Say My Name

How could he do such a thing?

There’s this episode of The Fugitive that just cropped up in my mind a few days ago and it doesn’t seem to want to leave. It’s kind of an earworm variant.

I don’t recall the title, and I’m not sure of the plot—I only saw it once—but I do remember the opening scene.

Those of you in my age bracket will know The Fugitive, which ran from 1963 to 1967, and starred David Janssen as Richard Kimball, a doctor who is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death.

However, “fate moves its huge hand,” as narrator William Conrad tell us in the opening credits, when Kimball’s train to the death house derails and he escapes.

Each episode sees Kimball working at menial jobs under fake names, trying to avoid the relentless Lt. Gerard, while searching for the one-armed man he saw fleeing his house on the night of the murder.

I enjoy the show, particularly the earlier black and white episodes, and it’s great to the early work of actors, writers and directors who went on to much bigger things.

It’s also the first television that actually ended—as opposed to just going tele-valhalla when the ratings slipped.

Now the episode I’m think of opens with Kimball working in a kitchen someplace, yet again, as Conrad tells us in the voiceover how exhausted Kimball is from always being on the run, always looking over his shoulder.

One night when he’s leaving work, Kimball signs his timesheet like he does at the end of every shift. Only this time instead of using his bogus name du jour, he puts down “Richard Kimball” and walks out.

The scene amazes me. Being caught means he’ll be heading back to Death Row for a date with the electric chair, yet he makes this incredible blunder.

Sign Here

A co-worker tells him about this screw-up, but it’s too late because the boss has already called the cops. And Kimball's running again.

Sigmond Freud said that nothing is accidental, so does this mean that Kimball secretly want to be captured? That would be suicide, literally, since once Gerard gets him, he’ll be taken to a place of execution.

But I think the character is just tired of running and tired of lying. You can make a lot of bad decisions when you’re tired.

One of the bitter ironies of the show is that this successful, gifted physician is forced to dig ditches, wash dishes or any other manual labor just to stay alive.

He just wanted to be Richard Kimball again. And it almost cost him his life.

What is this episode doing rattling around my psyche? I think part of it comes my fears of self-sabotage.

I’ve gotten in my own way more times than I’d like to think of—the things I said, or failed to say, or things I did, or should have done--so seeing someone pull such a dangerous stunt both terrifies and fascinates me.

And there have been some many times in my life when I wasn’t being my authentic self. I was being the clown in the vain hope that people will like me.

It’s pointless to replay the past of course. My father often warned me that if you spend too much time looking behind you, you’ll miss what’s in front of you.

But since this segment from a 60-year TV show has decided to surface in my skull, I might as well see if it can teach me a lesson.