An American Lion

I can scarcely recall how many times I have faced death. Not counting the seven times I have ingested antifreeze, and the five times I have broken up bum scuffles that involved pitchforks, shovels or knives, or the dozen or so times my brothers and I used short fuses with old dynamite, I think I have faced death at least twenty-five times, if not more. I am not indestructible. I am not easy to kill. In fact, I used to tell people, you can’t kill me—I’m a Republican.

When you’ve faced death so many times, it becomes routine. I am accustomed to the rush of adrenaline. I know that hot sensation in my cheeks and in my elbows. I can feel my body begin to tense above the waist, and that’s when I know I’ll probably have a heart attack if I don’t take a few Bayer aspirin. My mind clears, the sounds in the background disappear, and everything becomes focused. Often, I am running when the sensation arrives, and my pace quickens, my knees ache but they carry me forward, obediently. My hands don’t sweat, but my forehead becomes moist fairly quickly. That’s what sleeves are for, I suppose. I know what it is like to hear the roar, to feel the rocks and the dirt rain down, and I know what it means to be alive. It’s second nature to me. What some call the Pucker Factor, I am not acquainted with. I have never felt any puckering, nor have I felt loose bowels come flying out at inopportune times. I feel nothing below the waist, actually. That’s why people can kick me in the nuts and not stop me.

This is why I share the eternal bonds of brotherhood with men who are my equal:

John Geiger has sifted through the survival stories of people like Sevigny for six years. Adventurers, sailors, prisoners of war and pilots, they all tell strikingly similar stories of being saved from death by a mysterious presence, he says.

In the book “The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible,” Geiger attempts to solve the mystery of that presence.

Most of the people who’ve encountered the Third Man aren’t mystics, says Geiger, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto and governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. They include a NASA astronaut, aviator Charles Lindbergh, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton (he coined the “Third Man” term) and atheists.

Third Man encounters aren’t restricted to exotic locales, either, Geiger says: He experienced a Third Man-like encounter in the study of his home while writing his book.

“When I give talks about the book, there are always a few people who will come up afterward to say they have similar stories,” Geiger said. “The debate around the book is not ‘are people actually encountering an unseen being’ but rather, ‘what is it?’ “

I don’t know if there is a Third Man in my life. As I have said, everything goes silent when I am running from an exploding car or throwing evidence into an old rock quarry or launching myself into the air after a semi-nude Eastern European porn star who is balancing atop an out-of-control jet ski.

Recently, we hired a delightful man named Peej who has become indispensable to me. Whenever I find myself about to dip my finger into a radiator and have a slurp, he is there, whispering in my ear, “no, Norman. That’s going to put you in hospital again.” Whenever I find myself challenging bikers to a game of tennis, he is there, whispering in my ear, “no, Norman—they have guns.” Whenever I’m about to take Father’s wheel chair and push it down nineteen flights of stairs, he is there to hold my arms, lock the brake with his right foot, and save Father’s life by using all of his weight to keep me from lifting my free arm and using the remote control to bring down the robotic arm that would hit Father’s wheelchair from the other side and send it flying.

He’s a good man, this Mr. Peej. I’m hoping he works out.