Syndrome // H.S.

01. Some Kind of Madness

"Seriously Alan, I'll be okay," I promised my stepdad. He was currently making his have-you-got-your-oil-changed-yet check up over the phone. He had called earlier but I missed it, having been at work all day, so I decided to ring him back on the drive home. 

"I know, I know," he grumbled. "Just don't want you to blow your car up."

"This thing is a tank. If it could survive the 26-hour New York trip of 2018 on one headlight and a six-month overdue oil change, it can make it back and forth to work for a few more days. It's just been so busy at the prison lately, by the time I get off it's too late to go anywhere and get it done." I sighed, knowing that that was understatement. Things at work had been weird lately. "As soon as I get a day off, I'm going to the auto shop." 

"You know, I could do it for you," Alan offered.

"No. No way. Not after what happened last time you tried to work on my car." Let's just say Alan wasn't exactly a handy man. He tried to be, and often found himself starting on projects that he was never capable of finishing. 

Our conversation was relatively short, and mostly filled with him badgering me about my car and working too much. I knew that this was his way of showing me that he cared, which I appreciated more than he knew. Alan was my only family. I had some far off cousins scattered around the Eastern United States, but I honestly couldn't tell you their names. I think I had a great uncle as well?

My biological father had been killed in prison when I was 13. We were very close. I'm not typically an emotional person but it's hard for me to think about my dad without tears springing to my eyes. I remember how big of a shock it was when he was arrested. I had no idea that he'd ever done drugs, I was still young enough back then to think that parents hung the moon and the stars.

My mom and I weren't as close as my father and I were, but we were never exactly estranged. She remarried to Alan when I was 15 and although I hadn't gotten along with my stepdad in the beginning, I had grown to care for him. It took me a while to realize that he never intended to replace my dad. 

Alan was a grumpy man with a lot of love in his heart for my mom and I. I can remember him sitting on the living room couch, yelling at the news anchors on TV. My mom and I would share this knowing look of, "He's such a man," and laugh. 

I didn't know what to think when they announced a divorce, especially when my mom just took off the day after it was final. My stepdad never told me why they split, but I always suspected that she cheated. All I knew is that it really hurt him. He was like me; closed off and unattached from people. The only person I'd ever seen put a real smile on his face was my mother. Now we were both the only family that each other had. 

I've heard from my mom a few times since she left when I was 18 years old. Once a year, she'll send me a card from somewhere random in the country; either on a birthday or on Christmas, but never on both. I never respond, and I've never told Alan about them. I remember both of us being devastated after she took off. 

I'm 22 years old now, though. I've learned a lot of lessons in my time, the biggest one being: people leave. Alan is the closest person I have, and even he is kept at arms length. He has to be - one day he won't be around, and I can't let is loss debilitate me the way that my parents did.

I struggle with a lot of things in life, but I'm not completely miserable. I love my job. In a lot of ways, over-working myself is like a coping skill for me. I get to go in for 12-14 hours of the day and focus on other people. I don't have to think about me, talk about me, or be alone with me. Paradise on earth, truly.

Most people wouldn't think that of working in a federal all-men's prison, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it's what gets me out of bed in the mornings. With the facility being a higher-level of security, we housed a lot of inmates who had committed some pretty violent crimes. We had a lot of gang members, murderers, drug traffickers, sexual criminals, etc. It was definitely a job that you had to have some thick skin for.