Category: pain

I was at Kmart yesterday putting away a pile of batteries that had accumulated at the service desk. (The department manager never does shit.) As I was crouching down and searching for a convenient spot to ditch a handful of double A’s, a quiet voice behind me said, “Excuse me.”

I stood up and turned around. A wizened old man wearing a green polyester John Deere jacket and worn overalls stood staring expectantly at me. He had hair growing in tufts out of his nose, and one long hair growing out of the tip. The red bottoms of his eyes drooped considerably. He was an old farmer. Good people. I liked him immediately.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound cheerier than a restless night and a shitty job allowed for. “Can I help you?”

“Do you know how to work the picture machine?” He asked.

“Sure.”

We have a Kodak Picture Maker sitting next to the camera case. I’ve long since accepted that old people don’t want to bother with technology, so I don’t mind making a picture or two for them. They’re always nicer than any other customers I get, and usually happy with the results. It’s even a little rewarding for me to do it.

I made him an eight-by-ten copy of an old black and white photo of a couple standing in a restaurant, and three four-by-sixes of a blurry woman from an ancient sepia photograph. Surreptitiously looking closely at the couple on the Picture Maker’s screen, I realized that the well-dressed gentleman in the restaurant and the stooped old man standing next to me were one and the same.

He seemed pleased with the photos, and so was I. I realized after I finished the eight-by-ten that I should have made a few adjustments to make for a slightly better photo. Still, it looked good, and I doubted he would know the difference. I rang him up and was about to go about my business when he asked me where the underwear are.

“Oh, they’re over there in the corner.” I pointed in the direction of the underwear, but didn’t bother to walk over and show him. There’s a lot of them. They’re hard to miss.

“Well,” he said, “I’m a little new at this. I lost my wife not too long ago. What size would I need?”

Fuck, I thought. This is an old farmer. They can be really stodgy and traditional. What do I say? Do I say “I’m sorry?” Is that too personal? Would that embarrass him? Are his eyes so red from crying? Does this kindly old man sit alone in his empty house and cry because the woman he loved for forty years died last week? Dammit, what do I say?!

I stared at him dumbly what seemed like an uncomfortable length of time… I’m sure it was only a second. And least, I think that’s what it was. I hope so.

“What waist size are you?”

Dammit. The moment to be act like a normal human being is gone. Saying anything after that will just make both of us uncomfortable.

I guessed that he would probably wear mediums, and he wandered over to the general area I had indicated. I went back to work for a bit until I noticed that he was nowhere near the underwear… and looked confused.

I walked over and showed him exactly where the underwear were, and left him alone again. I know I wouldn’t like having someone standing over my shoulder while I was picking out underwear, and I assumed he wouldn’t feel any different.

I looked up after him as I did my work for the next couple minutes. He’d gone into the fat womens’ section, and didn’t seem to know what to do. He wandered around for a while longer, and eventually began walking towards the exit empty-handed.

Should I help him? Maybe he didn’t find what he was looking for. Does he even know what he’s looking for? Would it be obvious if I came up behind him and asked him if he wants help? Would he even want help? Shit…

As I watched him shuffle away, defeated, I decided not to help him any further. I felt terrible, but I didn’t know what else to do. To try to walk up behind him nonchalantly and ask if he needed anything now would be impossible. To do anything else would let him know that I had watched him try–and fail–to purchase underwear.

I just wish that I would have done something for him. I feel so guilty that I couldn’t do something so simple as get the man a pair of damned underwear.

If you didn’t catch my last entry, In Memoriam, read that first.

[That entry was destroyed along with Diary-x. –ed.]

I went to Matt’s funeral today. It was a very moving ceremony. I’d only been to Catholic funerals before, and they’re pretty stodgy and impersonal. A priest reads a eulogy full of blanket statements intended to cover up the fact that he didn’t know the deceased, and no one else gets a chance to speak. I remember being angry at my grandfather’s funeral, because the priest kept calling him “Louis.” No one ever called him that.

Not this funeral. The minister gave a very eloquent and comforting eulogy, and then Matt’s brother came up and chokingly spoke about when they were kids, a couple funny stories about when they were hunting, about Matt trying to break up the fights between his older brother and sister and getting bumps on the head for his effort. Instead of being a plodding ceremony meaningless to most of the crowd, it was a reminder of who Matt had been and the lives he had touched. People laughed at the stories that were told, and there was nodding in the crowd as people spoke about him.

The only thing wrong with the ceremony were some of the people attending. There were guys that showed up wearing jeans and T-shirts. T-SHIRTS. At a FUNERAL. Granted, I doubt Matt would have cared–he was definitely a T-shirt and jeans kind of guy–but it seemed like a slap in the face to Matt’s grieving family. Their sloppy appearance seemed to say to me, “Yeah, I’m here… but your son’s/brother’s/nephew’s/grandson’s/uncle’s death didn’t mean enough for me to borrow a shirt and tie from my dad’s closet.” One guy even had his leather baseball cap on during the ceremony. I hadn’t even seen Matt since a chance run-in at a redneck bar two or three years ago, and I was debating whether or not I should wear a suit.

Overall, though, it was beautiful ceremony. I’m glad I went. I left immediately afterwards without talking to anyone. I didn’t know any of Matt’s family, and I had nothing to say to any of the rest of the people I used to know. Besides that, I didn’t trust my voice not to choke up or squeak if I tried to hold a conversation.

Despite not having seen Matt in years, I’m going to miss him. It’s nice to think that all the people that you’ve known in your life are still out there somewhere living their lives, learning, working, bitching, and growing. I guess it takes events like this one for people to realize that nothing lasts forever.

Today had been a pretty good day. I got up late, went for a fifteen mile bike ride, got some extra credits points in one of my classes… I was feeling pretty good. I sat down at about a quarter to five, and turned on the TV to catch the last half of Jeopardy, and was playing Nintendo. (We have two TVs in the living room.) When Jeopardy ended, I was engrossed in my game and didn’t bother to change the channel from the local news.

A car accident in Green county leaves one man dead after his vehicle left the road and collided with a tree…

I paused my game. Green County. Huh. That’s where I’m from. I wonder if I know anyone involved.

The driver was 23-year-old Damien Nipple…

Oh shit. I went to grade school with that guy. He was in my class. I remember he was one of the few people that could stand me, but only because he didn’t really have any friends either.

His passenger, Christopher Dixon, was transported to UW-Madison hospital where he later died.

Oh fuck. I walked with his half-brother at my high school graduation. My first girlfriend’s brother was best friends with him.

Alcohol was a factor in the crash. Nipple is being held on counts of providing alcohol to a minor, driving while intoxicated, and homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle.

Jesus. The reporter blithely moved on with the rest of the local news, but I didn’t hear any of it. I just sat there, dumb, with the controller in my lap.

I don’t feel bad for Chris. It’s a tragedy that he’s dead, but he doesn’t feel anything anymore. He’s either in a better place, being reborn, or has simply ceased to exist.

I feel terrible for Damien. The odds were stacked against him from day one. When we were kids, I remember that he always came to school dressed in clothes that were obviously from Goodwill. (Well, when he came to school, anyway.) Half the time he was dirty, as if his parents didn’t even bother to make him bathe. He told me a story about how he had once fallen out of a tree and landed on his head. Being all of eight, I assumed that was the reason that he went to special education classes when the rest of us had recess.

And for fuck’s sake, the guy’s name is Damien. fucking. Nipple. How fucked up did his parents have to be through the entire pregnancy to select “Damien” as the name for their son? You’d think that with a last name as bad as “Nipple,” they’d at least try to give the kid a break on his first name.

He moved to a neighboring town before fourth grade. My best friend at the time moved into their old house, and told me how the ceiling had huge holes everywhere, and that they had found these weird glass pipes with burn marks on them left behind in the parents’ bedroom.

So now he’s facing homicide charges. I don’t think he’s going to do well with them. I can almost guarantee that he and his family can’t afford a lawyer. I think his only hope is that the public defender in Green County gets very few homicide cases, and that he’ll get a fair trial.

But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Damien spends the next 15-20 behind bars.