Young Love, Old Pain

Never one for self-reflection, it was truly one of Mal’s weakest personality traits. He was the local’s favorite fifty-year-old grumpy man. He could’ve been a veteran; he could’ve worked in coal mines for all they knew. The people who lived around Mal knew very little about him. He wasn’t interested in letting them get to know him at all. All they could figure out about him, is that he is one of those old men who do old men things. Like fishing, yelling at children, sometimes he even camps, although he’s thought he is too old for it. He wasn’t incredibly good at fishing, or even scaring children. He lost his respect when he lost his voice. Years passed and he gave up on scaring the children. He turned himself into a hermit. Not the type of hermit that stays in it’s shell all day, but the type that goes out into the world, only to remain as small and unnoticed as possible. Mal didn’t want these people to talk to him or even look at him. He hated all of them. And he certainly did not need them, and they certainly did not need him.

Every day was the same for him. He woke up, scratched his balls, considered changing his yellow musty socks to cleaner ones but every time he tried, he realized he only owned one pair of socks. If someone called Mal a minimalist, they would be right. Mal would yell and scream at them, probably calling them a hipster or a piece of shit or both, but they would’ve been right. He wasn’t always so disgusting though. No one who lived near him knew it, but Mal used to have a a man he loved who loved him back.

He and Mal bought an RV and traveled the country, drove to places like Mexico and the Grand Canyon. They were adventurers. They searched for sights they couldn’t see anywhere else, giving them feelings that they had never experienced before. They grew to love adventuring together, almost as much as they loved each other. His name was Emmanuel, but Mal called him Manny. Manny and Mal had known each other for over twenty years by the time Manny died.

Fast forward another eight years and Mal is sitting in his one-bedroom trailer park home, sitting on his plaid couch alone. Old stains litter the sofa, a yellow one that could be from piss or vomit. A white stain closer on the armchair of the sofa is probably an old cleaning stain. Manny was a much better cleaner than Mal. The stain on Mal's shirt was from Manny’s fresh baked cake. Manny was also a much better baker than Mal, and was messier too. The walls of the trailer home were littered with photos of the world. A photo of a beach at night and the only reason the two men in the back of the photo are visible is because of the large sombreros they were wearing. A photo of a giant mountain. A painting of a waterfall and a lake. A painting of the Amazon River. A picture of the ancient relics and tombs of the Aztecs. Peaking out behind some of the photos were different colored wall papers adorned with scratches by an animal or a person. It was unknown.

The month after Manny died, Mal sold their RV. He bought a used trailer home and moved into a plot of land in the far corner of the neighborhood. Mal stood up and walked over to his kitchen counter, grunting all the while. He was forever angry. It had been so long since he had any other feelings. If he simply tried to remember the years he spent travelling, if he looked for a second at the photos he gathered on the walls of the home, there was a chance he could remember the joy and beauty those days brought him. He had a chance at feeling something other than angry, but if he looked at those photos or thought of those old adventures, he could’ve also felt the pain and heartbreak he felt the first year after Manny died.

Mal grabbed some pants and shuffled into them. He slipped on some sneakers and grabbed a brown jacket that was one size too big for him. He found a lighter on the counter and a pack of cigarettes and as he picked up his keys, his hand found its way to the nicotine as well and slyly slipped an entire pack in his pocket as if he were hiding it from himself. While he walked to town, he puffed his cigarette and thought about what he needed to get today and the fastest routes and ways to get it done. Mal was not lazy, he absolutely looked like he would be, but he wasn’t. A dedicated and devoted man in youth had a passion that gave him motivation daily. After that motivation left, his new motivation was running away from his feelings. Distractions were a necessity for that, constant distractions.

Mal stepped into an alleyway two blocks away from the grocery store he was entering. The grocery store was the busiest place he went. It was emotionally draining and tiring for him. He couldn’t help but think of what could’ve been with Manny. He couldn’t help but want to cry at the thought of how hungry he sometimes got. He couldn’t stop tearing his hair out fearing homelessness because he still has to pay for the plot of land where his trailer home is. The grocery store was a reminder that he was challenged on most fronts and he didn’t know how to get out of it. He couldn’t buy much with the little amount of money he had. Mal used to be a travel nurse. The places he and Manny would travel to were places his contract could get him temporary nursing jobs at until he moved again.

There in the alleyway, Mal thought about how he used to be a nurse. As he fiddled around the inside pocket of his coat, he thought about what it used to feel like when he would help others. He couldn’t remember anymore; he hadn’t remembered in a long time. His hands found a silver case that looked like it could’ve been a fancy cigarette holder. He opened it up and let his eyes rest on his medicine.

The medicine he takes is not actually medicine, nor is it legal. Two years before Manny died, Mal was attacked during one of their adventures. It doesn't matter what had happened, all that mattered was that the attackers left Mal scared and scarred. He turned to a drug that helped him calm down. It made him feel hazy, like he was in a dream, like he didn't have to live with the fear and pain and sadness he had every day.

For two years, Mal lived half as happy as the normal person. Because of his great love for adventuring and the love he and his partner shared, it seemed as though the attack was simply gone. He took his drugs and then after a couple months, Mal felt like he had healed. It seemed that way until Manny died.

It wasn’t often that Mal went to crowded places. He hated having to see and talk to other people, he hated having to take this medicine and how it made him feel empty and groggy after it wore off. Inside the case was a cloth, a little needle, a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, small bandages and pieces of gauze and a small vial of blue liquid.

Mal felt the rough brick wall he leaned on. He slowly moved to sit down, and carefully laid his tools in front of him between his legs to ensure no one could sneak a peak at his medicine. He cleaned the needle with the rubbing alcohol and gauze and then carefully cleaned a small spot on the inside of his elbow. He took the vial that the liquid was in and entered it with the small needle. The moment he hated the most had arrived. As he put the needle into his skin, he shoved the medicine into his veins and closed his eyes tight.

The drug gave him chills for the first few minutes after taking it. It always did. He felt like he injected ice into his body, the way he froze up after he filled his veins with it. He shivered and grabbed some more alcohol wipes and gauze and sanitized the needle. He bandaged himself up and then shut the case and slid it into his interior pocket.

As he stood, Mal felt lighter, but light-headed. He reached for support of the faithful brick wall next to him and when he opened his eyes, he could tell he had opened them more than before or maybe it was just because he always walked with his eyes on the ground and now, he walked with his head held straight up. He turned the corner of the building and saw the grocery store and walked straight to it.

The only reason Mal needed the drug was to be around people. If no one were ever in the store, he would have no problem. Of course, he would also steal everything but who can blame him? The drug was like a cheat sheet on social environments. He didn’t feel the heavy exhaustion of trying to speak to someone. If they asked how he was, he mustered up enough energy to have a conversation. Seeing the bakery section didn’t make him cry because he missed Manny’s cookies. He couldn't even remember that then. The way this drug works is similar to that of temporary amnesia. Mal’s mind could get triggered by the sight of random things, the scents, things that connect him to his past and connect him to his fear and anger. This drug makes it so the triggers are forgotten, and so are the things associated with it. So here he was, drug induced in the grocery store. Completely unaware of the pain he felt for the death of the man he loved, because he can’t remember who he is on that drug.

While leaving the grocery store, he felt nauseous. The drug was wearing off and when it did, it caused him only sickness and pain and sadness. It was a rush back of all the things he worked so hard to push away. He leaned on the same brick wall he passed on his way to the grocery store. His vision was blurry as his head felt dazed. Mal quickly refocused after he heard concerning noises coming from the alleyway just ten feet in front of him. In the alley, a man dressed in all black was hitting a woman.

The attacker was wearing a completely black suit, his eyes were the only thing showing and they were pits of darkness themselves. He saw the attacker subdue the woman and rest her on the cemented ground. The woman’s cheek was pressed up against the cement, her arms were tied around her back. The man in black was saying something, but he said it so quietly that Mal could not hear him. After the man in black stopped making noise, the woman began shaking and wiggling. Hushed noises came from the woman as the attacker tied a gag in her mouth. Then Mal watched as the attacker picked a knife up near this black bag laying at the feet of the woman on the ground. Mal had been so caught up in trying to figure out what the man was saying he didn’t see that bag or the knife.

Few seconds passed and Mal stood behind the man with a rock the size of a burger in his hand. It wasn’t very light out, so there was no shadow, but as Mal hit the rock off the man’s head, the man stabbed Mal in the leg with his small knife. Mal shouted out in pain and dropped the rock on the attackers passed out body. As no grunt came out of the attacker, Mal safely concluded the man was good and unconscious. He grabbed the kit in his pocket and held two bandages, he put them over top of the wound, but it did little to stop the bleeding. He softly turned his attention to the woman on the ground, carefully articulating what he is doing while he makes slow calculated movements.

“I am going to grab this knife and cut these ropes.” And as he did, he saw her wound. The man had not cut her deeply, but he had badly sliced her arm, most likely when he realized Mal was behind him and turned swiftly and suddenly.

“Do you feel pain?” He asked the woman. She couldn’t have been over thirty. She had worn circles surrounding her eyes and frizzy blonde hair wrapped in a ponytail. Her sweatshirt was a picture of a garden and was covered in tiny little pebbles and the dirt that accompanied them. She slowly moved to sit up and the more vertical she got; the more blood spilled out of her arm. Instinctually, Mal grabbed his own cigarette-case-first-aid-kit and grabbed the few pieces of gauze he had in there.

“I’m going to hold gauze on your cut.” He slowly held his hand out to place gauze on her arm. “Do you think you can hold that there for me? While I call the police?”

“No.” She stammered. “I mean . . . yes, I can hold it. But don’t call the police.” He stared at her and then at the still unconscious man lying next to her. “Can you stand?” He asked her and so she stood up. But as soon as she stood up, she fell over against the wall and Mal grabbed her elbow to help support her. “Do you have anyone you can call?” He asked her and she stared back and slowly shook her head. Her eyes looked like they had gotten heavier, and she was paler than she was before. Maybe it was because of the adrenaline but her face had been so full of color when it was pressed up to the cement.

Still feeling the effects of his own drug, Mal got a head rush and needed to hold the wall for support as well. The girl witnessed his stumble and asked him, “What’s wrong with you?” She closed her mouth and stood still. Instead of answering Mal said, “I live a few blocks down the road, I can help stitch you up, but I can’t help much besides that.” The girl nodded her head, “Thank you.” She said it as clearly as possible even though her voice was shaken. She grabbed the black bag on the ground and threw it over her shoulder, the side she hadn’t been cut on. “Would you like me to carry that for you?” Mal asked her. She pointed to his bag he had on his shoulder, full of a few items from the grocery store and shook her head. Together they walked slowly to his home.

Mal’s groceries had been carried home in the bag on his shoulder. He relieved himself of its weight upon arrival at his trailer home. The bag rested on top of his small kitchen counter. The girl froze standing in the doorway to the trailer home, as if she were considering running away. As if she could even run. Mal felt the grogginess and the exhaustion he always felt as the drug had worn off. It had been at least an hour and a half since he injected himself. His forehead was drenched with sweat as well as his back. He only started feeling the pain of the stab wound in his leg now, as the drug blocks out pain. “You can sit down here; I am going to grab my medical kit.” Mal said to the woman, as he walked to the back of his trailer. She looked around and hesitantly sat. She held her black bag tightly against her. Mal limped back to the couch and laid a large white first aid kit across his messy coffee table.

The woman glanced at the kit and then watched Mal as he pulled his baggy pants up to reveal his small calf and the stab wound his blood was leaking out of. He grabbed things to sanitize his wound and then he dressed and wrapped it. Securing the bandages with gauze tape, he approved his work and lowered his leg back to the ground where his pants fell back over his calf. “Do you get hurt a lot?” the woman asked him to point to his kit. Mal’s drug had now started to significantly wear off, he grunted and shook his head. No longer feeling able to speak, no longer aware of the care-free mind that the drug gave him, all he felt was the anger that had been their before, and with a slight confusion as to how the woman wound up at his home. He remembered what happened to her, but he didn’t remember stopping the man, or inviting her to his home to help. He knew that he brought the kit out the sew her up though.

While he refocused his attention, the woman kept looking at her bag and at the windows. She asked him, “How long until this heals?” But Mal didn’t respond. Like the zombie of a man he became he softly grabbed the gauze off the woman’s arm and wiped it with the sanitized gauze to clean the wound. She yelped in pain and shot him a look. She whispered something under her breath and Mal felt a pang at the back of his head. He felt an ounce of pity for this woman. “Is that all?” She asked him. Mal silently shook his head. He grabbed a bag of butterfly stitches and bandages. He began squeezing her arm and placed the stitches on one at a time. “How do you know how to do this?" the woman asked Mal. He grunted in response.

After applying all the butterfly stitches Mal carefully applied a large bandage to cover the entire wound and all of the butterfly stitches used to close it. The woman felt her arm where the cut was and felt the bandages on top of it. “Were you a doctor or something?” She asked him while still feeling her own neck. Mal just ignored her question and began packing up his supplies. He looked at her and when she made eye contact with him, he looked at the door. “I get it.” She said to him. He rose and limped walking the medical kit back to his room.

The woman stood next to the door and held onto her black bag. Mal returned in the small living room area and saw her standing near the front door. “You were a lot nicer earlier.” She spoke. He looked up at her from where he was staring at the floor. “I was on drugs earlier.” His raspy voice muttered this too her with a stone face. She stared back at him with a certain look of clarity. “Thank you for not calling the police. Also, for not asking me about it.” He grunted at her once again. Very slowly she reached into her bag and set a smaller bag on the counter. When she set it down it tipped over and revealed twenty-dollar bills and more fell out beneath the first bundle. Shocked, Mal stared at the pile of money, it didn’t solve all of his problems and wasn’t the answer to everything. But as the woman opened the door to leave, Mal said “Thank you” in a voice much deeper and course than the one he spoke in earlier.