13,001 words.
When he was 15 he was a Stratego champion. Not many people play Stratego today. In the United States it was a little popular during the 1970s and 80s. It’s been mildly popular in Europe since it was invented during the early part of the 20th century.
But for what it’s worth, at one point, Doug was a champion and a world ranked player. His parents liked it because it kept him busy. Out of their hair. Unlike chess might have his passion for Stratego wasn’t leading to much of anything. Not even good math grades. The prize money occasionally paid for trips. He won tournaments in Las Vegas and Calgary. He finished in the money in New York City. But if he didn’t win he had to pay his own way. His parents didn’t like that. It would be a stretch to say they encouraged him. But they didn’t discourage him and that was a lot, given their track record.
In what was surely the greatest moment of his adolescence, his high school held a fundraiser centered around his Stratego ability. By contributing $20 a person of any “age, size, or brains” could face off against the “world’s greatest Stratego player,” as the handwritten posters around the school said. The proceeds went to the construction of a new recreation room.
To keep things moving along Doug was simultaneously pitted against 20 opponents. Twenty desks were arranged in a circle in the school’s biggest classroom. Doug was in the middle. He’d walk around the circle clockwise. It was so quiet. The only sounds you could hear were the occasional scrape of the plastic pieces on the board and the shuffling of Doug’s feet from desk to desk.
He’d survey the situation, make a single move, and walk to the next desk. It was so easy for him. He knew what move people would make before they made it. He won most games within 20 minutes. A few held on. But never more than 35 minutes. During that day he beat exactly 100 people, not losing a single match. Of course, not many people really knew the rules of Stratego.
The event was a success. People came and went. They ate cookies, chatted about things. The school raised a few bucks for the rec room. Got some good publicity when some of the local media showed up. One weekly paper even put a picture of Doug on its front. For Doug the whole scene was surreal. For lack of a better word Doug was a dork. He was undersized and had very little self-confidence. He had a handful of friends. A small handful. Mostly boys he played soccer or baseball with. Yet there he was, walking in the middle of that circle. Pictures being taken at every angle. People gasping and spontaneously bursting into applause. Amazed. For one Sunday afternoon people were in awe of Doug. He loved it. He was the puppeteer.
However, Doug’s biggest hopes for the day weren’t even related to Stratego. There were two or three girls he had hoped would show up. Actually, he would have settled for any one of them being there. Of course he had his preference, but it didn’t matter much which one showed or didn’t. He just wanted at least one of them to see him strutting his stuff. To see the young and old alike bend at his mercy. Surely, the girls would be attracted to that. They would see the true leader, that for so long had been twisted and crumpled inside his heart.
The night before the big day Doug lay in his bed. He imagined several scenarios in which the girls would appear. Separately. These ideas were fairly tame. One of them would walk in and be so enamored by his skill they would immediately fall in love with him. They’d watch and wish he’d teach them the finer points of Stratego. Maybe at their house. Then things might advance to the point of him making out with them in the adjoining cafeteria or in their bedroom. Even sticking his hand under their skirts. It all seemed possible as he lay awake in his bed. Although he had zero practical information for such encounters. Eventually, he would come to regard Stratego as a hindrance to acquiring such practical information.
One of the girls did drop by the fundraiser and Doug’s heart nearly jumped out from his rib cage. He’d seen himself in her bedroom the night before. A Pepsi mobile. He had one too. Hanging over her bed as he ran his hands on her legs. After she’d walked in the classroom Doug spent the next 10 minutes trying hard to look determined, reserved, and valiant. Not looking at her once. Allowing her to come to him. It was his day. Who wouldn’t notice him? Well, the girl for one. Later, after the event, she pretended she didn’t even know him. Even though they sat next to one another in a class and had occasionally spoken. In the process Doug nearly lost a game to a surly 21-year-old truck driver who he had big chubby biceps, a pot belly and a mustache. Doug had lost his focus. He didn’t find out until years later the girl and the 21-year-old had been a couple at the time.
Doug’s family owned a winery. It wasn’t a big winery when Doug was young. But it later became a sensation when the Livermore area erupted into a chic wine hotspot in the mid 1990s. By then Doug’s father had already sold it. He made some money, but not a lot of money. Considering what the winery is worth now, he made very little money.
The winery was ultimately sold off in the wake of a messy divorce between Doug’s parents. Their love, or whatever it was, had always been doomed to fail. After Doug’s mother became pregnant with him, they “got caught up in the moment” and married. Doug’s younger sister was also an accident. Both parents immediately regretted both the marriage and their children. They expressed this in both direct and indirect ways.
Both parents had various lovers that, short of bringing them into the family’s home to fuck in the living room, they did very little to hide. Doug’s father was especially fond of a bar on the outskirts of Livermore called Chan’s, which was well-known in the right circles as having the youngest and most beautiful Asian prostitutes in northern California. And on several occasions men that Doug’s mother had affairs with showed up at the house, often hysterical, pleading on the porch because she had promised them this, that, or the other thing.
The winery had been in Doug’s mother’s family for three generations. She was an only child and had inherited it because he father was sentimental and couldn’t bear to sell it himself. Out of some deference to him that no one could understand, given her relative selfishness, she didn’t sell it when he signed it over to her 10 years before he died. She had only moved there in the first place because neither she nor her husband made money. Both had degrees in art, and both were “artists.” Though neither made much artwork save the occasional drug-induced yard sculpture or late night Pollock-esque wall painting in the dinning room. The house was free, so they lived there. Neither had the slightest interest in winemaking. They drank wine. But Boone’s or Boudreaux they could have cared less.
When Doug’s grandfather had a stroke and went into a coma Doug’s father badgered his wife into putting the property on the market “just to see what it might fetch.” The asking price was low and one of the other local wineries eagerly overbid. His parent’s final argument was over whether or not his grandfather should be clinically dead before they sold the winery. In the end Doug’s mother yielded and the place was sold. He died a few weeks later anyway.
Somehow, freeing themselves of the house freed them from Livermore, their family, and any other shred of responsibility either of them had. Neither parent wanted to deal with the kids anymore. Doug’s father beat his mother to the punch, leaving for a whirlwind two month trip of Southeast Asia before landing in Northern Thailand semi-permanently. His mother joined a tantric yoga/sex club and moved into its lavish commune in Jackson Heights, San Francisco. There she became engaged in a partnership with a married couple she met there. The three of them fell in love, left the cult, and moved to Baja California.
By the time his mother left Livermore Doug was 20. Legally he was old enough to fend for himself and become his 16-year-old sister’s guardian. Before she left, Doug’s mom helped them find an apartment near downtown Livermore. She gave them $20,000. It seemed like a good sum to the kids at the time. But considering the kids didn’t have jobs and were living in pricey northern California, it was nothing.
By this time Doug was still playing Stratego, but with a guilty conscience. He started to feel the game limited him socially. Stunting his ascent into adulthood. Part of this had to do with the departure of his parents. He suddenly gained a great deal of responsibility. First he quit one of the online Stratego clubs he’d founded. He also cancelled his entry into a tournament in San Bernardino. He still loved Stratego, but he had this creeping feeling that he was an adult playing a child’s game. Men must put away their childish games, or something, as the saying went in his mind.
On the night that his mother told Doug and his sister she was moving to the commune in San Francisco Doug threw his Stratego game in a garbage receptacle behind he and his sister’s new apartment. He went to bed that night, feeling slightly more adult. There was no question, he felt. He had to fend for himself.
He woke up the next morning. He stared at the empty table he’d played Stratego on since he was 10. It was a miniature wooden table, modeled to look like the kind of table one might find in Buckingham Palace. Bejeweled, coated in gold. But it looked almost lonely. Lonely like him. He ran downstairs and pulled it out of the trash. He opened the board, holding it in his hands. There was the familiar bent corner, from when he’d picked it up in anger and thrown it like a Frisbee against the wall. There were the stickers from the various tournaments on the bottom. He stood there staring at it until he heard the garbage men pull up in their truck. He couldn’t bear to let it go.
Doug and his sister got jobs. His sister worked after school at Mountain Mike’s Pizza on 1st Street. Doug, via an ad in the newspaper, got a job as an in-home-care worker through the state of California. Both he and his sister needed to buy cars to get to work. Needless to say they burned through the $20,000 fairly quickly. The cars weren’t all that good but they worked. They managed to pay the rent on time, eat relatively well, go to the occasional movie, etc.
Doug always had trouble making friends. There were several reasons for this. He was small. Not attractive. Shy. But maybe worst of all, he was controlling. Part of this was due to his parents, who were uncontrollable to each other and anyone else around them. Least of all their children. From a very early age Doug learned that to control people and things was a method of survival. Controlling his parents to any degree called for a great deal of effort and manipulation. This was largely where the Stratego ability came from. A board game was something he could control. All he had to do was learn how to play it better than other people. It could have been sports or grades, but it happened to be Stratego. He was lucky he found it. When he could control the game he could control the opponent. Sometimes, when he controlled the opponent, he could control his parents. It was the only time they paid attention to him. They gave him attention, which at times resembled love. Doug had trouble disrupting this pattern in other aspects of his life. Even when he was older and his parents were gone.
His sister had the same tendencies. But unlike Doug, she had perhaps the most common and base method of control at her disposal; sex. Slightly overdeveloped at an early age, and reasonably pretty, she lost her virginity to an 18-year-old days after her 14th birthday. She was with him nearly two years, but he dumped her on his way to college at Chico State. Once her parents were out of the picture there was no stopping her. Old, young, handsome, ugly, for her fucking reduced the mightiest of men, and frequently women, to little more than sniveling babes. She was well-known as a slut, but she knew better. People lashed out at her, feeling jealous or rejected because they couldn’t keep her. Almost all of them secretly wished they could do what she was doing. People could fuck her but they could never have her. This drove them crazy. The control was also important to her, but she, like Doug, was sensitive. Despite her parents utter selfishness she was kind, caring and loving. This drove people absolutely insane. Mike of Mountain Mike’s being an obvious case in point.
Doug didn’t have a sexual outlet. Hence the job as an in-home care worker. Whatever love he might have felt by being close with another person he achieved in small doses by helping people. It wasn’t his preferred method by any stretch. He would have been much happier screwing his brains out like his sister, but he just didn’t have access to that world. Instead he had in-home care clients. He would pick them up and take them to doctor’s appointments, run errands with them, tidy up their house, make them meals, or just hang out and watch TV and chit chat. His clients became dependent on him. Dependent on his love and affection.
The client Doug most often worked for was an 81-year-old woman in the Silverlake Retirement Apartments, a middle to low income community on the east side of Livermore. She was in a wheelchair and mostly needed Doug for his car. To get to and from doctor appointments. In a typical week she had four. The woman had smoked her entire life and had severe emphysema. She had to be on oxygen at all times. If she was at home, she was hooked up to a giant tank in her bedroom. If she went outside she had a small transportable tank that Doug hauled around for her. It could only hold a few hours of oxygen at a time, so they never went out for long.
Mostly they sat around and watched TV together. They’d usually try to make some small talk at first, but the fact of the matter was there wasn’t much to talk about. Doug didn’t do much during the day and the woman, obviously, did much less. Doug sometimes wished the woman would spew forth some pearls of wisdom about life. Something she’d learned in her 81 years that might give Doug some insight into his own. But if she had any she didn’t share them.
Mostly they watched game shows and “Three’s Company” repeats. If she had an appointment he helped her to the car, carried her oxygen, opened doors, and so forth. It was kind of like having a baby, Doug thought. A baby that didn’t cry.
One day he arrived at the woman’s home to find someone else. The woman had no friends. Her family lived nearby but never visited. So Doug was surprised. It turned out the man worked for the state of California. A post-retirement job. He was taking inventory of the various prescriptions given to the woman by her doctors. Luckily, she had good healthcare through a couple of different providers. Her husband had fought in a war. He was dead, but she had inherited the benefits, which were more than comprehensive. The man was there because the woman’s army of doctors had been over-prescribing her. Somewhere, somehow, a red flag had gone up in the system. Doug had been to enough appointments with the woman to know the doctors were more than happy to give her whatever medicine she wanted when ever she wanted. They knew there was little else they could do for her. New prescriptions stopped the complaining anyway.
The woman kept track of her meds on an old crinkled up piece of paper. It looked like an old used hankie. The writing was nearly illegible. Such was the fate of the woman. Every form of communication was being slowly cut. For the most part, the doctors couldn’t be bothered to touch it let alone read it.
“You seem to be taking a lot of medicine,” the man said as he put the pills in little piles on differently labeled pieces of paper.
“Oh, well, yeah. I guess I am.”
“Do you ever know what you’re taking?”
“Not really. Well, I keep a list of them.”
“You’re taking a lot. I can tell you that much.”
“Am I?”
“You sure are. You feel okay?”
“I have my good days and bad I suppose. They all kind of run together, pretty much.”
Doug noticed the man talked to the woman like she was a child. Doug did too when he thought about it. He treated her like a child too. Pushing her head down a bit as she got into the car. Giving her orange juice instead of milk even thought she’d asked for milk. Generally, it was easier to choose for her than to continuously give directions or ask questions.
After he finished, the man called Doug over to the kitchen table. He’d laid out all the different medications. It looked like the counter at a candy store. Each color separated into small piles. He had a laptop computer. He punched in some information and came up with a big graph detailing the woman’s pill intake.
The woman’s pill case lay empty next to the piles. It was immense. It was separated into the seven days of the week. Six periods of each day. Morning, late-morning, early-afternoon, mid-afternoon, evening, and late-night. It was a jigsaw puzzle.
Quietly, but with a tone of urgency in his voice, the man explained to Doug that the woman was taking an unhealthy amount of medication. He pointed to each pile of little pills. All in different shades of blue, red, and green. He said she was taking two very different kinds of anti-depressants, several different blood-pressure regulators, blood thinners, and a few things he was taking back to a lab for testing. She was also, he said, pointing to a pile of small orange and green pills, “taking so many pain relievers you could hit her over the head with a baseball bat and she wouldn’t feel a thing.”
This image struck Doug and he thought about it as the man continued to talk. He visualized a bat hitting the woman’s head. It was an odd, disgusting image. Yet, a little fascinating. Not the sheer violence of it. Doug would never consider hurting the woman. But the idea that her head could sustain such a blow. Due to all the pain killers flowing through her blood stream. He knew the guy was exaggerating. But it had a strange appeal. Pain killers had become the rage in Doug’s high school. Lots of people took them for fun. One kid in his grade had been suspended for three days for selling them. His sister had tried them. Of course Doug had no access to such things. And yet suddenly there they were, right in front of his face.
Both Doug and the man looked over at the old woman. They didn’t say anything to her or one another. They just watched her. Each half-wondering what little joke the end of life had in store for them. Wondering if they might even recall that very moment. The time they looked at the poor old helpless over-medicated lady from way back when. She was sitting in her chair. Her hand comfortably rested on the TV remote.
The woman’s cat emerged from the bedroom. Doug usually saw the thing once or twice a week. It was an old, scruffy, scrawny, ugly cat. Thin and wilted. It was afraid of everyone except the woman. If the cat was lying in her lap when Doug walked through the front door it would immediately scramble into the bedroom. But evidentially it had forgotten anyone else was there. It ambled out and jumped into the woman’s lap. She automatically rested her left hand on it. They sat there together.
The man whispered he was going to have an immediate warning sent out to all of the woman’s doctors. Ditto the pharmacy she got her prescriptions at. But in the meantime she shouldn’t change anything. It could be more damaging if she tried to change or lessen her intake. The man coughed. The cat bounded off the chair, ran into the bedroom, and hid under the bed.
Like clockwork the old women took a nap right around 4 p.m. Once Doug was sure she’d fallen asleep he crept over to the pill case on the kitchen table. Before he’d left the man had put all the pills back in the correct slots. Doug delicately popped open the Friday lid and surveyed the contents. There were about 10 pills. A couple big blue ones. A capsule with a greenish liquid inside. Two of the orange pain pills and a few others. Doug reached his middle finger and pulled one of the orange pain killers up the side. The woman’s cat came out from under the bed again. It stopped in the doorway to the bedroom. It stared at Doug in that way that cats do. Like they know exactly what is happening, yet also seem to be oblivious to their own existence. Doug glared at the cat. It seemed to glare back. As if it was watching Doug and didn’t approve of what he was doing. Of course, Doug knew, this was impossible. The cat didn’t know him or have any idea what he was doing. Just so long as someone fed it, it probably didn’t care about much of anything. Still, perhaps because he felt a tinge of guilt, Doug felt the cat was disapproving.
Twenty minutes later Doug was sitting on the couch. He had taken the pill and the cat had run back under the bed. He felt a little guilty for having stolen the woman’s pill. But the guilt started to give way to a strange sickness. He stared at the TV. Two people were talking about politics. They were nearly screaming at each other. He was afraid he might vomit, even though the rest of his body felt calm. As he debated if he should go to the bathroom, the woman popped her eyes open. Without moving she looked from side to side. As if to confirm she was still alive and/or not dreaming.
“Are you okay?” she said to Doug. “You look sick.”
Doug tried to open his mouth, but he couldn’t. He slowly stood up and took a few steps in the direction of the bathroom. He thought he must have appeared to the woman as she often did to him, like someone whose next step was no guarantee. He was taking small baby steps. Readying his hands in case he started to fall. He got to the bathroom and calmly shut the door. He opened the toilet and prepared to throw up. He stared at the water inside. When he’d flipped on the bathroom light he’d also accidentally turned on the fan. It hummed loudly. In the distance he thought he could hear the woman saying something from her recliner. He closed his eyes and hoped she’d leave him alone. Why had he taken the pill? What was he thinking? He’d stolen someone else’s medication. What if she needed it? How could he risk giving her pain? What if she knew already? Whatever, the answer, he was already paying for it. He thought of the cat, giving its disapproving look at the doorway.
“Are you okay?” he could hear her say. The voice was slowly getting closer. He wanted to scream out in agony. He was frustrated and in pain. He wanted her to shut up. In his mind he saw a bat hitting the woman’s head again. Her grey head of hair. Thunk.
Doug opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He no longer felt sick. His heart slowed and his face didn’t feel hot anymore. He knew he hadn’t thrown up but he looked at the water in the toilet anyway. To make sure. The light from above reflected hazily, like a mirror.
There was a noise at the door. Not a knock. Like half a knock, half scrape. More like someone was pushing the door with the back of their hand. He stood up gingerly. He half-expected to feel the sickening feeling in his stomach again. But he no longer did. On the contrary he felt terrific. He felt as though he’d just woken up from a perfectly satisfying deep sleep. The perfect number of hours. No stirring. Ready to embrace the day. Calmly receiving and adjusting to whatever difficulties life might present him at the time.
He opened the door. The woman was standing there, but she’d turned around to adjust her oxygen cord. She didn’t look worried. Though her eyes were perched up just a little.
“Did you have a nice nap?” Doug said brightly.
She stared at him. She doubted his sincerity. But then, just as quickly, questioned her own ability to doubt. She wondered if she had misread something. Or had simply imagined something. She grew confused. Doug noticed this. He didn’t want to arouse anymore suspicion, though he felt bad that he’d confused her.
“I think I ate something strange,” he said, raising his eyebrows trying to acknowledge that the woman had rightfully been worried. Doug was very good in this way. He was quite sensitive to the feelings of others. She turned and glanced at the kitchen, trying to remember what Doug had eaten. “I mean at home,” he added. “I ate at home.”
The woman relaxed her face and grinned a little. “Well,” she said, wanting to add some kind of advice, “You’d better take care. Be careful.” Still, there was some doubt in her mind. She wasn’t sure what, only that it had been there. The absence.
“Oh sure.” He was amazed how clear his thoughts were. “I’ve had a little problem with diarrhea.” He made a little embarrassed smile that he was sure would convince the little old lady of his shame and unwillingness to divulge further details. It totally worked. He saw the kernel of doubt disappear from the woman’s face.
Later that day, as he drove onto the freeway to go home he felt lucid. Though he noticed his driving was slightly off. He was too relaxed. So seemingly content, he had to concentrate to not swerve. Although he felt that if he did crash, his car would merely float into the collision. Like he wouldn’t feel a thing. His body felt like a Jacuzzi. A nice tub of hot water. It was blazing hot outside, but he hardly noticed. His body, like his mind, was temperate.
Sitting in traffic not far from his apartment Doug saw the local Wal-mart and remembered he needed to buy a screwdriver set. He wanted to install a new lock on the front door. He had no experience in such household matters. But he had decided he’d better get going on it. He suddenly had the confidence to tackle the project he’d long put off.
As he walked through the automatic doors Doug was amazed how good he felt. Like a walking, talking Jacuzzi. He laughed a little to himself at that image and smiled and said hello to the greeter. He quickly found the screwdriver he needed, selected it with ease, and made his way to the front of the store. As he waited in line one of the clerks said to another: “a Hispanic woman is crying on the floor of the candy aisle. Can you go help her?” The clerk made a strange face and nodded, trotting off in the direction of the candy. Doug mimicked the clerk’s face. He also thought the request sounded strange. As the clerk’s eyes met his they both laughed a little. Doug raised his eyebrows in a way that conveyed “well, that’s life.” The clerk got it and nodded in agreement. Doug looked at his screwdriver. His senses were flourishing, coursing with life.
As he approached the cashier his smile became even bigger than he’d meant. She smiled back. She looked to be a couple years older than him and was mildly attractive. She was a little chubby and carried herself in a way that made it clear to Doug that she was insecure. Doug glanced at her breasts, which through the sides of her blue Wal-mart vest, looked to be large and rather appealing. With his newfound confidence, along with his capacity for sensitivity, he was compelled to make the woman feel good.
“I gotta stop screwing around and get some work done,” Doug said, emphasizing `screwing around’ as he handed her the screwdriver. The woman giggled at his silly joke. She shyly peered at him as he pulled $10 from his wallet. “I’ve got to get down to work, so I can make a more of this stuff,” he said, as he handed her the cash. Again, the woman giggled, and nodded in agreement. She ran the screwdriver over the scanner. It beeped and the price flashed on the screen.
“Don’t we all,” she said.
“Don’t we then?”
“We sure do.”
“Well, amen to that.”
“Yep. Amen.” She deliberately put his screwdriver in a small blue bag and handed it to him. He made sure to touch her hand a little as he took the bag.
“Well, you have a great day, miss,” Doug noticed his speaking had drifted into a slow, almost southern drawl. He looked her in the eye and said, “Keep your eye on the prize.”
The woman giggled again and looked at Doug coyly. He nodded, as if he had a ten gallon hat on his head, and slowly glided to the door. She watched him for a while. Forgetting altogether there was another customer in line. She watched until Doug had slipped through the automatic doors and into the parking lot.
It wasn’t until he settled into his car that he noted he had openly flirted with a woman for the first time in his life. He smiled, sitting in his car, looking through the windshield. He inhaled deeply and felt as though he could melt into the driver’s seat. Everything seemed great. Perfect, even. The sky was open and beautiful. A smattering of grey billowy clouds poked its way into a blue expanse. Magical. At times, life is just magical. He started the car. A boy gathered shopping carts directly in front of his car. He looked bothered and bored. He slammed one cart into another, kicking it as he linked them together. Feeling a gaze coming from somewhere he finally looked at Doug, who stared straight ahead and nodded politely. Somewhat disarmed, the boy’s face relaxed. He even smiled a little and nodded back at Doug. Amazing, Doug thought, how open people are to contact if you make a sincere effort. People just want to be liked, he thought.
As he opened the door to his apartment Doug had started to feel just a little tried. He took the screwdriver out of the bag. Just as he dropped his bag to the floor he saw an identical Wal-mart bag, a few yards beyond. He went and picked it up. Inside the bag was a box of Lifestyles brand condoms. The box looked as though it had been viciously torn open. Like someone had bit the corner like the end off a cigar. Doug looked down the hallway at his sister’s door. It was closed. He smirked, shook his head and rolled his eyes.
He walked out to the terrace. It felt great to be outside. He breathed in deeply through his nose. He tried to not imagine his sister getting fucked. On her knees. Hands against the wall. On her back. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, but almost humorously, they continued to pop into his head. The more he tried to get rid of them, the more they came back.
Interrupting the battle in his mind he looked down and saw a pack of Marlborough Ultra-lites on a stool. Doug had never smoked. He’d never even considered it. But still feeling comfortable, the Jacuzzi still rolling inside him, he pulled one out and lit it. To his surprise he didn’t cough once. He inhaled, just recalling what he’d seen his mother and his sister do time and again. It was easy.
The cigarette enhanced his feeling. It didn’t exactly make him feel more relaxed. That was impossible. But he did feel a little better than he’d been, he thought. The trace of fatigue was gone. He smiled. It was an amazing day in several ways. As he neared the end of the first cigarette in his life he heard the bathroom door open. The toilet seat slammed up against the back. A hard, steady stream of pee splashed in the toilet. The person finished peeing and sighed a loud, deep, manly sigh. Doug smirked. Even though he’d never had sex himself there was something universal about the sound that told Doug exactly what it was. There was also something universal in looking down the barrel of a cigarette. Something overwhelmingly adult. Deep in concentration.
He promptly went into his room, gathered up his Stratego game, brought it back downstairs and threw it away. He knew he was being a little silly. A bit overly symbolic. But he didn’t care. He pressed the game into the garbage can, went back upstairs and smoked the second cigarette of his life.
Doug didn’t go back to the woman’s house until the following Tuesday. After he parked his car he practically ran to her apartment door. Like a child on Christmas morning. After his first experience he was anxious to try another pain killer. He wasn’t experiencing any of the withdrawal symptoms, physical or mental; he would later combat.
He walked inside and the cat ran in the bedroom. The floor was covered with photos that had fallen from her TV cabinet. For a split second the disarray led him to believe something had happened. He wondered if he would he be able to collect all her pain killers before the ambulance came. He immediately felt ashamed for thinking such a nasty thought. It was more of a humorous aside his brain had provided in expectation of getting more pain pills. The woman was sitting in her recliner, her lap full of photos, anyway.
She had two doctor’s appointments that day. Before they left Doug excused himself to use the bathroom. He took a quick look through all the drawers. In case she kept any of the pain killers in there. There was no way he could get one from the massive pill box before they left. In the bathroom he only found a bottle of aspirin so old the font on the label was out of style. Throughout the appointments that afternoon, first with her psychologist and then a general practitioner, he tried to inventory the entire apartment in his mind. Where would the pills be? Where would they not be?
He calculated she was taking so many each day that he could slip them from her pill tray without doing much harm to her. This relived him, but he didn’t especially want to take them from there. He didn’t want to dramatically affect her daily intake. Though he assumed she would hardly notice if he took one, two, or even five. He needed to find the source. The place where there were so many pills it wouldn’t matter if he took two or 50.
Later that day she fell asleep at 4 p.m. Doug quickly walked to the daily pill tray, nearly tripping over the oxygen cord that stretched from the bedroom to the woman’s nose. He imagined the cord jerking her head forward like the reins of a horse. He immediately popped one pill into his mouth and placed another in his pocket. He went into the bathroom. He paced around the tiny area, stopping several times to look at himself in the mirror. He ran his fingers over a towel that hung next to the shower, waiting for his senses to soar. He inspected a toilet brush that, like the aspirin bottle, looked to be from a bygone era. The anticipation was divine. Knowing that no matter whatever could go wrong at that moment, nothing could stop that wonderful feeling from taking hold. The Jacuzzi.
The sickness was slight as compared to the time before. His stomach felt a little nauseous at first, but that disappeared. He quietly crept from the bathroom. He wasn’t interested in answering any questions as to why he was in the bathroom in case the woman woke up. At any rate, it was more fun to creep around. He felt like a child. Like the Hamburgler from McDonalds. He smiled.
As he crept from the bathroom something caught his eye. He stopped, like one might in a game of freeze tag. He craned his head and could see the eyes of the cat starting at him. It was lying on its stomach. Under the bed. The cat’s paws were perched in front of him. Like a Sphinx. It slowly closed its eyes. Though not completely.
It was trying to look asleep, Doug thought. By then the pill had set forth the Jacuzzi. His joints moved easily. He breathed easier. He felt lighter. At that point he had no ill will toward the cat. Yet, he sensed something very strange. Something he didn’t like about the cat. Something compelled him to try and befriend it. Not because he liked cats. But he wanted it on his side. He realized he didn’t even know its name. He smiled and turned his body to get a better look at it. The cat’s eyes popped open. Alarmed, it turned and retreated further under the bed.
“Noooo,” he said childishly. “It’s ok. Come here.”
Doug crouched down and looked under the bed. The cat was as far away as possible. It was in the corner, wedged between two walls. Doug tried to summon the cat. He made noises and spoke at it in a cute baby voice. He pretended he had a treat in his hand. The cat didn’t move. It just watched him, confident Doug couldn’t reach it. He stood up and tried to think how he could get the cat to come out and be friends.
His only option was to move the bed out from the wall. He bent down and lifted to check the bed’s weight. It was immobile. He stood back up and looked at the bed. Even though it was a single bed it looked like something from a hospital. The kind that one can raise and lower with the flick of a switch. It was also hooked up to some kind of electric gadget that monitored breathing.
It was then he saw something that took his attention away from the cat. It was a baseball bat. It lay on the floor against the wall. He almost didn’t see it. Imagining the woman lifting the bat, let alone defending her self with it, was kind of laughable. Yet, there it was. Had she put it there? Where would she get a bat? He assumed one of her family members put it there, trying to do a good deed before disappearing for another year.
Doug wondered if he could poke the cat from its hiding place. He was focused on getting the cat to come out and be social. A small part of him wanted to chase it out and smash it over the head for not being social. For keeping him at an arm’s length. But the bat was out of reach anyway. He had the idea to get on top of the bed and reach down against the wall. But that was too much effort, so after one last verbal plea to the cat he gave up. He stood up and walked out of the room.
And then from the doorway, there was the head. Slightly bent over to the side. Asleep. Immobile. After crouching over to look under the bed, he had to pause and let his blood resume its normal circulation. He got a slight head rush. It felt great. He was amazed at how good he felt. He wondered if the woman ever felt the same when she took her pills. It seemed unlikely. Of course, she normally took five or six of the pain pills every day. That astounded Doug. He tried to imagine what kind of state he’d be in if he took five or six of those things. At any rate, there was no need. He felt perfect as it was. But could she? Could she feel anything at all? He imagined the bat hitting her in the head again. Linking this idea with the bat he’d just spotted under the bed made his heart jump. He stood there, staring at her, trying to push the image out of his head. It was difficult. Comical. Thunk. He wondered if he’d be doing her a favor in some way. He meditated on the idea for a minute. He wanted a glass of water and a cigarette. But before he moved his feet he pinched his arm. To see if he could feel anything. Barely. She wouldn’t even feel the bat. He went outside and smoked.
Back inside Doug looked for the source of the pills. Kitchen. No. He saw the pill tray on the table. The bedroom. He turned around and saw several bottles of pills next to her oxygen tank. Forgetting about the cat under the bed he walked to the pills, and patiently opened and looked inside each bottle. Nothing resembled the now familiar orange pills. He walked back into the front room.
He stared at the back of the old woman’s head. He wished he could see inside her brain. To find the place in her brain that told where the pills were kept. For no particular reason he glanced down to his side. Right next to the recliner there was an ugly wood cabinet. It was meant to look like a miniature 18th century armoire. Initially, Doug took great care to be quiet. He didn’t want the woman to wake up and see him digging through her pill trove. But it seemed no sound would stir her. She usually slept for nearly 30 minutes on the dot. He still had 5 minutes.
He opened the door by its little faux-brass handle. Inside there were several bottles of the pain killer. He wanted to take them all. To gather them into his arms like children, or like children gathering candy on Halloween. His life would be perfect. Forever. He almost giggled at the concept. He was joyfully exaggerating to himself. This became his habit when he took the pills. Little exaggerated jokes. Asides to himself. He knew, of course, it wasn’t possible to be happy forever.
However, it would be a lie to say that Doug’s life didn’t get measurably better. Naturally, being addicted to pain killers had its downside. But there were measures to balance it out. For example, the pills caused him constipation. But by changing his diet, eating a little bran in the morning, prunes, drinking more water, he was able to manage a normal waste schedule. He experienced some mood swings. But he learned to parcel his consumption. He would let himself come down. Then, just before he would start to get irritable he would take another pill and accelerate back into the wonderful flight. The flight of the Jacuzzi. Over time that feeling dulled a little. The more pills he took, the slightly less they worked. But he smoked regularly. That usually evened him out. He’d smoke if he was coming down and needed to flatten the landing. Or, if he was on his way up he’d smoke one to make sure he wasn’t getting too high too soon. And he smoked them in the middle just for fun.
Keeping a steady supply wasn’t much of a problem once he knew the source. The woman was regular in her napping. So long as he visited her 3 or 4 days a week he had ample opportunity to maintain his supplies. She never noticed them missing. Luckily, whoever the man sent by the state to innovatory her medication was, he didn’t report or tell anyone who might have tried to do something about it. Her doctors prescribed her even more pills. Her “pain specialist,” as her nameplate said, even prescribed a new and more powerful version of the orange pain killer. It was smaller and green. The doctor told Doug and the woman the new pill lasted 12 hours and had six time releases. Doug knew the orange one lasted 6 or 7 hours. The time release, he learned, was why he sometimes got a renewed feeling of sweetness every couple of hours, even though he wasn’t taking more pills. After the pain specialist wrote the prescription she handed Doug and the old woman each a new green clock with the pill’s logo in the center. Later that day, when the woman fell asleep, Doug put a couple in his pocket. Later that day he mounted the clock in his bedroom.
As much as he came to enjoy and rely on the pills, he didn’t like that the doctors were so ignorant of the woman’s medical situation. Twice Doug tried to politely point out to the doctors that the woman might be over-medicating. He even mentioned the man who’d been sent to innovatory her pills. But the doctors weren’t interested in hearing medical advice from a 20-year-old careworker making 10 dollars an hour. They commented on how lucky the woman was to have such comprehensive health care. That she may as well take advantage of it. That others weren't so lucky.
Doug’s social life flourished for the first time in his life. With the pain pills he was relaxed. He spoke with ease. He was positive and less controlling. People started enjoying his company. He started going to one of his sister’s favorite hangouts, an arcade in the middle of Main Street in downtown Livermore. A few of the customers actually came to use the computers or play video games. But mostly it was a cheap place to hangout. The young girls liked it because it was the closest they could come to going to a bar. The older guys liked it because the young girls turned up and it was much cheaper than a bar. Everyone else fed off that dynamic. It was a hot spot.
There, Doug met a 25-year-old woman well-known at the arcade as a speed addict. Her boyfriend was even better known, as one of the bigger methamphetamine dealers in the Livermore area. He’d gone on a buying trip to Plumas County, in the far north east of California. He’d been gone a few weeks. The woman said she didn’t know if or when her boyfriend, if that’s what he was, was even coming back. She was upset and Doug consoled her. That night she stuck her tongue down his throat on the concrete steps of her dilapidated apartment on East Street. He didn’t want the woman to know he was a virgin but she’d had enough experience to know he was. He was nervous. Before they fucked he ducked into the bathroom and took half a pain killer to calm himself down. She guided him through it. Doug went over there a few more times. Her boyfriend returned from Plumas and that was that.
The next girl he met was from Asia. China, Japan or South Korea, he wasn’t all that sure. She was in Livermore to study English. They met at the arcade. The girl had just arrived. She was homesick and alone. She went to the arcade to email her parents and friends.
The girl was naïve, even to Doug, who, try as he might to not, still possessed some element of naivety himself. He could have easily got her drunk and to his or her apartment A.S.A.P. She was beautiful. But thanks to the pills Doug was calm. Moreover, he was always in a pleasant mood. He left his intentions behind. He helped her download the language program so she could chat with friends back home. He expected nothing in return. With the Jacuzzi flowing through his bloodstream at all times, he didn’t need to worry. He relaxed and let Doug be Doug. Of course he was kind. He was always kind, even before the pills. But being kind to pretty girls? This was new.
He took her on a couple tours of Livermore and even to San Francisco. He showed her the winery his parents used to own, where he grew up. He never mentioned Stratego. By that time he’d practically erased it from his memory. Playing a board game seemed so boring, compared to the real thrills of a good life.
As opposed to the speed addict from the arcade, Doug grew to care about the girl from Asia. For three weeks hardly a night went by where the girl wasn’t pulling him toward her apartment to screw. She had a joke, where she would pretend his cock was a leash. She’d grab the front of his pants and say “Come here little doggie,” and pull him in the direction of her apartment, which was also on Main Street, not far from the arcade and just across the street from the local donut shop where people often waited for the arcade to open in the afternoon.
But the girl suddenly stopped returning Doug’s phone calls. When he saw her at the arcade she ignored him. Doug never understood what had happened. The girl never explained it. She became a stranger on the street. Initially, this hurt Doug. He was falling in love with her. To cope with the pain he doubled his intake of pills. He smoked more too. Like magic, the pain washed away. That’s not to say he didn’t have his down moments too. Things the pills couldn’t quite solve. But they certainly helped.
Within a week he had moved on. Although, in taking so many extra pills he’d nearly run out a few days before he was due to see the old woman again. At that time he also told his sister about the pills. Of course she wanted some. And Doug being the kind of brother he was, gave her all he had. He was going to care for the woman the next day. He could get more.
That next afternoon at the woman’s house he impatiently waited for her to fall asleep. He’d taken a pill that morning, but he was nearing 24 hours without. He rarely went more than six hours without taking at least a half. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, bouncing his knee up and down like a piston. He even had to go outside for a cigarette, something he never did while she was awake.
When he came back inside she’d finally fallen asleep. Doug leapt to the cabinet behind her chair. He crouched down, first debating if he should take two pills on the spot or take one right then and one just an hour or two later. He felt tight. His bones were heavy and his joints were sore. He tugged on the door. It was locked. He tried it again. What had happened? He looked at the back of the woman’s chair as if she were awake and facing him. Had she locked it? If she did was it an accident? Did she know he’d been taking her pills? He looked back at the cabinet doors in disbelief. His mouth was open. There was a small keyhole. But where the hell would a key be?
He stood up looked around the room. He had no idea. His heart started to beat faster. He held his arms out slightly, like a robber might. He thought of Hamburgler again, but he was in no mood for joking with himself. Concentrate. The woman had two keys that he’d seen, attached to a leather emblem from the San Diego zoo that said her name. One key was to the front door, one to the storage outside. Fuck, he thought. A wave of nervousness passed over his body. The key could be anywhere. He walked into the kitchen. His mouth dropped open in disbelief. What would he do? He saw a small box on the window sill. With his hand shaking he opened it. A few coins and a paperclip. He looked in the dish cabinet. Nothing. He opened the refrigerator. He shook his head no. Ten minutes passed. Nothing.
Doug tried not to panic. Yet, the frustration of not finding the pills began to take a toll. His arms and legs felt heavier and started to ache. His breathing became shallow and quick. He was suddenly tired, like he could lie on the floor and fall asleep right then. If things got bad he could always take a few pills from the woman’s pill tray. Knowing this calmed him down a little. He nodded his head. But only a few. Plus, if she did lock the thing because she knew, then, she knew. Then what could he do? He would be fired for one. Then they’re would really be no pills.
Worst of all, he noticed the Jacuzzi was gone. He felt so average. Normal. Like the old Doug. He tried to calm himself. “Don’t be a child,” he mouthed to himself. He needed to take one from the tray now, to get his head straight. Then he could figure out what to do. He clenched his fists a little and pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Take one now,” he whispered. He walked over to the pill tray and chose a day and time at random. He needed one now. “Then figure out what to do next,” he whispered. He feared what would happen later if he couldn’t get that door open. But he couldn’t “worry about that now.” He needed, for the time being, to live one moment to the next, “Now.”
He popped one pill and swallowed. His mouth and throat were dry, but he tried to force it down. He was impatient for it to enter his blood. “Come on.” He went to the sink and drank several glasses of water. It would be a few minutes before he felt anything. By then the woman would wake up. He might have to think of something clever. Get her out of the house. Trick her into telling him where that key was. Get her to indicate if she knew something was up. Damn. “Damn,” he whispered.
He looked the pill tray. He thought about taking a second. He pulled one out. He looked at it in his hand and contemplated. He pursed his lips in deep thought. He looked at the pill for a minute. Partly wondering what he should do and partly wishing to hell the first pill would kick in.
He walked back into the kitchen and put the pill on a cutting board. He would cut it in half. He only needed a half. Especially since he’d been taking so many after the girl had dumped him. He needed to keep taking them, but lessen the amount. He pulled out butcher’s knife and sized the pill up. Half now, half later. That seemed good.
As the knife crunched through the pill the cat appeared in the doorway. Doug looked up. They stared at each other. A bead of sweat ran down Doug’s cheek. The cat didn’t move. It just sat there, looking at him. ”Hi,” Doug mouthed. He didn’t want to wake the woman. He raised his eyebrows. The cat didn’t move. He picked the half pill up from the bread board, slowly put it on his tongue and swallowed. Doug thought the cat might flinch when he moved his arm, but it didn’t. It just stared at him with the same empty gaze.
The first pill began to work. It was like a switch. Finally. Doug could feel the friendly wave of hot water circulating in his body. He relaxed his eyes and breathed in through his nose. His joints seemed to readjust back into their proper places. He stretched his jaw, which he only then noticed he’d been clenching. He opened and closed his left hand. He calmly took a better grip of the knife in his right.
Doug looked down at the half pill on the cutting board. It was hard, even for him, to know why he did what he did next. There might have been a hint of malice. He didn’t care much for the cat. But he didn’t hate it either. It may have been due to the euphoria of the pill working after having gone without for a while. Part of him simply wanted to share the feeling. The cat was so timid. Maybe deep inside it was not unlike his own pre-pill self.
But mostly, he decided later, it was just silly adolescent curiosity. Doug ground the other half of the pill into a fine powder. He got a fresh can of the cat’s food from the fridge. He picked its dish from the floor, gathered the powder with a knife and scraped it on top of the food. He mixed it with a spoon. He put the dish on the ground and went outside for a cigarette. As he walked outside the cat watched him, barely going back on its legs, ready to turn and dash back under the bed should Doug make a move toward it.
As he smoked Doug wondered what the cat might do once it had eaten the pill powder. Would it crawl under the bed and go to sleep? Would it wobble around the house and act drunk? In any event, Doug had more important matters to consider. He needed to figure out where that key was. Or, how he could get the door open without the key. Most likely the woman would wake up at any moment. He checked his watch. Then what? Had she found out he had been taking the pills? She hadn’t said anything that day. She hadn’t so much looked suspicious since he’d almost gotten sick that very first time. Maybe she locked it by accident. Maybe the next time she needed to fill her pill tray it would be open. That would be the best case scenario. He had better take a lot once he got his hands on them. He didn’t want a situation like that coming up again. Doug finished his cigarette and went inside.
Indeed, the woman was awake. She saw Doug coming in the door and adjusted her eyes a little.
“You,” she said, in a seemingly accusing way.
Doug’s heart jumped.
“Me?”
“I mean…it’s you. Where did you go?” She grinned.
“Oh…I…”
“Were you smoking?” She cocked her head to the side.
Doug nodded his head.
The woman looked at him knowingly and nodded her head. “When did you start?”
“Um, recently.”
Her face was not disapproving. She looked a little sad, but oddly, a little proud. “Well, I can’t say I think it’s a good thing. But it’s hard to resist. I know that.”
Doug nodded. He was still bracing for what he thought was an accusation.
“Just be careful with that. You don’t want to end up like me.”
She said it as though she meant it, but like she also, deep down, hoped Doug ended up exactly like her. Doug nodded again. He had trouble looking at her. The room was quiet for an uncomfortable moment.
“I smoked for nearly 50 years. Did I tell you that?”
“No.”
“I did. And I always knew exactly what I was doing. People my age like to say they had no idea. That they were tricked by the tobacco companies. This was long before they came out with all that anti-smoking stuff. But I knew it wasn’t good for me. I could feel it. I knew I was addicted. And I knew that wasn’t good.”
Doug sat down on the couch. The woman looked him over, as if to check and see if she could find any tangible signs of his smoking.
“When you start?”
The way she said it wasn’t like she was talking to Doug. There was something more familiar. Almost expectant. A camaraderie. Like suddenly, they were two friends at a bar. Like she’d asked the same question, or been asked the same question, thousands of times before. She was clearly enjoying the near conversation.
“About a month ago.”
Well….know what you’re getting into. That’s all I’ll say. Just know what you’re getting into.”
It was the first time Doug had any perspective on not only his smoking, but his pill taking as well. Her advice was simple. Think about it. He hadn’t. He had never thought of the downside to being addicted to pain killers. Since he’d taken the first his life had been nothing but up up. He hadn’t given smoking a second thought. He was young. So what? So what if he smoked for a while?
Doug didn’t exactly have a revelation, sitting there next to the woman. The TV chattered in the background and she went back to watching it. He was a little resentful that she’d brought it up at all. But he also wondered if maybe the old woman had finally said something he needed to know.
Did he need to quit smoking? Did he need to ease off the pain killers? Maybe. Maybe not. He wasn’t sure. He felt embarrassed that the woman pegged him so easily. But he wasn’t ashamed.
Still the logistics of the situation were not within Doug’s sight. He didn’t consider that eventually, unless he got another pill source, that the pills would disappear. Eventually he’d have to go without.
He agreed with one thing. He ought not to end up like her. But that seemed far off. Difficult to seriously contemplate. He was still young. He was getting older, surely. The cigarettes, pills, sex, quitting Stratego; he was mentally older, even if his body didn’t feel older. Which isn’t to say his body didn’t sometimes feel older, because it did. But still, he had time. He’d listen to the woman. Eventually.
After a few minutes Doug got up to use the bathroom. As he entered the bedroom he saw what he would later refer to as “a turning point” in his life.
The cat was dead. Initially, Doug was in disbelief. The kind of feeling one has when something is so bad, so incomprehensible and out of place that time stands still. Like a bad dream one waits out. Endures, because the dreamer has some half-knowledge that they will wake up. That things will be back to normal. Of course, there was no such luck. What happened had indeed happened.
There was a little foam that had come out from the cat’s mouth. Doug stared at the cat’s side. Waiting for its rib cafe to rise or fall. To give some indication of breath. But that clearly wasn’t going to happen. Like the cat’s, Doug’s mouth was open.
He knelt beside it, and after extending and pulling his hand back several times he let his finger touch the cat’s back. It was the first time he had touched the thing. It was so thin and frail it felt like its spine was on the outside of its skin. Blood rushed to Doug’s head. He stood up and walked a few paces one way, turning around and walking in another. Again he looked at it. Waiting for it too take a breath. To cough or something. Anything. But it didn’t. The cat was still dead.
Doug sighed and stood up. In frustration he let out a whining sound and stomped his foot on the ground. Like a child. He scrunched his face up and mouthed the word “fuck.” He spun around on his right heel and made like he was going to punch the wall. He turned back to the cat. Doug was nearly crying. He mouthed “What am I going to do?” to the wall. A tear streamed down his cheek.
He knew he needed to think of something. The woman was awake. If she had to use the bathroom she’d see the cat. If he was just standing there looking at it, she’d probably figure out he was responsible. Moreover, she’d wonder why he didn’t say anything.
Doug decided to push the cat under the bed. He would push the cat into its usual hiding place. In the far corner of the bed. Eventually she’d find it. She’d think it died there. He hated to touch it, but he had to hurry. He had some difficulty in maneuvering the legs. He got it half way under the bed. But it looked like someone had killed it and just tried to push it under the bed. It hardly looked peaceful or asleep.
Then he remembered the bat. He went to the bottom end of the bed and reached his arm as far as it would go. Until it hurt. He could barely touch the end of the bat. He pulled back and caught his breath. With all his strength he reached got just enough of the bat to come toward him that he could grab a hold of it.
He tried to not panic. He crouched down and surveyed the situation. He poked at the cat with the bat. As if to confirm it was still dead. He tried to push the cat into the corner with the head of the bat. He got it to move about a foot. But still it hardly looked like a cat that had slowly retreated under the bed to die. Doug stood up, grasping the bat from the middle. His heart was pounding. He paced around the room. He stopped and looked at his eyes in the mirror; half hoping an answer would reveal itself. Nothing came.
The woman’s master oxygen tank clicked. Doug spun around. The tank always clicked, but he had never really noticed it until then. He wasn’t sure why it clicked. If it was resetting something, checking something, or what. The tank was huge. Well past Doug’s waist and wider than him. What a strange thing to always be hooked up to something like that, he thought. Like a tetherball.
With that the image of hitting the woman in the head appeared again. The man’s voice echoed in his mind. And now, the bat was in his hand. Could that be the answer? He looked at the bat. He looked at the door. He could see himself walking through it. Coming up behind the woman. Hitting her in the head. Not violently. Like a cartoon. Thunk. Dead. One hit. That’s all it would take. There wouldn’t even be blood. Almost no sound. Thunk. Perhaps more to the point, it wouldn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t know. She wouldn’t know the difference. She might be better off.
He gripped the bat tighter. His hands were sweating. He swallowed and looked at the bed, imagining the cat underneath it. Sprawled out, its feet going one way and the other. It’s body stiffening. Growing cold. What could he do with the woman’s body? Put it under the bed? Who would come here? Who would notice?
He walked toward the door, following the path of the oxygen cord. He saw the TV and the woman’s head in front of it. The oxygen cord sprouting from the head down to the floor and toward him. He stood in the doorway and stared at her head. It was suddenly making sense. He looked at her hair. A swirl of grey and white. She was looking at photos again. It struck Doug as sad. He started to earnestly believe that killing the woman would be a favor to her.
The woman leaned forward to start to stand up. He only had a second to think. Tell her about the cat or kill her? Tell or kill? Tell or kill? She stood up and started to turn toward him. Doug tossed the bat on the bed. It landed on the mattress and hit the wall.
The woman swung her head around. She saw Doug standing there. He was sweating.
“What was that?” she asked.
Doug didn’t say anything. He just tried to smile as earnestly as he could. He knew he must look ridiculous. But he was afraid to open his mouth. He had no idea what might, or could, come out.
She woman started to walk toward him, in the direction of the bathroom. She shuffled past Doug, who was paralyzed. In one last futile rush of imagination he considered surging ahead of her. At least blocking her from the sight of the dead cat.
When she saw the thing on the floor, sprawled out, half under the bed, she stopped. What seemed like a pillow, or a stuffed animal, soon appeared as it was. She stared at it. As if there was no one or no thing in the room. As if nothing else existed. Just she and her dead cat. She and her companion. She didn’t cry, as Doug thought she might. He evened himself with her and turned his head to see her reaction. She had no look of anguish. No fear. No pity. She had almost no reaction at all. As if she didn’t care.
But after a minute or so he soon realized otherwise. The woman’s blank expression was one he recognized. It was the look of someone who had seen something they had expected to happen. In this case it was the cat. It could have been a broken window. Some bad news on the phone. A thunderstorm. Even one’s own impending death. It could have been anything. Whatever it was, it had been expected. Expected badness. Bad luck. Bad life. Whatever one calls it. It was the reaction of someone who had long had hope, desire, or conscious will, siphoned off long ago. Already been defeated. A ghost. A ghost that paid rent and stole a bit of time from a handful of doctors in a little town somewhere in the world.
Doug had never seen the look before, but somehow he knew exactly what it was. And he knew that no matter what he did in life, no matter how many pills he took, no matter how great he became because of the pills, no matter what he could or couldn’t control, that some day, some time, he’d be standing there, looking at something with the same expressionless expression. He wondered if someone would be looking at him like he was looking at her. If they would feel the same as he did at that moment. Yes. They would.
During his drive home Doug tossed a half-smoked cigarette out the window. Quitting smoking isn’t an easy talk for anyone. But how could Doug forget that face? That face. That expressionless face. The face of the already defeated.
That face would motivate him for some time. He never achieved what most would consider to “great heights” in life. But he did quit smoking and he did quit the pain killers. It was no easy thing. Essentially, he didn’t get out of bed for two weeks straight. Thankfully he had his sister. Who, having seen a few addictions in the arcade crowd, could approximate the kind of care and encouragement Doug needed to get off the pills. She brought him water, made him soup. She even helped him hook up the television into his bedroom so he could occupy his mind with something other than getting more pills. As brother and sister they were already close. In part because their parents were so horrible. But the ordeal brought them even closer together. Later in life, if Doug’s sister needed any kind of help or advice, financial, emotional or otherwise, he didn’t hesitate to drop everything.
He missed the Jacuzzi. He missed the feeling of nothing being wrong. Of feeling loose and free, able to say what he felt. Or at least, to say the right things. To say things that people thought were funny or smart. But clearly, by the end, the pain pills were doing more harm than good. It was hard for him to understand what had driven him to ground up a pain killer and put it in that cat’s food. To even contemplate killing the woman to cover it up. It made no sense. It wasn’t him, he thought. It had to be the pills. There was no other explanation.
A month passed and Doug was ready to resume his work as a careworker. He never explained to the woman exactly what had happened. Why he couldn’t work for a month. He simply said he was sick. She didn’t question things much anyway. She didn’t probe. In actuality, she had no idea about the pain pills or their relation to the cat’s death. She assumed it had died of old age. She’d had a lot of cats in her life. Fifteen or 20, she figured. They’d all died, of course. But she’d liked that one a lot. She couldn’t rank her favorite cats like one might rank hit songs. But if she did, that cat would have been in the Top 5. Maybe the Top 3.
When Doug had pulled the cat out from under the bed, taken it outside and buried it in a black plastic trash bag she watched and sincerely wondered how much longer she herself would live. At that moment she wanted to die. She wanted to crawl in bed and never wake up. Everything in her life was and had been mediocre. One way or another, things always turned out the way of the cat. Lower than her expectations. As it happened she would live several years more.
One of her daughters bought her a new cat. The daughter was nearly absent from the woman’s life, and bought the cat as an attempt to install a lasting, and living, impression that she herself cared. It worked. The cat was gorgeous and she woman had a new, however small, desire to live. The new cat was a Siamese with large hypnotizing green eyes.
The day Doug returned to care for the old woman the cat was waiting at the door, staring outside. Over time it stopped greeting Doug at the door, and would retreat under the bed when anyone came over. But on that day it was still friendly. Doug reached down and ran his hand across its back.
The woman was happier to see Doug than he’d expected. She hadn’t expressed it to him before, but she told him he was like a grandson to her. That her own grandsons rarely visited her; unless they knew she was going to give them money for Christmas or their birthday.
Doug had missed the women too. It wasn’t their companionship that he missed because they really never had much to talk about. But she wasn’t so bad. He liked the insights he got into his own future just by being around her. They weren’t always the most pleasant insights, but the fact they were real was important. The older he got the more he realized what a large role making distinction plays.
Doug had brought the woman a present. Upon walking through the door he handed it to her as she sat in her chair. That was a surprise. It was an oblong box. As he gave it to her she giggled and commented that he’d obviously wrapped it himself. It was true. In fact, it was the first present Doug had ever tried to wrap. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it might have been the first present he’d bought for anyone. The edges were deformed. And he’d cut the paper the wrong size entirely. He had to cut a second piece and graft it onto the first.
She tore the present open. It was a game of Stratego. She had no idea what it was, but she liked the idea of playing a game. She stared at the box and told him in a nostalgic tone that she hadn’t played a board game in years. Doug told her it was an easy game. That he’d played it a lot when he was young. That he’d be more than happy to teach her how to play.