Fiction: The Compassion Myth

By Joshua Vigil

 

On my second day working for Hiram, I drowned my nostrils in VapoRub and settled a sanitary mask over my face. Hiram was a hoarder. Book pillars stippled his living room, pyramids of which careened down the halls, and he’d packed his tub with dusty hardcovers too. When I’d reached for one the day before, I’d discovered it was soiled through with piss and shit.

The toilet bowl was no better. This despite the fact he wore a colostomy bag and didn’t have much use for it.

I was fidgeting with my mask when Hiram asked if I’d seen this video before. On the TV screen a plane carved a clouded sky. A collection of dark dots floated beside the aircraft. They continued, encircling it, going faster, until the plane vanished in a dark blast. The sky now crystal clear. No plane, no dots. Nothing there at all.

It’s the Malaysia Airlines flight, Hiram said. The one that disappeared.

What were the dots? I asked.

Some kind of extraterrestrial technology. Do you want to see the satellite version of the video? he asked, and I stood beside him as he searched through YouTube. Again, the dots rotated around the plane before they suddenly vanished. That’s amazing, I said.

You’re a believer.

I’m open, I said.

I returned to the black trash bag I’d been lugging around. Every time I suggested tossing something out, Hiram shook his head, said he needed it. An old ashtray hung from my fingers. Not that either, he said.

But you don’t even smoke.

It was a gift.

It’s dirty.

It’s not so dirty, he said. His face was red, the way it always was—broken capillaries webbed across his nose and into his cheeks—though it glistened now, as if the effort of browsing videos had made him break a sweat.

I flipped the ashtray between my palms, raised it to the light to take in the detritus glued to the bottom, glowing like amber. Do you know I find the sanitary mask offensive? Hiram asked.

It’s standard procedure, I said.

You wore it around the last guy you worked for? He looked up, and from his loose gym shorts his scrotum popped out, bobbing between shadow and flesh.

Of course, I said.

Okay, Hiram said. You don’t have to cry.

I’m not, I said—the VapoRub had moved up from my nose to the top edge of my mask, stinging my eyes until they’d started to water.

Hiram returned to searching for videos of UFOs, and when my phone started buzzing, he asked if I wasn’t going to answer that. It’s just my mom, I said.

I don’t mind, he said. You can answer it.

It’s fine, I’ll just call her later.

It’s your mom. You should answer it.

Finally, she said after I turned towards the sliding glass door and picked up the call, I’ve been trying you for days. My mother then told me my father had quit his job at the shoe store to go take care of his brother Derrick, who’d now been diagnosed with cancer from his lymph nodes to his liver.

Are you there? she said.

I was looking out the window, at the copse of cedars that made the yard fragrant, and I thought of the distance between that smell and the one inside, the piss and shit, the mold, the sweat. Something else came to mind too. Do you remember that time you got held at gunpoint? I asked.

She sighed. Not this again, she said. Did you hear anything I just said? Your uncle is dying. Your dad is leaving to go take care of your dying uncle.

 

***

 

You’re one of those people who has no idea they are attractive, Angus said. It’s not that you're self-conscious, you just carry yourself the way most good-looking people don’t. There’s something so involved about you. You’re interested.

I shifted in my seat, heat gathering in my cheeks, and told him he didn’t even know me. Sounds from the spelling bee a drag queen was hosting inside Boots trickled out to the patio. The word was “bukkake.” When Angus laughed, and I laughed with him, the warmth in my face retreated. Though we’d matched on Hinge over a month ago, we were only now meeting for the first time. His front tooth was chipped and the nerve had got it to rot. But this was, on the surface, his only flaw.

Angus told me about his new job as a penetration tester. He routinely hacked his clients to find their vulnerabilities, and then implemented changes to strengthen their computer systems. Sometimes, he said, we physically go into our clients’ stores and run tests that way. Rob them, essentially.

What if the police get called?

Angus smiled. We carry a signed affidavit that proves we are who we say we are, he said. Sometimes we still get arrested and taken downtown, but usually it’s cleared up pretty quickly.

I told him the guy I worked for was a hoarder. Just as bad as the TV show, if not worse. Angus nodded, sucking down his drink. I said, You pity me for my job. Being a home aide. You wish I was more ambitious.

He gave me an exaggerated frown. I didn’t say that.

I can tell, I said. I can always tell.

You’re projecting, he said before a silence fell over our table. He started picking at the dead skin of his calluses, calluses he’d likely, if his large arms were any indication, formed lifting weights at the gym. I told Angus I’d been pursuing a PhD in English, but that the longer I’d spent holed up with books in my study carrel, the less it had all seemed to matter. I didn’t tell him about the man I had loved, the one whose partner had gone to jail for a violent crime. I didn’t tell him about the man—then men—who had come after that. So many, and then none at all.

I really wasn’t judging you for being a home aide, Angus said.

I don’t regret dropping out.

I believe you.

When Angus asked about my family, I told him the truth. I don’t talk to my father much, I said, but I guess he just quit his job to take care of his dying brother.

Angus flicked a scrap of skin, aiming it away from the table. Woah, he said. That’s really something. Caretaking runs in your family or what?

I don’t think it’s as selfless as everyone thinks. Actually, I think it’s motivated more out of self-interest than anything else.

How is helping someone out selfish?

He’s doing it to prove that he’s a good person. He wants the whole world to know.

How’s that any different than what you do?

It just is, I said.

Angus looked uncomfortable. After he finished his drink, we walked to the college theater. He’d invited me to a show that was a mash-up of Willy Wonka and Angels in America. When we got there, he shared that the troupe of performers were adults with learning disabilities.

It’s empowering, he said.

 

***

 

I woke up to an email from my agency informing me that Hiram had passed away. It was the weekend, the other aide had found him. The agency had my next client lined up already: Cooper. I re-read the email, waited for the grief of losing another client to hit me, though I knew it would creep up on me the way it always did, much later.

In bed, I scrolled through my phone, looking at Reddit threads about the Malaysia flight. I liked Hiram, even if we’d only spent a short period together—I found it impossible not to form a kind of intimacy with my clients each time, despite knowing how it would end, because that it would end was guaranteed—and in the morning I headed out to Cooper’s.

What Cooper liked best was when his aide took a seat beside him and plucked his grey hairs. He’d stretch out on his bed, close his eyes, and would eventually fall asleep as a small pile of salt-white strands grew on his nightstand. He explained all of this on my first night as I steadied my grip over the tweezers and reached for his head. Did you have an enjoyable weekend? he asked.

I went on a date, I said. I twisted the tweezers between my fingers and pulled. Cooper grimaced before saying that sounded like fun.

It was, I said, and sat back on the small chair to rub my fingers. Cooper wore striped linen pajamas pants and a white cotton tee. His grey chest hairs curled at the top, springing free from his shirt thinned from overuse.

Do you find it weird? he asked, his gaze steady on the hairs I’d so far collected.

As a home aide, I was expected to help with housekeeping duties, but Cooper had made sure my priority was to yank out his greying hairs until he fell asleep. He didn’t like falling asleep alone. I told him I didn’t find it weird at all.

When he began to snore, I stayed beside him, flipping through the workbook my therapist had suggested I buy for the weeks in which we didn’t meet. I reviewed the scores from my initial self check-up. I’d placed a zero beside “When I look into my eyes in the mirror, I have a pleasant feeling.” I ran my finger down the page. I’d placed a zero beside most statements.

I was washing Cooper’s dishes, the single plate he’d used to make himself his afternoon sandwich, a butter knife caked with mayo, a mug with an old tea bag, when my mother called. In therapy, I’d confessed I often ignored my mother’s calls because I couldn’t help but think of the most unpleasant memory I had of her. I was young, six or seven, tucked in the backseat when a strange man hopped into the front at a red light. He aimed a gun at my mother and had her drive around. Minutes slipped into hours and by then my mother’s tears had all dried up. He directed her onto a flat flecked with goalposts and old netting. A spot some kids played soccer at during the day. But not today, today it was empty. After she’d parked, and he’d reached over, he cried out. His finger was slick with blood, even from the backseat I could see this. He left quickly after, fleeing the car with only her wallet. He never once noticed me.

My mother drove back home in silence. She said nothing to me, then said nothing to my father.

In Cooper’s kitchen, I waited for my phone to stop buzzing then patted my hands dry.

 

***

 

Why did you agree to come over if you were going to act like this? Angus said. His face was flushed, his chest damp with sweat. I reached for the sheets and pulled them up to my chin. Are you even interested, or are you just leading me on? he asked.

I knew I wasn’t ready for anything, I said.

Then why did you agree?

A small part of me wondered if you could cure me.

Cure you of what? Nothing is wrong with you, Angus said. He’d placed his hand to his side, filling up the space between us, considering whether to reach out to me or not. I said, Self-compassion and my relationship to others is tied. I am learning that the hard way.

What does that have to do with anything? Angus said, pulling his hand back. I told him I wasn’t ready. I knew I wasn’t.

We should talk about this.

I jumped out of his bed, slipping back into my clothes.

You’re leaving? Angus asked.

As I tied my shoes, I told him about all the self-esteem work I’d been doing since my ex. Who knew I’d found so many new ways to hate myself in all that time? I said.

Maybe you should leave, Angus said.

Walking through town, lamplights lighting up the unoccupied blocks, I scrolled through my family’s group chat. My father had sent a selfie of him and his brother on a hospital bed after the Mayo Clinic surgery. Derrick’s skin was pale and damp-looking.

My father smiled into the camera.

 

***

 

What was your last client like? Cooper asked.

He was a hoarder.

That’s it? he said. He was spread out on his bed’s edge as I sat in my usual spot, dropping the tweezers onto the nightstand to twist my fingers for some quick comfort. A low gust of hot wind blew from the window, threatening to chip at the hair tower from tonight’s session. I told him Hiram was really into UFOs. Especially their involvement in the Malaysia flight that disappeared.

Bullshit, Cooper said.

The videos are pretty convincing.

Show me.

I considered Cooper’s drooping eyes, sleep not far off, before I pulled out my phone anyway and searched for the same videos Hiram had shown me not so long ago. But Cooper was less impressed. How do you know those haven’t been doctored? he asked.

Do you really believe we’re the only beings out there?

I didn’t think you were so gullible, he said.

And I didn’t think you were so stubborn. The galaxy is huge, is it really all for us? I said while looking at the thumbnails of UFO conspiracy videos that filled my phone’s screen in a neat grid. There were so many.

I think you should worry a little less on what you’ll never encounter and a little more on what’s closest to you. When Cooper said this, I turned my screen off and looked up at him. Lined forehead, eyebrows bunched up in concern. I asked what he meant.

He breathed out something long and strained, as though my incomprehension had exhausted him. But my confusion was genuine—I had no idea what he meant. What he’d said could have pertained to any aspect of my life. He said, That person who keeps calling you. Why do you always ignore them?

I gave out a quick snort, a relief. I said, It’s just my mom.

If it’s your mom, maybe you should call her back.

The intrusive thoughts always win, I said.

But Cooper didn’t respond the way I had. He looked on carefully, if a bit discouraged. He said, I think you’re less broken than you think you are.

I waited for Cooper to say more, to apologize, but silence flooded the space between us. Cooper stared down at me before I finally gave in, anger taking over. Frankly, I said, you don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I’ve been on this earth far longer than you have, Cooper said. Reading people isn’t so difficult. Oh, don’t get like that. Why are you crying? Don’t go.

 

***

 

The medic shined a light in my eye, asking if I was alright, and the accident came back to me. The truck that had come out of nowhere. Both windshields smashed. I asked about the other guy and the officer shook his head.

My head lolled and glass shards blinked across the asphalt like glitter. A beautiful image. Past the medic, still swinging his light pen, stars laced the night sky. We should get you to the hospital, he said. Just to be safe.

Alone in the ambulance, I contemplated calling my mother, but I didn’t want to worry her. I’d wait for whatever tests the hospital had to run. And I considered my phone. There was no one else to call. No one else who’d care that I’d possibly pancaked my car.

I spent the night on a hospital gurney, the hours passing so slow.

When the tests came back clear, and I was discharged, I tracked down my car to the tow yard. A bent hood, a cracked windshield.

Glass shivers carpeted the front seat. I was careful in searching through the collection of totes and sweaters, and then, in my palm’s grip, I found a finger. A severed finger.

 

***

 

This is what you get for driving upset, Cooper said. You should never drive upset. And never go to sleep upset, either. Always make up with your partner. Trust me.

I waved this away, told him I was fine. Hardly a scratch.

Did you keep it? Cooper asked. He punched the pillow stack behind his head. His striped linen pajama pants smelled fresh—who had done his laundry? He said, The severed finger?

What would I do with a severed finger?

I was curious about it, Cooper said. My intrusive thoughts won.

You wanted to see it.

What did your parents say? I bet they’re worried sick. You know, caretakers need caretaking from time to time too, he said.

His gaze rested over me, and I knew his concern was genuine. In a matter of weeks, a sense of camaraderie had grown between us. It was often like this. I cared for Cooper in a way that would make his exit from this world painful. There was no way to avoid that.

I rubbed at the tweezers with my thumb, a thick hair caught at the end. They’re fine, I said, I told them I’m alright. That there was no need for them to fly out or anything.

Can I ask you something? Why did you get into caregiving?

I’m not sure. Probably it has something to do with this incident at school, but also my mom. I couldn’t give her the care she needed once. At least that’s what my therapist would say. I’m sure it’s an accumulation of things.

Do you need to take a break? Cooper asked, gesturing at the tweezers I still had in my hands. I’d lost track of the task, hadn’t plucked a hair the whole time we’d been chatting. I looked at Cooper and knew he wouldn’t be going to bed any time soon, and though I was feeling light-headed, my fingers had yet to go sore. I’m fine, I said. Let’s keep going.

I insist, he said.

It’s what I’m here for. It’s my job.

He nodded, straightened his head, eyes focused on the ceiling. I reached over, the tweezer’s tips spotting a grey hair, and I tugged.

Cooper sucked air before I went again.

 

***

 

I think the experience has been really good for your father, my mother said over the phone. I walked down Main, vacant besides a few clumps of errant high schoolers drifting down the drag. So quiet, as usual, so wiped out.

Watching his brother slowly die has been good? I asked. The CVS accordion doors whined open, fluorescents blasting my face. I floated through the aisles as my mother spoke.

They’ve been doing a lot of processing, she said. Revisiting old wounds. Finally talking about all the things they never talked about. It’s just sad that those conversations have to wait until the deathbed.

They don’t have to wait. People are just cowards, I said. When I raised my eyes, chocolate bar in hand, Angus stood by the door. Our eyes met and something flashed in his face. Anger? He turned back into Main.

Are you a coward then? my mother said.

What does that mean? I asked. And I thought about Angus: I’d send him a text, a text he’d ignore, and it would hurt for some time, though I was the one who had wronged him, and then one day it would hurt less, and then one day I’d forget about it, because isn’t that how it always goes?

Whatever business you and your dad need to work through, my mother said. Why can’t that happen now?

What about you? You don’t ever talk about the man and the gun.

I’m happy to talk about that. I just don’t understand why you’re more fixated on it now than I ever was. Your dad is going to need us soon. Someone needs to take care of him after all he’s been through, she said.

I’d lied to Cooper—I hadn’t told my mother about the accident, and I wasn’t sure if I ever would. No one had been there to care for me, and I was fine, wasn’t I?

Are you there? my mother said. Hello?

 

***

 

I told all this to the woman on the plane a few weeks later. The finger belonged to the truck driver? she asked.

I nodded. Biscoff crumbs piled my napkin. I pressed down my thumb and sucked up what I could. The woman chewed on pretzels, the crunch so loud, scraps flying out of her mouth. I’m sorry about your uncle, she said.

It’s fine, I said. We weren’t close.

How’s your dad taking it? she asked. A slightly sour smell emanated. The scent of sweat and something else. Unwashed. When, finally, it reminded me of Hiram, my stomach fell. I swallowed more crumbs and coughed.

I haven’t spoken to him yet, I said after. Derrick was his favorite brother. I think he’s scared, his siblings are dropping like flies.

That’s tough.

At least he has seven other siblings left.

That’s not the consolation you think it is, she said, and when I saw her face, lines fanned out from her mouth, two slumping slopes for eyebrows, I understood she was sad for me.

I’m often wrong, aren’t I?

She licked her fingers and said, I don’t know you like that.

You’re right. But I don’t know myself at all.

The plane shook, a rumble ran down the aisle. Out the window clouds flecked the sky. I thought about the orbs from Hiram’s videos. About the hundreds of people who simply vanished. What had they seen? The clouds, the beautiful white sky.

The fear in each other’s eyes.