Here is what the old man at the Walgreens sees:
He sees a youngish man push through the dirty glass doors. He wears a faded pink hoodie and no shoes, and there is a deeply tragic expression on his face. It clings to his cheeks and mouth like a giant hairy spider, all unsightly mustache hair and quivering frown, and the old man has to look away for a moment to reduce the visual strain of acknowledging this man. A moment passes and the nausea fades, but the old man continues to stare at the shelves of cough medicine and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine beside him. The colorful boxes and tinted bottles are far more pleasant to observe. Yet the old man’s mind, as it tends to do in his twilight years, continues to wander.
Although the old man is at the Walgreens for far more important reasons, he can’t help but briefly contemplate the youngish man’s existence. As unsettling his tragic expression had been, the old man feels a twinge of sympathy. It must be hard for the youngish man, going around in daily life, such a horrible look chiseled into his face. Has he always been like that? Was it not an expression of despair but rather some medical condition, a paralysis of the facial muscles, some unfortunate twist of genetic data that could leave a youngish man with such a hopeless countenance?
But no. The old man peeks back at the youngish man, who now browses the magazine aisle, across from the cough medicine and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine. He lingers by a particular magazine with a particular woman on the cover, and for a moment the heaviness lifts from his face, like that of an astronaut having reached escape velocity and floating in the lull of outer space, and is replaced by something that the old man would almost call normal. Peaceful. Then gravity returns like a sucker punch, and the youngish man almost stumbles back from the force of the expression reshaping his skull. Eyes twitching from the whiplash, he shambles onward, out of sight of the old man.
Now the old man frowns, for another thought has entered his mind. A lengthy series of events must have happened for the youngish man to have arrived here, in this store, at precisely the same time as himself. Sometime today the youngish man must have opened his eyes and risen from his bed and proceeded to take the steps that would eventually lead him to this very store, under the electric hum of the pale fluorescent lights, in the stale silence of a near-empty store in the minutes before closing. Or perhaps it all started even further than that.
Perhaps it all started when the youngish man was a youngish child, or a youngish baby, or before he could even be called youngish at all. Perhaps it all started when, thirty-six years back, two strangers met each other and realized that they tolerated each other’s existence fairly well, and started to meet each other at restaurants and bars and concerts and eventually each other’s homes. It might have taken several dates or, as one of them liked to say, it might have been a decision made at first sight, but whatever it was, it continued to happen. The weeks turned into months and into years and into—well, not decades, yet—but they found that they could still tolerate each other and even like each other and, well, that was really something else. To like each other meant an ocean of possibilities. So they chose the most obvious of these, which was marriage, and from there they proceeded to take the steps that would one day lead a youngish man to walk into a Walgreens wearing a faded pink hoodie and no shoes and a deeply tragic expression on his face; they found a nice house in the suburbs and they found jobs which were close enough to said house, as well as friends; and as their toleration of one another grew more settled and predictable they began to think about having a child, one that could play on the lawn and listen to bedtime stories and complain about eating vegetables, because that was what they did as children. The strangers, who were no longer that to each other, went to the doctor and relatives and friends with children of their own, and secretly at night they discussed the topic. And then suddenly, on one such visit to the doctor, it was as if a big red button appeared in front of them with a sign that said PUSH FOR BABY, and the two stood there, one resolute and the other uncertain, staring at the button. And they pressed it.
And then that baby, whose genetic code borrowed just the right bits from both strangers to be able to make a deeply tragic expression with his facial muscles, would proceed to make every wrong decision possible throughout his entire life, leading up to the present moment in a Walgreens store, as the old man watches him reappear at the cashier and purchase nothing but a handle of cheap vodka, a college-ruled spiral notebook, and a pair of disposable beach sandals. The weight of these wrong decisions seems to pull his body down and make him look youngish—outwardly young, but with none of the life and vitality that comes with youth—and his arms move to place the items on the counter with a certain autonomous carelessness. Any shame that has existed within him has long evaporated, and yet that expression remains on his husk of a form. He stands there, not speaking a word, as the scanner fires off three derelict chirps, as the register clunks open to accept several sad, crinkled bills, as the receipt printer squeals out and ejects a strip of paper, and even from this distance the old man can feel the devastation of that tragic expression fixed on his face. The clerk seems to sway a bit, subjected to a lethal dose of the expression, and she barely manages to hand the youngish man a plastic bag of his bought items before slumping against the register.
The dirty glass doors open and close. The expression lingers in the air, like radiation, carbonized into the old man’s brain. He and the clerk exchange a very brief glance, an instant of eye contact, and look away quickly. Neither admit it, but a sudden relief comes over them both.
The old man wears a sturdy pair of leather shoes, neatly laced, the surface polished to a dark shine. His jacket is suede and the material is sturdy and thick, and it keeps him warm. Both are gifts from his son and daughter. He sits there and ponders, with his years upon years of experience, how the youngish man could have possibly fucked up so bad. He hopes the youngish man has an answer.
One knows themselves best, after all.
This piece is a mixed bag. I basically wrote the entire thing in a single evening and made minimal edits after that, but I think it incorporates a writing style that feels more “me.” I enjoy long-winded ramblings about things that don’t really matter, but most of the time it’s not easy to convert that into effective story-telling. I don’t think I succeeded here, but there’s at least an idea to follow. Overall this one feels more stream-of-consciousness and less structured, but I think it communicates the thoughts of this young man who has lost his way in life and projects his insecurities through how he believes strangers must perceive him. Also I read Breakfast of Champions last week (great book) so there may be some hints of Vonnegut in this piece. Or not. And so on.
Anyways, if I only spent a day on this piece, then what about the remaining twenty-seven days of February? Surely I must have something special cooking behind the scenes. The answer to that is kinda, which is not really an answer but more of a halfhearted shrug and averted gaze. I’ll have additional stuff posted this month for sure, though. Pinky promise.
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