Boris was sitting on the grass, looking at his hat in his hands. He sighed and reached up, running his hand through his mostly gone hair. He shook his head and put his hat back on his head, then cupped his hands together.
"...things have been good with Chrissy lately," he said, "I got my poetry book published, and I gave her a copy. I wrote a poem for her, about her, and she thought that was neat. It's kinda nice, having her around to vicariously do the things I wanted to do for my daughter when she was her age. John is trying to start a new church downtown, one that's more welcoming of queer people, so that's been interesting." He glanced to the headstone beside him, the one that bore Polly's name, and he sighed again. "...god it's awful not having you here," he whispered,, "it's really....it's truly just awful. I wish you could say something, anything, to let me know that you're somewhere better now. Somewhere where you're...I don't know...not as restricted as you were in life, and maybe able to be happy with who you are. Where you aren't judged for yourself. You got lucky. You got out. I'm still stuck here, just without you." He checked his watch and shook his head, standing up and wiping the grass stains from his pants as a middle aged couple began to walk by. "I'll come see you again next week, alright?" he asked, putting his hands in his pockets, looking at the stone, "I'll wash your rock." "Your wife?" the man passing by asked, and Boris laughed. "No, no, god no. Just a friend. A very good, very missed friend," he said. *** "What is the point of having insurance if it doesn't cover what you need it to? What, just on the off chance it might cover something that happens to me? We're paying for POSSIBILITY?" Burt asked. He and Carol were sitting in Carol's office as she tried to get some paperwork done. Burt was looking through a file she'd finished, in which she'd consolidated everyone in the homes outdated insurance information. "Seriously, it sounds like a scam. 'Well, you might get hurt, so you should pay exorbitant amounts for this thing you'll likely rarely ever use'. That doesn't sound like a financially sound way to protect ones self. I'd rather just go to the doctor. Most insurance doesn't cover basic doctor visits anyway. Anyone who pays for insurance is a sucker, plain and simple." "BURT." Burt looked up, noticing Carol glaring at him, pen in her clenched fist. "Please," she added, "shut. up. I am trying to finish this." Burt nodded and went back to silently reading the file, listening to the pen scratches from Carol's desk while she continued getting her paperwork finished. "I'm just saying-" Burt continued. "Oh dear god," Carol muttered. "-it seems ridiculous to pay for something that won't cover a good portion of your medical needs. It doesn't cover dental, it doesn't over mental. Apparently anything that ends in the 'ental' prefix is right out. There's absolutely no need for there to be a difference. It's all a part of our body, which means it's all medical care. But these goddamned bastards decided a long time ago that it was more financially draining on us to charge for multiple aspects of our health, and there's no way to untangle that web of mess now." "I'm going to show you what good insurance is for in a minute if you don't shut the fuck up," Carol said through gritted teeth. Just then her office door opened, and Larry walked in, tossing a file onto her desk. She stopped her writing and looked up at the file, then up at Larry, who was now standing next to Burt's chair; after a moment she tapped the file with her pen and asked, "...what is this? Please PLEASE tell me you didn't just bring me MORE work." "I didn't. I'm just delivering it to you," Larry said, shrugging, "it's actually something you might be interested in looking into. Someone in the home doesn't have their medication covered, when it so clearly should be, and all because the insurance was under their husbands name." Carol looked at the file, then laid her face on the desk. Larry glanced down at Burt. "What're you reading?" he asked. "A pack of lies, that's what," Burt replied. "GET OUT OF MY OFFICE," Carol shouted, her face flat on the desk. *** John Krickett was seated in the usual booth at the usual diner. He checked his watch, then took a sip from his coffee. He heard the bell over the door jingle, and looked up to see Boris approaching. Boris took his coat off and slid into the booth, across from John, who was just smiling at him. "You're not usually late," John said. "I'm very punctual, yes," he replied, "I had to take care of something today." "Anything important?" A few seconds passed, and Boris looked away from the table. He pulled his hat off and set it on his jacket, then sighed. "...it's been a year," he said, "since...since Polly. Today, in particular, is the anniversary of her OD." "It's been a year? Fucking hell, it certainly doesn't feel like it," John said. "I was at the cemetery. I go to the cemetery every week and talk to her headstone, but of course you know that already," Boris said, "...but something about doing it today was...I don't know...somehow sadder than usual. I guess it made it sink in how final it all is. She's just not here anymore. She was here, and now she's not. And I'm still blaming myself. I'm still mad at myself for not stopping us from-" "You need to stop blaming yourself," John said, adjusting his roman collar and shaking his head, "I know it's hard to, but you have to, otherwise you're never going to move on in any real significant way. She made a decision. She was clearly unhappy. If nothing else, be grateful that you showed her, right at the end, that someone still cared. That someone was willing to be there, even at her absolute worse." "The woman was a mess," Boris mumbled, chuckling gently, "she was a goddamned nightmare from the day that I met her, and she continued to be a nightmare til the day that she died. But she was something else the oher folks at the home weren't, and that's honest. Far too many people my age, they like to pretend they've lived lives of no regrets, of no disappointments. That they're happy with the way things turned out. Plenty of them are not, and I know it for a fact. When you have insomnia, you spend a lot of time at night by yourself, and you can hear some of them crying in their rooms. They aren't happy. They're just too scared to admit that, now that they're so close to the end, there's nothing they can do to fix it." John leaned back in the booth and shrugged. "So what are you saying, that life is nothing but a series of neverending mistakes?" John asked. "I don't know what it is I'm saying, honestly," Boris replied, "all I know is this. Polly didn't pretend to be happy. She was pissed off. She was pissed off on getting screwed over time and time again all because of having been born at a specific point in time that didn't allow her to be happy. To feel like a real person. To feel equal to those around her, specifically to the men around her who got to openly flaunt their love for the women in their lives. It was refreshing. She was angry. She was mean...and I loved her for it." Father Krickett hadn't heard Boris speak of Polly in a while, but he was more than happy to listen right now. He was happy to hear Boris try and get things off his mind, and out into an open space. He felt the old man was generally way too closed up, and he needed to talk more. "Is that what made you guys friends? Mutual anger? I mean, didn't you feel the same way?" "I didn't love men," Boris said, laughing. "No, not like that," John replied, laughing, "but I mean, you were a man who wanted to do things that men didn't normally do. Poetry writing was more often than not a womans field, really. Or at least that's how it always came across. More feminine leaning." "There's been male poets for as long as literature has existed," Boris said, scoffing, "I'm not even entertaining the idea of that. But you're not wrong. I do think it was the anger. I was mad at myself for not being a better father, and mad at society for failing to teach me how to be more openly emotional. I failed my daughter. I failed my wife. I failed myself, but that's okay, it's okay to fail yourself. It's NOT okay to fail those who are depending on you. Those you support." A moment passed, and Boris wiped at his eyes with a napkin from the table. "You okay, buddy?" John asked, his voice hushed. "I'll be alright," Boris replied, "I have to. I don't really have any other choice." *** "But why isn't it capable of being covered?" Carol asked, pacing back and forth behind her desk, phone lifted to her face; she listened, rolled her eyes and then replied, annoyed, "because he's DEAD, this isn't complicated. Isn't she entitled to some kind of benefits if he dies? For god sakes, she's 82, she can't go out and apply for a job! She doesn't have the income to pay for insurance of her own!" After a moment, she groaned, then said goodbye and hung up. She looked at Burt, still seated in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, before she sunk into her own. "...I'm supposed to be able to help people," Carol whispered, "that was the whole idea of buying this place, was to be able to do the things nobody else could do. Go to bat for people our age who couldn't go to bat for themselves. But it feels like I get stuck at every turn, and it's infuriating, and frustrating. Nobody will take me seriously." "I take you seriously. The people here take what you do seriously. You do wonderful things, Carol," Burt said, which made Carol blush. She tapped her nails on the desk, resting her chin on her other fist and sighing. "...we could always go see Elaine," Burt mumbled, and Carol looked up. "Who?" "Come with me," Burt said, getting up and exiting the office, Carol quickly on his heels. *** "What do you do when you've made it?" Boris asked, "when you accomplish your goal? If I hadn't gotten this thing published, I'd still have my regrets about not going for it, but now that it's been produced, I don't have those regrets. Who the hell ever ends life fully satisfied?" "Not many do, but those who somehow manage to probably feel pretty pleased with themselves. Smug bastards," John said, making Boris smirk as he continued, adding, "but here's the thing...is that all life is? At the end, do you just run through a mental checklist and cross out everything you managed to do, while sulking on the ones you didn't? Seems kind of boring to me. You think, in those last few minutes, Polly had regrets?" Boris leaned back in his side of the booth and folded his arms, exhaling. "I...don't know," he said, "I really don't. A part of me would like to think that she didn't. A part of me would really like to believe that she truly was happy with how things had turned out. I mean, after all, sure...her family wasn't accepting, society was pretty heavily biased against her, but she did manage to be with the person she loved. So even if they died, so what? Everyone dies eventually, right? I mean, it's sad, but how many closeted people from our generation get to the end of their lives and wind up regretting never even trying, you know? She tried, and succeeded. I think that alone is cause for celebration." "Exactly," John said, smiling as the waitress stopped by the table and refilled his coffee; he took a long sip, then sighed and said, "it's so easy to accentuate the negative, because the negative is the thing that sticks with us. Our brains are hardwired to remember the bad, not reflect on the good. I don't know why we're hardwired that way, but we just are. Regardless, it takes effort to remember the positive, but I say if it takes effort, then it's something worth remembering." Boris nodded, listening. He glanced out the window and thought about Polly. Thought about how she'd feel today if she were still here. She was clearly in a lot of pain, clearly angry at the world, clearly upset with herself. She'd made her decision, a decision she felt was right for her, and Boris had to respect that even if it made him sad. "...there'll never be another like her," he whispered, a tear rolling down his face. John reached across the table and held the old mans hand to comfort him; Boris added after a moment, "...and that's good, because there was only one person capable of being her, and it was her." *** "Why don't I know about this?" Carol asked. She and Burt were standing in a janitorial closet, where Elaine Sylar was rooting through boxes and boxes of pill bottles. "Because you aren't in the circle," Burt said. "And you are?" "I'm circle adjacent, yes." "What's adjacent to a circle, a rhombus?" "Would you two PLEASE?" Sylar asked, glancing over her shoulder before going back to digging through boxes. Burt lowered his voice and approached Carol, pulling her a bit away so they wouldn't bother Sylar again as he started to explain the situation. "This is Sylar, she's a janitor, but she also steals and resells medication. She's also capable of acquiring medication from other nursing homes through her janitorial friends who work at those locations. They meet and swap info and meds, sometimes for free, often for a price. If someone needs something and their insurance doesn't cover it, Sylar's who you come to," Burt said, as Carol looked over him to get a good sight of the young drug lord in their midst. "And this is just...happening? I was never informed of this?" "Because would you have allowed it?" A moment, and then Carol shook her head, and Burt nodded. "Exactly," he said. "Here," Sylar said, approaching them, hand outstretched as she handed them a bottle, saying, "give this to them. This is what they need. You know, people often give me shit for my way of making money without thinking about the fact that the insurance business is an even bigger racket, generally full of worse criminals than I am. I'm not ripping anyone off. I'm stealing things that are no longer needed, and redistributing them to those in need, because the government apparently cannot be bothered to care for their own citizens, either young or elderly." Carol took the bottle and looked at it in awe, before looking back at Sylar. "....so sure, I'm a drug dealer, whatever. But at least I'm honest about it. At least I'm not hiding behind a guise of helping people when in reality my business is ripping them off and sucking them dry financially," she said, "that's what's most despicable is these companies absolutely adamant belief - their utter conviction even - to their own lies. I'm a thief, but I'm NOT a liar." Carol smiled and shook Sylar's hand, thanking her. Afterwards, she and Burt exited the janitors closet and stood back in the hall. Burt cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Welp," he said, "guess it's time for this ol' mule to mosey on to where he once came." "Who're you, the Lone Ranger?" Carol asked, laughing, "actually, Burt, thank you. Thank you for your help. I hate asking for help, but...I do appreciate what you managed to do here today, and I'm sure our fellow housemate will appreciate it as well." "All in a days work," Burt said, smiling, as he turned and headed down the hall. Watching him go, Carol realized just how little she actually knew the people around her, despite working for them. She made it her duty right then and there to become better acquainted with those in the home, and befriend them as well. Nobody deserved to be without their medication, and nobody deserved to be alone, especially not at this stage in their life. She looked at the bottle grasped firmly in her hand once more and smiled. She'd get this to its necessary recipient immediately, and then, maybe, she'd take a nap. She'd worked hard today, after all. She felt she deserved a little rest. *** Boris, the following week, was back at the cemetery, back at Polly's grave, but this time he brought his poetry book with him. He sat and he read poetry aloud to the gleaming, freshly cleaned headstone, and he ate the lunch he'd brought with him in between poems. Sometimes he'd stop and he'd tell Polly things, things about what was going on at home, or at the home, or about his new stuff he was working on. But all in all, he just liked being here. With her. Boris realized after his conversation with Father Krickett, that sometimes, just because someone is gone, doesn't mean you still can't spend time with them. She was here, and she'd always be here, and for that he was thankful. Boris coughed and re-opened the poetry book, after finishing the peach he'd packed as part of his lunch. He raised the book back to eye level and smirked. "You might like this one," he said, "it's about you, it's called 'Bitch'." He knew, if she were here, she'd have laughed.
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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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