a Breath of Fresh Air

Matt rolled over on his side on the bed. 

“Ugh,” he said, lamenting the start of a new day. 

He looked over at the clock on the bedside table situated right next to his trusty bottle of whiskey. 

1:05 pm. 

He hadn’t moved or done anything since he had woken up at 10:00 am that morning. 

Anything except replay the moments from the past month over and over again in his head. 

Dumped by his girlfriend of three years. Rejected from every architecture job he applied to. Fired from his crappy box boy job at Costco. 

If life was going to continue to be like this, he didn’t want any part of it. 

He stared up at the ceiling wondering why he continued to exist, if not just as a sponge to absorb more pain and disappointment in his life. 

At that exact moment, his phone started buzzing. Matt grabbed the phone off his side table and read the text,

“Hey man, bball today?” 

He thought for a moment. “I was really looking forward to laying here in complete and utter self loathing for another 24 hours.” 

“Nope, can’t make it, sorry.” He texted his friend Malik. That was easy, he thought to himself. Depression really made it easy to disappoint people. He got up and walked to the kitchen. His socked feet padding and sliding on the hardwood floors, passing his elaborate modern white couches and various snake plants as he did. He stopped at his stainless steel fridge and retrieved the necessary ingredients. Lucky charms, milk and a fresh bottle of Fireball cinnamon whiskey. 

“Breakfast of champions,” he said to himself pouring the milk in with the cereal. He lifted the bottle of fireball and considered pouring it in with the milk, then thought better of it. 

“I haven’t reached that level of self-destruction just yet,” he said to himself out loud. Then he popped the top off of the whiskey and took a swig. 

Matt sat down at the wooden circular dining table and began reading the paper as he ate his cereal. Reading the success stories of others was one of his favorite morning pastimes. Reminded him of how pathetic he felt. 

A few moments later he heard a knock at the door. Matt immediately felt alarmed and looked at the blurred window next to his front door. He could see the outline of a tall fit young man about his age. It was Malik. 

Knock knock knock. The sound of firm knuckles rapped against the front door. Matt slowly stooped to the ground and crawled under the table. 

“Matt? Hey Matt, ya in there man?” Malik called out. Malik tried to peer through the blurred glass by putting his hands around his eyes and making binoculars. 

Matt remained completely still while trying not to make a sound. “Maybe if he thinks I’m not here, he’ll go away,” Matt thought to himself. 

“Matt man, I KNOW you’re in there. I can see you crouching beneath that table bro. I can SEE you. Just cuz this glass is blurry doesn’t mean I’m blind. I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Malik said to him. 

“Alright alright FINE FINE. I’m coming! But just so you know, this should be considered stalking.” Matt got up and came to the door. He opened it wide and Malik caught a whiff of whiskey and sweat. Matt’s hair was disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot, he was wearing an old gray bathrobe covered in bleach stains, an old white t-shirt and red plaid pajama pants that could’ve probably used a wash. 

Malik struggled to withhold his opinion on his face. 

“WOW, you look — TERRIBLE,” Malik blurted out. 

Matt rolled his eyes, disinterested in Malik’s opinion of his outward appearance. He already knew he felt like crap, so it didn’t come as a surprise that he looked like crap too. 

“Gee thanks, I’m SO glad I decided to answer the door,” Matt said as he went to close it. Malik’s strong hand caught the door and he pushed himself inside. 

As Malik walked into Matt’s house, it was worse than he thought. Magazines lay strewn open across the floor. The whiskey bottle sat open and half dranken next to the bowl of cereal. Dirty dishes sat unattended and abandoned in the sink. A large brown carpet stain had appeared in Matt’s otherwise pristine living room. 

“Damn bro,” Malik said as he stood in the entryway to Matt’s living room, surveying the damage. Matt walked over and laid down on his leather mid-century couch.

“You like?” Matt said sarcastically. 

“Bro what is goin’ on with you man? You’ve missed basketball everyday this week, I hardly see your car leave the driveway. It's like you’re stuck in this house all the time,” he said back to him. 

“Me thinks you’re paying a little too much attention to what I’m doing and not enough attention to what you’re doing,” Matt responded to him as Malik sat down on a half-eaten hostess cupcake. 

“Ugh,” Malik said as he peeled the remaining cupcake pieces off the back of his black running shorts, “that is disgusting.” “If you didn’t want me to pay attention, then you shouldn’t have moved next door to your best friend,” he responded back. 

“Touche,” Matt responded to him, as he leaned over and picked up a red rubber ball off the floor. He began throwing the ball up in the air over and over again as he lay on the couch. 

“Ever since Meg broke up with you, you’ve been a mess man. Now tell me what’s going on. You can trust me,” Malik answered back to him. 

Matt sat up and breathed heavily. Malik was sitting next to him now on the floor, narrowly avoiding other baked goods and land mines. 

Matt said, “I just—” until Malik cut him off by putting a hand up.

“On second thought, I can’t take one more minute of this until you brush your teeth or do some other damn hygiene,” Malik said to him. 

Matt looked offended until he lifted his hand to breathe on it. 

His breath wafted back to him and stung his eyes as he inhaled. 

“Yeah okay that’s fair,” Matt said, rising from the couch. 

“‘Course it's fair. Your mouth smells like something crawled up and died in it,” Malik responded back to him. 

Matt yelled back from the hallway, “a little harsh!” 

As Matt went to go about showering, Malik got busy picking up old magazines, doing the leftover dishes in the sink and pouring out old whiskey bottles down the drain. 

Matt stood looking at himself in the mirror of his bathroom. 

His brown hair was a mess. His brown eyes were weighed down by dark circles. He had begun to grow a bit of a beard (and not the good kind). He could see his ribs for the first time since high school. He couldn’t recognize himself. Three months ago, he had been one of the happiest people he knew. Always smiling or cracking a joke. Making friends with anyone he would come across. But now he looked directly into the eyes of someone who barely knew who he was anymore. It would seem that all the things he cared about most, all the things his life had consisted of, were over and had slipped right through his fingers. And he still wasn’t quite sure how it happened. He kept picturing his father’s words whenever he had gone through a hard time, “stand tall son, stand tall.” He wondered what his father would think if he could see him now. “I’m laying down small dad, I’m laying down small.” 

He sighed and stepped into the steaming hot shower. He let the hot water run over his face and his chest. Breathing some life back into his drunken and hung-over body. He used soap to scrub every nook and crevice of his body and pictured the bubbles cleansing away his heartbreak and struggles. He got out of the shower and toweled off. Picked up his toothbrush and began scrubbing away at his teeth and gums. 

Even though his troubles weren’t exactly scrubbed away in the shower, he had to admit he felt a bit better. He wrapped his light brown towel around his waist and walked into the bedroom. He picked out another white t-shirt (a clean one this time) and a pair of black basketball shorts. He threw on the clothes and some deodorant and walked back out to the living room where Malik was sitting on his couch with his feet up on the coffee table reading GQ. 

The living room had transformed in the half hour he had been in the shower. Every record and magazine was back in its place. Every whiskey bottle had disappeared. Everything was clean and back to normal except for the mysterious brown stain in the middle of the carpet. 

Malik noticed Matt’s presence and said, “ain’t nothin’ I could do for that one. Do I even wanna know how that happened?” 

Matt grimaced and said, “no probably not.” 

Malik answered, “I figured.”

Matt came and sat down next to Malik on the couch. The water had somehow opened him up in a way. Enough to open up to his best friend. 

“I’ve never felt like more of a failure in my whole entire life,” Matt deadpanned. 

Malik sat silently for a moment, detecting the seriousness of the situation. 

“Uh huh…” Malik said while scratching his chin thoughtfully, “and what led you to this conclusion?” 

Matt got up and threw up his hands in frustration.

“What HASN’T led me to this conclusion?! I got dumped, I got fired, I can’t seem to find a job anywhere within a subject that I actually have a degree in..” Matt yelled out. “Nothing seems to be going my way anymore.”

Malik listened and nodded thoughtfully. He seemed to be absorbing everything Matt was saying. He waited a couple beats to see if Matt was finished before speaking. 

“And I keep thinking of my dad. How strong he was. How tough he was. Right until the very end. The man had cancer and that never stopped him from continuing on, from doing great things that inspired people. I mean he wrote a novel during chemo for goodness sakes!” Matt said exasperated.

Matt took a breath and sat back down. “He always told me to stand tall in the face of trouble, in the face of my struggles and now all it took was these three small things to send me over the edge and unable to continue on. I mean, how sad is that?!”

Malik looked down at his hands, nodding and waiting until Matt was done. 

“What makes you think those are small things?” he asked Matt. 

“What?” Matt asked him incredulously. 

“I said, what makes you think that those are small things.” Malik said calmly. 

“I mean, in comparison to what my dad went through, cancer and fighting in Vietnam and stuff like that—” Matt answered him.

“I’d say losing the girl you love, your job and struggling to find employment are pretty big things. Especially all at the same time,” Malik responded to him. “I bet your dad would’ve considered those big things, and I bet that he would’ve spoken more kindly than you’re speaking to yourself now.”

Matt stopped to contemplate what Malik was saying. 

Malik continued on, “there’s no point in comparing our struggles with others. We all handle things differently and we all have different emotional capacities.” 

“I think standing tall means something different than what you think it means,” Malik answered him. 

“What do you mean?” Matt asked him curiously. 

“Let’s go for a walk,” Malik said, rising up. 

“Alright, alright fine. Just let me get my shoes on,” Matt answered back to him. 

Malik led the way out the door and down the street. 

They walked side by side in silence for a while until Matt finally asked where they were going. 

“Do you remember when we played in Little League together?” Malik asked Matt. 

“Of course I remember, my dad was the coach. We won ten straight that year. You were our best player. You were always our best player.” Matt said back to him. 

“There was that one year though. Do you remember? I spent three straight games where every time I was at bat, I was scared of the ball,” Malik said to him.  

They rounded a corner then and reached the park where they used to play baseball as kids. They walked up and leaned against the fence looking over at the green dugout. 

“You?! Scared of the ball? Yeah right,” Matt said. Malik had always been the star athlete. You name it, football, baseball, basketball, he played it all and he did it well. He even got a scholarship to college to play baseball. 

“I’m glad you didn’t remember it,” Malik said grinning to himself, “But the real reason I got through it? Is cuz of your dad.” “He sat me down right there,” Malik said pointing to the batter's box, “and he looked me in the eye and said ‘son, I know you’re afraid. And it's okay to be afraid sometimes, there are scary things in life like getting hit by that ball. But what matters most is what we do with that fear. We can’t always wait for it to subside, because we might miss opportunities, but when the fear is still there, we gotta stand tall. And if and when the ball hits, I’ll be there to pick you up if you fall.’”

“Jeeze, he said that? That is the cheesiest crap I’ve ever heard,” Matt answered back to him. 

Malik laughed and looked down. 

“Do you remember what happened to me in 7th grade?”

“Uhhh…Robert Buttress punched you in the nose?” Matt answered back. 

Malik laughed and said, “Well yes, but that was also the year that my parents got divorced. My dad stopped coming to games and so I got nervous that if the ball was going to hit me, he wouldn’t be there to help me out if I fell or got hurt.”

“Jesus, I remember that now,” Matt said, putting his hand on his neck uncomfortably, “sorry for forgetting.”

“It’s no biggie man, but the point is, after your dad had that conversation with me, I never hid from the ball again. I definitely got hit by it a few times, but I always knew that if I did, your dad would be there to back me up.”

Malik continued, “I think that’s what ‘standing tall’ truly means. Being willing to take a hit sometimes and getting back up when you do. Not letting fear dictate what you do or don’t do in your life. So for me it was playing baseball and not letting the fear of getting hit stop me—”

“And for me, it's getting off my sorry butt and trying again?” Matt answered him. 

“You didn’t fail man. You just put yourself out there and got hurt. It happens sometimes. But you can’t give up. You gotta keep moving and trusting there’s more out there for you than that,” Malik answered him. 

Matt took a deep breath and nodded.

“No more whiskey benders?” Matt asked.

“No more whiskey benders,” Malik answered, “and I’d probably see a therapist too while you’re at it.”

“Yeah,” Matt said while putting his hands inside his pockets. 

“Wouldn’t hurt to brush your teeth too,” Malik said and they both laughed.

They walked back to their houses in silence. Malik heading into his house and Matt into his, they waved before closing the door and stepping inside. 

The next morning, Matt awoke and made his bed. Something he hadn’t done in over three months. He got in the shower and brushed his teeth. He called and made an appointment with a therapist. He looked in the mirror and reminded himself that sometimes standing tall is as simple as going on a walk, making your bed, showering and brushing your teeth, going to therapy. Choosing to believe there’s something better out there for yourself. 

He headed to the back sliding glass door and called for his dog Maggie. She was a white dog with brown spots and brown ears. She bounded up excitedly to hearing her name called. Matt scratched her behind the ears and pet her, he clipped on her leash and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”