As he limped off the last step of the bus he nearly stumbled. The man caught himself with his cane and swore, more at the cane than anything else. The bus driver looked down, seemingly concerned. Although it was bitterly cold, there was very little snow on the ground this day, rather unusual for an Ohio winter.
“Sir, are you alright?”
“I’m fucking fine. I don’t like this god damn cane or people asking stupid fucking questions.”
The bus driver’s expression changed from one of compassion to that look you give every cranky old guy. The driver closed the door and pulled away without another word. The bus sent a frigid winter gush blasting at the old man, causing him to shiver violently. His weight buckled at his arthritic knees and he slipped loose of his cane, falling into the cold pavement.
Staring at the concrete, he laughed. “You wouldn’t think anyone would be so broken at 45.” He rolled over onto his back and slowly lifted himself back onto the cane. After dusting himself off, he started down the road.
“Never any time to be broken. I’ve still got a bit to go before I can see her again,” he said to no one in particular. These past 15 years he had gotten used to talking to himself more than ever. Sure, there were brief interludes of accompaniment, but having been alone so long he had to talk to someone. Once he started looking his age, and then surpassed the look, people no longer bothered to glare at him strangely when he reenacted the manic conversions in his head verbally. Now, they just avoided and ignored him. Which worked just fine for him. It had allowed him to get away with so much more. Honestly, that’s what his whole life had been about, seeing what he could get away with. Walking out of the center three days ago to return to Madison, his hometown, was just another example of this pattern.
As he walked slowly down the street he fished the ID badge from the center out of his pocket and read it to himself. “Michael Smith, age 45, no ID, issued January 12, 2028. Hmm, Mike... yeah, if I’m back ‘home’ it’s probably better that I start calling myself Ryan again. I remember how much it used to piss me off when people didn’t call me that, but I just abandoned that name, like so much here.”
Ryan let out a long, obviously animated sigh, hoping he might breathe some warmth back into himself. It didn’t work, and the cold penetrated more. He sped up as much as he could, hoping that might keep him warm. As he walked he swung him arm, but slowed when caught sight of his scars poking out of his sleeves. He paused for a minute and unrolled his sleeves, unveiling lines of varying lengths permanently embedded in both his forearms. Every line stopped just short of his wrist. The cold breeze blowing made each line sting. He dropped his arms, and left them exposed as he continued walking.
“All the damn times I cut myself in some vain attempt to get out of my head I never had the balls to just raise the knife a few more inches and finish the job. I couldn’t kill myself, so I just removed myself from my life. I left, with one useless gesture, scrawled in spray paint on my door. Nothing, but the message, ‘I am gone’ told people what happened to me.”
Ryan’s imaginary conversation was cut short when he reached the edge of a long sloping field. “She should be here somewhere.” After searching for several minutes through tall grass he finally found who he was looking for.
“Hey, long time...” He paused for a minute to seat himself slowly in the grass. Ryan did not wait for a response from her. He never did. “Look, there are some things I need to say. I realize this might be too late, but I have to tell someone what happened to me.”
“The simple answer is, I just left. I abandoned everyone I ever knew. I got in my car and started driving. I truly did not want to live anymore, but some nagging survival mentality kept me from ever ending it myself. I even maxed out the cash limit on all my credit cards before I left so I could atleast eat. On one hand I was expecting to die and one the other I was making plans to stay alive.”
“I guess I figured somewhere out on the road, somewhere else, I might find my life, or a better death. Either way, I wanted Ryan to not exist anymore. I’d let the scavengers I knew pick apart what was left of him here until there was no trace. There was only one thing I left behind that really mattered, one thing that kept me feeling subhuman all these years: my son. I wish I could say I had some grand reason why I left him, but I can’t. I really had no good reason. It was an act of pure selfishness. So many of the fathers who abandon their children try to justify it in some manner: the kid will be better off without me, etc., blah fucking blah. I actively fought to not to justify myself. There was no justification to be had. And I thought about that choice all the time, but never went back. Truthfully, I did forget about it from time to time, but I always carried it. When my car finally broke down in Texas, I even sent the rest of the money back to Erin, thinking this was the end. Instead, I went to a soup kitchen, filled my belly, and started walking. Maybe the money was some way of alleviating my guilt. It didn’t really work. But, then again, maybe it was just another selfish act, trying to jettison the last of Ryan from me. It’s not like I really wanted to start over, just have a good ending.”
“You know, of all the people I left behind, the three I cared about the most I never checked in on. I guess I felt if I did I would be drawn back and I just wanted that life to be gone. I always wondered though. Did Aaron ever write his book? Did it ever get published? Dante would almost be 18 now. I wonder what kind of man he grew into. Xander would be driving now too I guess. It hurts me so much not to know what happened to him, as much as it probably hurt him to never know me. What about Erin? I wonder if she ever found that love she was looking for. Like she always said, it wasn’t going to be me. And as much as I fought her on that, she was right. That constant rejection definitely played a part in my leaving, but it wasn’t just her rejection. I felt rejected by the whole world, like I was never supposed to be part of it. I wonder if the cruel things I said about her being alone the rest of her life came to pass. I suppose I could try to find them now, but what would be the point. I died a long time ago.”
“The whole 15 years has just been one giant selfish act and it hasn’t really proven very effective. I was trying to kill one person and raise another. If I couldn’t even raise my son what made me think I could raise myself? You know for a while I really tried to be that person. I started calling myself Mike, but had no way of proving to anyone who I really was. I just wandered from place to place, heading closer and closer to California. I’m not sure why I chose that direction, but it just seemed the only way I could go until I reached something I could not walk over anymore. I didn’t really get that far from Texas anyways. Somewhere in New Mexico I hit a stretch of nothing, no soup kitchens or homeless shelters for me survive in. Half the time I ate from junk food I stole out of truck stops. I wound up with $5 in my pocket from collecting cans on the highway in some small town. I wandered into a diner, tried to clean myself in their restroom, and sat down in a booth. I ordered coffee, but fell asleep in the booth before it came. The waitress let me sleep four hours before I woke up. It was first act of compassion a person with no other vested interest or religious doctrine telling them they had to that anyone did for me on this whole suicide mission.”
“When I finally awoke, the waitress only said one thing.”
“Long night”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a short night.”
“She wound up buying me dinner that night and we talked until the place closed. I went home with her that night. That one night stand wound up lasting for quite a while. I guess it was her name that really intrigued me at first: Sarah. You know I was never much of a religious man, but it just seemed like a sign. Sarah, the name of the first girl I ever had a crush on, and the potential name for my first daughter. I wound up working in the restaurant, cooking and waiting on people. Since she owned the place, she never really asked for ID or took taxes. As far as she was concerned, who I was the night she met me was who I was to her. We were together five years before she got pregnant. All of it seemed to be falling into place.”
“I got comfortable and complacent. That has always been my downfall. About a month into the third trimester she started getting violently ill. We rushed her to the hospital, but it was nearly an hour away. By the time we got there it was too late. Our daughter, “Faith” only lived for 10 minutes. Every sign, everything I had worked for to create a new person; me, this little girl, every horrible part of Ryan and the life he created there, and his son all came crashing down on me. I was not meant to be happy or loved. I had left one child, and I felt as though I was being punished for attempting to create another.”
“That was the second time I lost faith. And I just couldn’t handle it. I left Sarah before she even got out of the hospital. I stole a different car that night so she’d have a way to leave the hospital.”
The wind suddenly picked up as Ryan sat there. A single tear streamed down his face and was promptly wiped away. He stood up and paced back and forth, slowly, his cane making a clink as it hit ice.
“It wasn’t this cold ever in California. I guess, logically, that’s why stayed there so long. I could live on the streets and not die, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I just could not get out of my head. Mike and Ryan kept going round and round with each other. Honestly, looking back, I was probably having a mental breakdown. But, instead I took to drinking. Most of my food came from shelters, so what little I scrounged in change and cans I bought liquor with. But it was never enough to make me forget. Ryan still had some voice in my head that was terrified of surrendering complete control of his body to drugs, so Mike never really tried anything harder. Ryan, however, didn’t seem to draw the same line at booze, so Mike assumed he just needed more. So if he couldn’t buy it, he stole it. The liquor stores in California have Fort Knox type security, and a homeless guy kinda sticks out in them, so I stole my liquor from homeless people.”
“That was an even worse idea. I got away with it a few times, but as usual, got cocky, and messed with the wrong guy. Spending time in jail for robbing a liquor store probably would have been better than the months I spent in the hospital eating from tube or the years in rehab. Half my teeth are fake now, and I still can’t close my jaw correctly. As you can see my knees are bad and this cold air is doing hell on my punctured lung.”
“The one thing the hospital did do, was give me time to think. It’s not like I had some immediate turn around, but I was able to check in on the people I had left behind. The rehab center had internet and you’d be surprised how much information is free to the public, or how many people do not put privacy settings on their Facebook pages. I could never bring myself to lookup Erin, Xander, Dante, or Aaron, nor Sarah. I don’t even know if Sarah survived after the baby died. But, I did look into my family. Shawn had a number more arrests for meth and alcohol and Jen divorced him in 2020. Dad died in 2016, but the details were not given. I assume it was pill related. It was for so long. Mom was arrested a few years after Dad died and died in prison, apparently of a heart attack. Roger died of a diabetically weakened heart in his early 40s. I realize this is shitty, but all of those people struggled so much in their lives, made so many poor choices, and had so much pain to deal with, that I kinda envy the peace they get now. I’m jealous that they got an out, an ending.”
“I even looked into Ashtabula, which I realize you have no connection to nor do you know any of my friends from there. There was nothing, but time in that place, and since I’ve obviously monopolized this entire conversation, I guess I continue spewing words at you. Alot of Ashtabula was razed in several fires between 2017 and 2020, which I guess is probably an improvement. One of them was started by Dean’s brother, Dale, and probably for the same reason as many of them. Dale was cooking meth in the basement and it, of course, exploded. The whole house burned down, killing Dean and his whole family. It’s a shame he never left home for more than a year, or he might have not been there when the house went up.”
“Josh was smart enough to move out of Ashtabula to a bigger city that better understood his brand of hipster. He self-published a few poetry books, but then went to Europe and as far as I know no one has heard from him since.”
Ryan stopped pacing and shuffled awkwardly with his pocket. He pulled a small pistol from his pocket and sat it on the ground. He then sat down next to it.
“And then there’s you. You were the last one I looked up. I’m not sure what took me so long to be curious about what happened to you. I guess I just sorta worked my way backwards through Ryan’s life, tiptoeing around anything too difficult until I came to something that seemed to be the beginning. Really, I guess this all began with my parents, but this whole rejection thing started, most definitely with you. I’m not trying to blame you for anything. I’m years past giving a shit about blame for anyone. Actually, I’m here to apologize. I found Tom’s and your mother’s obituaries first, and then I started to read the other articles related to you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there that night. If I had known. There was still enough of Ryan left in me to care. I would have come back. I would have tried to protect you. I didn’t know you’d be raped that night. I don’t care what happened between us. I needed to be there that night. There are so many nights I needed to be there.”
The tears started again. This time Ryan made no attempt to wipe them away. They came so quickly, that there would have been no way to stop them if he tried.
Sobbing now, “There are so many people I left, I lost. So much I have missed pretending I was someone else. I was Mike, but I’ve always been Ryan, and I ran away from that so long that there’s no one left who remembers his name. I spent my whole life trying to believe in something, in myself if I could find anything better. But even I proved unworthy, and I just stopped believing. I was so obsessed for so long with creating something people would remember me by, and I just wiped it all away, threw myself and all of you away. I’m so sorry.”
Ryan began choking on his tears. He could no longer speak. The words were gone, much like he was so long ago. All that was heard for minutes was the sounds of an old man full of regret for the first time in his selfish life. After a while the crying ceased and he just stared ahead. Nothing, but silence existed, because for once in his damn life, Ryan has shut the hell up. He just listened to nothing. He removed his glasses and let them drop to the ground.
He reached forward and began brushing the years of neglect from the stone he had been talking to, revealing the inscription, “Our beloved rose in bloom.”
He turned to walk away, but paused and took one final look at the tombstone.
“I’ll see you again.”
“Take care, Lisa. Don’t be a stranger.”
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