less.”
Moments later, I made first contact. I could almost feel his flowing locks and sinewy arms when we began hand-fighting. I was trying to wrench his head into a front headlock, but his neck was too strong.
Yes I’ll admit, that I’m a fool for you
I played it safe, circled. When he finally lifted his arms to engage, I went for a Russian tie—the two-on-one grip—but he shrugged it off like he was swatting a gnat. His strength startled me—it dwarfed mine.
I pressed inside, hunting for a collar tie. However, I couldn’t drag his head down. In the background Cash sang:
And for you I know I’d even turn the tide
As he pushed away from the close chest-to-chest position, I circled left. When he reached to make contact again, I tried to drag his right arm, but he quickly re-dragged me and almost caught me in a side body-lock. I kept moving forward, however and was able to regain my position and square up again.
When he collared my head, I reached up did the same to him. I tried a throw-by, but he saw it coming and circled to close the angle I’d created—the small opening every wrestler lives for.
Time was running out. If I just kept hand-fighting like this he’d call it a draw.
Not good enough.
I thought of an arm-spin or headlock. Too easy to block. Instead, I went for broke with the same throw I’d hit in the Greco finals. Dionysus showed me the opening—a straight belly-to-belly suplex.
When we were pummeling, I yanked hard and his foot landed awkwardly. That was enough. I locked up his right arm in a body lock. Perhaps his omniscience faltered. Either way, I had to go now.
I stepped in, lifted, arched—a perfect over-the-top throw. But when we came down my left shoulder smashed into the dirt. White pain exploded. “Fuck!”
My shoulder ripped out of socket. As the pain spread, I spat through clenched teeth: “Sore loser. You did this.”
Later, I doubted this even happened. Maybe I was just wrestling shadows.
But when I was writhing in the dirt, cursing the heavens, there was no doubt. I grinned through the pain as I shook my fist skyward in triumph.
When the coke wore off, my shoulder would hurt worse, maybe end my season.
But as I walked back up the hill and began limping towards home, I thought:
“It’s at least a story to tell Davey. That crazy bastard will believe me!”