Pain in Vain

********

I stand up from my seat.

A pain missile fires from my tailbone. It shoots down my right buttock and the back of my right leg. It explodes just above the bend of the knee.

Ach!!!!

Shock roils my head.

My torso snaps forward.

Big mistake.

The pain multiplies.

My face strikes a gargoyle grimace.

I wince.

I want to yell “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

But I refrain. This is a family bus.

The urge to blurt expletives is born as much from frustration as pain.

Agony throttles me with every right footfall.

I have no idea what is happening.

But I sure know what caused it.

**********

********

No! Not now! I think…

I still have a month to go. I can’t quit. Too much at stake. Too many sunk costs. Gotta play through the pain. This is the trip of a lifetime. Possibly the last trip of my lifetime.

**********

********

The pain and I alight the Stage Coach bus at Union Square Station.

I hobble down the streets of Aberdeen. I’m a zombie with a trekking pole. I still carry the gargantuan load that caused my current plight and continues to aggravate it.

This 85 litre backpack has been in service merely a week. I bought it for 80 quid at Mountain Warehouse right here in Aberdeen. I’m ready to ditch it and everything in it.

Maybe I can return it. I think. Get my 80 quid back.

Nah.

It’s trudged more than fifty miles through the Cairngorms. It’s been dropped down an embankment, rolled into a gurgling burn, stranded in the snow, rained on, sleeted on, farted on, pissed on, slept on, and used as a dining table. The frame is bent. The bottom is stained green. The rain cover is lost.

Fittingly. The model name emblazoned in stitched black letters on the bottom compartment is “Carrion”. Someone didn’t think that through. Maybe it’s a cruel joke. I feel like carrion right now.

**********

********

My zombie limp fits right in.

Lots of Aberdonians hobble like zombies. The living dead throng the city. They shuffle through dirt and detritus surrounded by empty shops, boarded-up windows, discarded IRN BRU cans, the granite buildings gray, depressing. Still. Somehow. Stoic. Other zombies dirge along the pavement steadying themselves against the granite walls. They’re pissed to the gills.

With this pain and frustration, I want to be pissed to the gills. I stick to my tea-totalling ways. I vow to destroy my liver gobbling paracetamol rather than soaking myself in pints of Tennents.

**********

***********

I find King Street and shuffle north toward Pittodrie. The pain rises. The right buttock burns. The pinched nerve at the tailbone screams.

My distressed nerves, muscles, and bones want to stop. They want to book a flight home. Back to Texas. Back to Austin. Back to the cluttered apartment. Back to the warm soft bed in a glorified geriatric dormitory. They want a big meal of hot rotisserie chicken drowned in HEB thick and chunky salsa and fresh guacamole made right there in the store in front of God and everybody. Dios y todos. As we say in the great Southwest.

I ignore their pleas, no matter how sensible. No matter how tempting. No matter how much three weeks without salsa and guacamole wrenches my Texas soul.

I’m determined to go on. I’m not stopping this trip for anything. Not the apocalypse, the second coming, the World Cup, an asteroid heading straight for earth, or a phone call from Natalie Portman saying, “Come home for me. You hot goyim stud.”

I recite my battle cry, the one that got me through a week of steep mountain hikes, a diet consisting solely of stale cheese scones, and long icy nights in a fraying tent.

|| I will survive this, even if it kills me. ||

**********

********

Luckily, the effects of pushing my body past its limits don’t ascend from hell until I get back to civilization – if you can call this civilization

(Oh Aberdeen. I love you. I really do. Like a sister’s friend’s adopted cousin found on the streets of Liverpool. You are Heathcliff, Dearest Aberdeen. Grumpy, surly, bastard Heathcliff. You have heart and determination where others would faint. You’re tougher than I’ll ever be. Ah. The pulchritude of decrepitude. Oh Aberdeen. You have perfected it.).

But anyway….

Thank you Aberdeen. I would have been literal “carrion” if this ailment had struck me while scrambling up to the snow line on Lochnagar or dodging sheep shit on the Tarland Way. That would have been utter hell.

**********

********

But let’s back up.

A bit.

You may be curious.

You may ask.

Like David Byrne.

How did I get here?

How did I get from a cluttered apartment in Austin, Texas to the zombie streets of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom where I grapple with what could be a season-ending injury?

It’s quite simple.

I woke up on the morning of March 5, 2026 and said. Holy shit. I’m 62 years old today. My life sucks. I need to unsuck it.

In November of the previous year I started working in an office doing work I hated for a boss – A weird little Jewish lady – I despised; who pissed me off to no end, and required Zoom meetings every morning at precisely 8:30 am despite the fact that every person in the meeting was physically within twenty feet of each other.

I hated the lights. The fluorescent lights. I hated the laptop. Another WINDOWS piece of shit reminding me that Bill Gates is the antichrist. I hated the head set. I hated all the people jammed into cubicles covering an entire floor more than an acre in breadth. I hated hearing them. I hated the commute. I hated the small talk. The wee chats in the break room when all I wanted was coffee and to stash my almond milk in the refrigerator. I hated coming home exhausted every night from staring at spreadsheets all day and hearing my boss tell everyone, “It isn’t that hard”. I wanted to strangle her. As did everyone else. I was so exhausted on Friday mornings I needed a forklift to get out of bed.

**********

********

Then…. things got really weird – when suddenly – Some time around the middle of February. Yes. Right around Valentine’s day – I started to find my boss.. uh.. well.. uh… how do I say it? Uh… kind of attractive. I started thinking about her a lot. And often in ways that I shouldn’t.

That’s when it became clear.

That’s when I knew.

I was losing my fucking mind.

I tried to understand this thing.. what.. I’ll call an affliction.. a sickness.. a maladie..

I tried to rationalize it.

Well. She is kinda hot in that weird aspie girl kinda way.. but.. uh.. Maybe it’s that Jewish schnoz. She does have a cute laugh. A weird laugh. Like that of someone who might kill you in your sleep just to lick the blood off the knife and call it all good clean fun. Yes. She is a little creepy. Well. Come to think of it. A little creepy can be … well .. kind of hot….

But then I’d snap to my senses and go:

Holy shit. Dear Gawd. Sweet Jaysus in the morning. Mother of Christ! What the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t stand her. She’s a crap boss. She’s a Bat Mitzvah’d Karen. She has no warmth. She’s not even human. She’s a robot. She’s a Stepford Boss..

What is going on? I think.

Is this a crush?

Infatuation?

Limerence?

Fixation?

Some sort of twisted idolization?

Psychosis?

Delusion.

Besottment?

Is it the Jewish thing?

The exotic woman thing?

The Natalie Portman thing?

But then. After grappling with this illness for weeks. On that very morning of March 5, 2026, a thunder bolt strikes me in the head like Balthazaer in bed.

Eureka! Je Le Trouve!

I finally realize what is sending me into a lovesick tailspin.

Quite simply.

And quite sadly.

This affliction has a name.

It is called..

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.

Yes. I was sympathizing with my captor so much that I actually wanted to have.. se…..

uh.. ah.. well.. uh…..

I won’t go into that.

**********

********

So. I call in sick to work that day. I pull thousands out of my retirement account and book a one-way flight to London.

I’ve always wanted to do an extended dance-mix tour of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. So fuck it. I can still walk. I still have maybe half a brain. I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this now. I don’t wanna wake up one day and realize it’s too late. That I can’t do it. That I’m no longer strong enough. So fuck it. I’m gonna live while I’m still alive.

***********

********

I get on my Scotrail app and start booking the trip.

From London Heathrow.. the most gawdawful airport in the world..

I’ll take the Elizabeth line to Paddington station.. from there.. I’ll hike up to King’s Cross, giant bags and all, and board a train to York. From York, I’ll take a day trip to West Yorkshire.. Keighley, Haworth and … you know what that means… the Bronte industrial complex. I will finally see Top Withens. The inspiration for grumpy ol’ Heathcliff’s Wuthering Heights.

Then back in York: the River Ouse. Trails and paths galore. Bicycles. beautiful bicycles everywhere. Ghost tours. The Crown Court where the heroic Luddites met the gallows. Yorkminster. gargoyles. The Shambles. Coffee. More gargoyles. The National Railway Museum. More coffee. Espresso. Oh look. That building was in Patience.

I love Patience. Yeah. She’s an aspie.

Then up to the promised land. Home sweet ancestral homeland. Scotland! Oh Flower of Scotland. Falkirk. The Battle of Falkirk. Where the Great Wallace fell. A hike to Linlithgow. The Falkirk Wheel. The Kelpies. Grangemouth. The home town of one of the greatest bands ever. the Cocteau Twins. Asda! The Union Canal. Springtime. Little lambs bouncing everywhere. Callendar Park. Callendar House. More trails. Fuck. Where am I?

To Aberdeen.
A bus to Aboyne. Then I’ll disappear into the Grampians.

Hiking.

Tarland.

Camping.

Ballatar.

Balmoral Castle

A million other castles and mansions.

Back to Aberdeen..

to Loch Ness

then Glasgow..

and on to Balloch and Loch Lomond.

Then across Wales to Holyhead. Then the ferry to Dublin. and the forty foot. Sandy Cove. Dun Laoghaire. James Joyce. Martello Tower. Seanchoiche. The Festival of Voice… and .. and..

**********

********

I give my two weeks notice to my captor the next day.

Two weeks later, I get on that plane to London……

And things are going right to plan until ..

Fuck!

Ouch.. Ouch..

Pain!

Shooting Pain.

I’ve traded my mental derangement for a physical one.

**********

****************

Now.

I need time to rest. Time to downshift. To be in one place for a while rather than rushing from city to village to trail and back again.

A week in Aberdeen could be the remedy.. Cold blustery zombie Aberdeen. Loch Ness will have to wait ‘til next time. Glasgow will have to wait until another day. Another trip. I’ll recover as much as I can then continue on to Balloch. I’ll pick up the itinerary from there. Perhaps the brisk waters of Loch Lomond can be therapeutic for my pinched nerve. What I’d later find out is called sciatica.

But Aberdeen

Oh Aberdeen.

Aberdeen is not so bad.

Great coffee. Especially at this little place called Fable. Then there’s the Art Gallery Cafe where I sip my double espresso and talk to the owner, Zoran from Kurdistan, about how fucked-up the United States is right now. I ditch the injurious backpack and the camping gear at a charity shop on Alford Place. They are stoked to get it. They say it looks new. Could’ve fooled me.

I go to an Aberdeen FC match. The Dons. They lose to St. Mirren 2-nil, but the Seagulls swarming above the pitch during the whole match are the ultimate atmosphere. I keep waiting for one to poop on the referee. He deserves it.

My injury improves. The burning pain downgrades to a dull ache. I no longer walk like a zombie.

I catch a show. A one woman show. At a theatre called The Lemon Tree. Somehow I wind up in the show. Playing “dad”. Now that’s Freud on a stick. Yes. It’s crazy. I go to Cruden Bay and New Slains castle. The inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. On the way, the bus passes the evil orange man’s golf course. I hold my nose.

Back in Aberdeen. Once the people get out of the blustery north sea winds, they are quite warm, friendly.

I grow to like the place. It has a weird quirky charm. An aspie kinda charm. One of rigid habits, flopping stim hands, and manic puzzle-solving. I think I should visit again. The place has potential. It just needs some new industry to come in and revitalize the place. It can be more than just a once upon a time off-shore oil boomtown.

But again.

Yeah.

But again.

Thinking a little more about it…

Sigh..

Maybe it’s just

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.

Share this:

Related

Leave a comment Cancel reply