Brigid Swanick
I volunteer at this old person home sometimes because I have this sort of feeling like I’m a bad person. I feel bad. I feel like I just can’t figure it out or how to be good and this is probably a karmic investment the other direction, for the chemistry tests I cheated on and the t-shirts I steal from Target. Which my sister has a theory that they don’t bother to count the items you take into the dressing room because it’s built into their business model that people steal stuff anyway. That maybe it’s on purpose even, and they figure some people have to take things they can’t afford to buy. She is dumb, and I’m not one of those people. I do it for fun. My sister also says I do it to prove to myself I’m a terrible person. That I want to get caught and be in trouble. I think she overthinks everything. But I have a lot of t-shirts now. And I’m failing chemistry anyway.
Some of the old people are really mean, and some are not. The mean ones I usually avoid, though I feel bad for doing that. I think often that they must feel so alone, that their families don’t visit or all their friends are dead, and yet they try to still be in charge of their lives by yelling at all the people around them for random stuff, who barely get paid and then hate them back. Sometimes I bring them birthday cards or other random holiday cards that I’ve lifted on my t-shirt missions. If they don’t really know what day it is anymore I can give them any card I want. I can see that they like that someone thought of them, and I like tricking them into feeling good, even if it’s not their real birthday.
I read books to some of the nice ladies. When I first started coming here, this one lady named Vivian made me read her romance novels, and when we got to the dirty parts she’d act absolutely scandalized, like she didn’t already know what the book was about or pick it her goddamn self. She cracks me up. Now she makes me origami flowers that they teach them in the art class here. She has a crush on this guy named Bob, who is blind, who always tells her she looks beautiful today, which they both think is funny. She is another one whose family doesn’t ever come and visit, except she doesn’t seem to mind. Sometimes I don’t know why people are the way they are.
When it’s sunny out I’ll go out by the tiny koi pond where they park one of the mean guys and I’ll hand him little rocks to throw at the fish. Just little pebbles. And we sit around blooping the rocks into the water. He calls me young lady and points out things I have done wrong, like give him not good enough rocks. He always starts out really sour until I ask him about soil composition, and he tells me stuff about soil composition. They have nice grass out there. Kentucky Bluegrass. He doesn’t remember that we have this conversation all the time. I’m trying to see if I can get him to like me even if he can’t remember me. Like if a part of him can see that I am good, if I just keep giving him more rocks.
Sometimes I lay in the grass by myself and think about if volunteer work is actually selfish, or how to divide up what part of something is for me and what part is for someone else, and make sure that I know some of its for me. I don’t want to be a selfish person that thinks they’re unselfish. I’d rather be a selfish person that does a good thing selfishly. Most of what I’m doing here is just hanging out anyway. Making it feel like it’s a place to be, and not some kind of storage unit for forgotten people. Maybe someday I’ll be sitting out here, old and cranky, and there will be some kid to hand me rocks to throw at future fish.
Vivian these days keeps saying she needs to pack her bag, where is her bag, and I pretend to look for it. I get down and look under the bed and behind the door and tell her I will make sure I get it for her. She says she’s getting ready for a trip, mentions stuff about the bus. One of the older volunteers says this means she’s gonna die soon, that when they are about to go they do this. They just get a feeling like it’s time to leave, that there’s a place they need to get to, an actual place. I tell Vivian I’ll find her bag for her, that she’s not gonna miss the bus. She seems certain she’s headed somewhere important. I can’t help but envy her. It must feel nice to be so sure that there’s somewhere you’re supposed to be.
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Brigid Swanick is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She has work published in Peatsmoke Journal and forthcoming in L’Esprit Literary Review and Passages North. She works as a grip on film sets.