The Old Man

He sat on his front porch and didn’t understand the world in front of him anymore. It was morning, and he’d taken a newspaper and a cup of coffee to watch the world go by, and there wasn’t even much of that. There were hardly any cars coming into town. All the shopping was out in the strip mall. People only came in town to go to court or pay fines.

He was going to have problems with that, he thought. Everything required a car here. He remembered being stationed in Japan, in Germany, and taking trains everywhere. That would have been easier. His wife had wanted to be near her family, though. It remained her family, though, and not his, now that she was gone.

The newspaper was just ads. They used to have a real newspaper, a local one, with news about things going on at the churches, or photos from school trips, or news about finally repairing the pipe that had burst somewhere underground on the main square and left a green, slimy patch on the sidewalk on the south end of the square. They’d sent cameras down into the pipe to figure out where to dig, and he’d been following that with interest when the last local reporter finally gave up and started working at the Kroger.

One of the ads caught his attention, and he chuckled, “Four year cannabis study, we pay volunteers.” He took his pulse. Strong, sixty-five beats per minute (not bad for just after a cup of coffee.) He’d live another four years, he supposed. There was a QR code for the study. He pulled out the phone he’d bought himself for his eightieth birthday. He’d never been tech shy and once he’d figured out how to make the text large enough to read, he’d had no trouble. The phones were made for idiots, he figured, so it couldn’t be that hard.

The details of the study were interesting. Possible pain relief. Possible sleep aid. Possible digestive help. He farted. All of that sounded fine.

He drove over to the strip mall where the study had set up shop. It was mostly kids, of course, about twenty of them waiting under the awning outside to see if they might get chosen for the study. He was the only one there who appeared to be over sixty.

A kid with long, stringy blond hair made a space for him on the bench while the old man filled out his consent forms, “Hey old man, you gonna go smoke some dope with us?”

“That’s entirely likely,” he said. “I’m Neil, and you are?”

“Bo,” the boy said, shaking Neil’s hand, but then Bo got a text and the old man was left alone with his forms.

Bo was called in, but he left after a minute or so inside. He waved at Neil, “Too much other drug use,” he said.

“They did a blood test that quickly?”

“Nah, convictions, rehab. Like, too recently.”

“Did you, er, need the money?”

Bo shrugged. Of course he did. There were almost no jobs in their town. No jobs and a lot of drugs, because what else was there to do.

“Well, I might not get accepted either, if it’s drugs,” Neil said.

Bo’s eyes widened but Neil cut in, “I mean, cholesterol and whatever. They might need someone who doesn’t take anything.”

Bo sat down again, and Neil was sure that he was going to wait there all day drinking the water from the filtered water bottle and nibbling on the free biscuits.

But Neil was accepted into the study. It was pills, not smoking, and they really helped. He slept better, he ate better. He spent the afternoons humming, “Sometimes I think it’s a shame when I start feeling better when I’m feeling no pain.”

—–

He sat on his front porch and didn’t bother to understand the world in front of him anymore. He took out his phone and read the local newspaper online, the follow up for the drain issue. It was blocked by cement that some doofus had poured into the toilets of the courthouse when they’d renovated the bathrooms, and the doofus had been too lazy to dispose of the water properly. The article really said, “Doofus.” This was kind, because everyone knew who’d done the work, and the nickname had already been unofficial for years.

“Hey Bo, your article got a half dozen, no wait, seven ‘likes’ and a comment here, ‘Well done Bo for getting to the bottom of this’ and a “Good job”.

Bo came out on the porch with Neil and sat down next to him, “You need anything from the Kroger today?”

“I was going to make tuna casserole tonight. Some celery would be nice, that’s the only thing missing.”

“Sounds good. I’m helping out over at the Prisker’s today. They need their lawn mowed. You take your pill?”

The old man made like he was holding a joint, and popped the cannabis pill, “Have yourself a nice day. Dinner’ll be around seven.”