"You selfish son of a bitch".
It was scrawled, the handwriting not only near illegible but also unrecognizable, across a piece of paper taped to Boris's door. Boris groaned as he stood and stared at it, Polly at his side, chewing on a bear claw. Boris took the paper off and looked at it closer, almost like he was inspecting it, as if he'd find some clue that would somehow lead him to its author. "I didn't know someone hated me this much," Boris muttered. "I hate you that much, but I didn't do this," Polly said. "No, of course you didn't, you'd have to know how to spell to do this," Boris said, making Polly smirk as she followed him down the hall, presumably looking for Carol. Unfortunately, Carol was nowhere to be seen, and he groaned and stuffed the paper in his coat pocket. "So what are you gonna do about it? You gonna find out who it is and challenge them to a deadly game of shuffleboard?" Polly asked, snickering. "You're the same age as me, why do you act like you're not?" Boris asked, sounding annoyed. "You're only as old as you feel," Polly replied, "And I feel 45." "Well you look 90," Boris snapped back, making her laugh even harder before adding, "And honestly, if you're not gonna help me, then just get lost, alright? I don't need anymore stress around me right now." "You want my help?" Polly asked, "I'm a pretty good sleuth." Boris turned to face her as Polly finished eating her bear claw and licking her fingers. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, then threw his arms up in frustration, giving up and continuing to head to his bedroom, Polly right behind him. As they entered his bedroom, Boris opened his desk drawer and found his pad of personalized paper, then pulled the paper ball from his coat pocket and spread it out on the desk as Polly sat on his bed and watched. "Just as I suspected," Boris said, "It's from my pad. Someone came into my room, found my paper and then made a note on a piece of my own personalized paper. That's just an extra bit of cruelty." "How and why do you have personalized paper? I want personalized paper!" Polly said, standing up and taking the now uncrumpled paper ball from him, looking at it closely, "It's shaky. This indicates we could be dealing with someone who has Parkinsons." "That's not stereotyping at all," Boris muttered. "I'm just giving you the facts as I see them." "As you see them?" "Yes, the only ways facts are meant to be seen, by me," Polly added snarkily, making Boris chuckle; she continued, adding, "I mean it could be something different, but that would be my first guess is someone suffering from Parkinsons, and likely poor eyesight considering how sloppily this is done. So someone with glasses, or perhaps on medication for Glaucoma." Boris looked at her in sheer awe, something Polly had never experienced before given the general animosity of their strangely almost laughably pseudo vicious rivalry. She shrugged and smiled as she handed the paper back to him. "What can I say," she said, "I really loved Nancy Drew." Thankfully, with this information Polly had somehow gleamed from this paper, Boris knew exactly who to go to. *** "That's classified information, I can't tell you that," Whittle said. "What do you care, you don't even work there anymore!" Polly asked as Whittle stood up from her dinner table and walked across the kitchen to the sink to get a glass and pour herself some more coffee. Whittle took a few sips before leaning against the sink and looking back at Polly and Boris sitting together at the table. "What is this?" she asked, "What's this little, uh, weird Sherlock and Watson thing you got goin' on here? Normally you two hate eachother." "It turns out Polly somehow has a natural talent for sleuthing," Boris said, "I don't know how she's good at anything, but remarkably she is." "And, only I am allowed to make Boris's life miserable. That job is taken," Polly said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms as Whittle laughed a little and walked back to the table, sitting back down. "If I tell you this, you cannot tell anyone who it was that told you," Whittle said as she leaned in and lowered her voice, "...you want Room 213. Ask for Mrs. Sylar." *** Room 213 was easy enough to track down, as they discovered once back at the home. Second story, thirteenth room, but upon knocking on the door they were greeted with something fairly unusual. It wasn't the room of a patient, but rather a janitorial closet. Once it was opened, a young woman stood there, looking out at them, dressed in her janitorial garb. Polly and Boris glanced at one another, the looked at the young woman again. "Uh, Mrs. Sylar?" Boris asked, and the girl nodded, opened the door the rest of the way and let the both of them in. She shut the door behind her and then leaned against it, looking at Boris and Polly who now stood in the center of the small closet, looking around at all the various cleaning supplies. The woman, who they presumed was Mrs. Sylar, was fair skinned and heavily freckled with buck teeth and mousy brown hair. She looked at them as she chewed her thumbnail on her right hand. "My name is Boris, this is Polly," Boris said, "I was told to ask to speak to Mrs. Sylar about finding out information about a patient." "I'm Sylar, but not Mrs. I'm not married," Sylar said, "What do you need?" "Someone left me a fairly strongly worded message on my door, and we figured their handwriting meant they suffered from one or multiple ailments that impaired either their ability to write or see properly," Boris said, taking the paper out from his coat pocket and handing it to Sylar, "So we want to know who might've done this. We're thinking perhaps they have glaucoma or parkinsons." "This is definitely the chickenscratch of someone with parkinsons, most definitely," Sylar said as she looked at the writing on the paper, "Remarkably only one person in this entire home suffers from it. They take a medication called Levodopa to help deal with it." "How do you know this?" Polly asked. "Because I steal medication and sell it on the street," Sylar said walking past them and pulling out a small black book from her pocket on her jumpsuit, "Yes, you want Mr. Druback, in Room 119, Building B. But you cannot tell anyone I gave you this information." Polly nodded, then turned and began to exit the room as Boris stood behind and waited for Sylar, who stopped as she got near him. "Why are you telling me this if you know you could get into a lot of trouble?" Boris asked, and Sylar looked at the floor, her voice almost a whisper now. "Because people think I'm a selfish son of a bitch too, because of my reliance on the drugs I steal, and the money I make off of them," Sylar said, "I know what it's like for people to hate you." Boris didn't know what to make of this. He never really expected anyone at the home to outright hate him. Sure, he and Polly had a somewhat clashing relationship, but it was all in good fun, he'd always felt. But this note left on his door? This was done out of anger and spite. Someone was truly unhappy with and at him, and that was something Boris didn't know how to deal with. He'd never been very good at dealing with people who didn't like him. Especially not since the accident with Ellen. Boris turned and followed Polly back out into the hall, as Sylar shut the door behind them. "Well," Polly said, "That sure was a load of something." "...why would someone be so mad at me?" Boris asked. "You really gonna let a little note scribbled by someone who likely can't even hold their own dick to pee anymore get you down?" Polly asked, "Get over it. You're in much better shape than they are, maybe that's why, because they're envious." "I can't imagine anyone who would be envious of me," Boris said, leaning against the wall and rubbing his face with his hand, feeling deflated. "Boris," Polly said, approaching him, "I don't go out of my way to be nice to, well...anyone, but especially not you, so I hope you appreciate what I'm about to say. A lot of people would be envious of you. You're in much better health than most of the folks who live here, you can come and go as you please and, most importantly, you still have someone from your life who visits. Even if it's an ex wife, it's somebody. You have a lot to be envious of, believe it or not." Boris looked at her, and could see she wasn't just putting him on, she was being sincere, or as sincere as Polly could stand to be anyway. Either way, didn't matter. They had their name now; Mr. Druback, Room 119, Building B. *** They had never visited Building B aside from the one time Boris came to find Leanne. But even then he hadn't really stopped to take into account just how...shabby, it was. It was a lot more rundown than Building A, and a lot less cheerful in a decorative sense. As Boris and Polly walked down the halls, trying to find Room 119, they could both feel the chill in the air that permeated the entire establishment; a chill of both sadness and illness. This was not welcoming like their building was, and they both began to feel bad for anyone who was forced to live within these quarters. It wasn't squalor, by any means, but it was definitely a step down. "Just being in here makes me feel like I'm committing elder abuse," Polly mumbled, making Boris chuckle. "It's pretty dang dreary, yeah," he said, "This must be where everyone who can't afford the nicer accommodations ends up. People without money, or health insurance or health care of any kind. This is the place old people who have kids that don't care about them get stuck." "God I'm glad I never had children," Polly said. "Really? You never had kids?" "Can you blame me if this is what they would do to me?" Polly asked, gesturing to their surroundings. "Fair argument," Boris said, as they finally stopped in front of a door and he pointed at it, adding, "There it is. Room 119. Mr. Druback...I don't know that I've ever even heard of him or heard his name. God, I'm terrible. You'd expect me to be friends with more people around here." "Please, you're really gonna spend your last few years alive making friends? Most will likely die before you do, and then you'll just be left with a world of grief," Polly said, knocking on the door. "Jeez, what happened to you to make you so cynical?" Boris asked, but she merely folded her arms and didn't answer him. The door swung open to a young woman standing there, a nurse, who looked surprised to see people outside in the hall. She glanced between the two of them before asking what they needed. "We're here to see Mr. Druback," Boris said quietly. "Come in," the nurse said, moving aside so they could enter. The interior of this room was like a snapshot of the forties. The wallpaper well patterned, the carpet shaggy, the lighting dim yet accessible. Bookshelf after bookshelf lined the wall, and there, in the middle of the room in a bed, in front of a television, was an old man hooked up to machines. Boris and Polly slowly entered and walked towards it, the nurse right behind them. "Mr. Druback, these two want to see you," she said, before leaving them to their business. Mr. Druback, nearly bald, large bags under his eyes, rolled his head to the side and glared at the two, before exhaling. "God dammit," he mumbled, "What do you want?" "You left me a note on my door," Boris said, "It called me a selfish son of a bitch." "And what? You're here to dispute that?" Mr. Druback asked, "Go ahead, try and tell me how I'm wrong." "I...I don't think you are, is the thing," Boris said, surprising both Polly and Mr. Druback, as he seated himself on the chair beside the bed and hung his head, "...the truth is, I've spent all day, we spent all day, looking for who wrote the letter because I was hurt and angry. I thought it was malicious and cruel. But I never recognized just how lucky I am, and that maybe, to someone else, I really am a selfish son of a bitch. But it's not intentional. I don't think I ever recognized how lucky I am to have the things that I have. I haven't always been lucky, and my luck isn't all that great. I have a daughter in a coma and an ex-wife with a bitter unstable relationship with me, but I have my health - give or take - and some friends and I have money and...and I guess I'm pretty lucky in that regard." Mr. Druback shifted in his bed and folded his hands in his laps, waiting for Boris to go on, while Polly stood by, one hand on her chest, surprised by this sudden outpouring of honesty. "...and what it really boils down to is after spending a whole day being angry, I'm now angry at myself for being mad at someone for being so brave to tell me the truth. I wish I had that courage. I wish I could tell the truth as easily as you seem to be able to. I always sugarcoat it, I always try and make it less harsh than it is because I don't want to hurt people but...but I think sometimes the truth needs to hurt. If it doesn't hurt, then it doesn't make an impact, and thus the lesson that's supposed to be learned from it is easily forgotten or outright ignored." Boris shook his head and pulled his cap off, running his hands through his thinning hair. "Thanks for being mean," Boris said, half laughing, "I think maybe it's the exact kind of thing I need." With that, Boris held his arm out and Mr. Druback, half hesitant and half confused, reached out and shook his hand. After the shake ended, Boris stood, put his cap back on and headed out of the room, Polly quick on his heels. As she closed the door behind her, saying goodbye to Druback's nurse, she turned to see Boris leaning against a wall, his arm posted up on the wall, his face shoved against his arm. "Well," Polly said, stretching best she could and yawning, "I think I could use a nap after all this excitement. That was, uh, kind of surprising what you said in there." Boris was quietly crying, and Polly stopped and cautiously placed her hand on his back and rubbed, trying to comfort him. It'd never occurred to her that perhaps she was actually the best person he had in his life, if for no other reason than because she argued with him and pushed him to fight back, something Carol and Burt and the others didn't do. Their dubiously antagonistic behavior seemed to actually be better than complacency, and she'd never really considered this a positive. After a bit, Boris finished crying and turned to face Polly, who - for the first time he could remember - genuinely smiled at him. "Thank you," he said quietly, "Thank you for coming with me, for helping me figure this out. Thank you for being mean." "Hey, it's no big deal, I just did what I normally do," Polly said. Boris and Polly walked back to their building together and spent the rest of the evening getting dinner, playing a few games of Scrabble (surprising everyone else by their odd, unnaturally cooperative demeanor) and then went their own ways. After Boris went to his room for the night, Polly went to hers and sat on the end of her bed, staring at the vanity mirror propped up on the table across from her against the wall. She shut her eyes and tried to remember, tried to remember back to when Boris had first moved into the home. *** He was new here; tall and well dressed, and didn't seem nearly as physically or mentally impaired as most of the residents of the home were. Polly and Carol were sitting together at a table, as Polly did a puzzle and Carol read a magazine, but upon Boris's entrance, they both looked up at him and watched his every move. "He looks fine," Polly said, "I can't imagine why he's in a home. He doesn't seem to be the kind who needs the help." "Who knows," Carol said, "None of our business." "He doesn't need any help, he's cognizant, he's not stumbling around, he looks like he has money, and yet here he is, ready to take up space that someone much worse off than him likely would appreciate and need," Polly said, scoffing, as she turned back to her puzzle and under her breath muttered to herself, "what a selfish son of a bitch." *** Sitting on the bed that night, Polly swore to herself she'd try to be less combative towards Boris from then on. He wasn't selfish, he was in deeply immense pain, just like everyone else; it just wasn't as physical as most of the people in the home. She laid on her bed and looked at the ceiling overhead as she reached to the bedside table and turned on her radio, tuning it to the old jazz station and shut her eyes to let the notes carry her off into a restful sleep. He wasn't a selfish son of a bitch, and that wasn't something she was afraid to admit being wrong about.
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Golden Years follows the exploits of a bunch of old people in a retirement home as they try to have fun, relax or come to terms with the soon to be end of their lives. Archives
April 2024
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