Sleep
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“You’re going to get hurt. Please, stop.” 

Good advice. Ignored. 


A pot of coffee had barely managed the task of keeping his bloodshot eyes open. A couple of ibuprofen and Tylenol down the hatch chased by caffeine hadn’t been putting the faintest dent in his discomfort. This, thought Matt Hodges, is life now. The cost of his return to the ring was sleep deprivation and constant agony. The smarting that bid him to walk ever so gingerly on his leg at all hours of the day had planted the seed for the thought that this was, by all accounts, a horrible idea. 

He was a person who loved his sleep. It helped him recover from his aches and pains just as it did anybody else. But these last few weeks of minimal sleep had given him no quarter. The very abbreviated state of diminished consciousness first just made him temperamental, but now had rendered him a zombie with occasional visual disturbances. 

At first glance at his son Ian this morning, it appeared to him, if only for a moment, that he had rows of razor sharp, flesh tearing incisors as teeth. A quick blinking reset revealed it was just his typical wild smile, sans the cannibalistic mouth.

Two hours or less a night. Tossing and turning with pain unloading on him with every second. Every minute of the day while he was awake felt euphoric. Almost like he was on a constant, unenjoyable high. He felt like he was tripping every time he played with his sons and every time he sat down to dinner. Daylight hours stretched into an eternity, and he would silently beg for his bed all day. And then the very moment his head hit the pillow, the throbbing in his knee demanded he not get more than a few winks. 

He knew the cause of this was the itch that he just had to scratch. His triumphant return to glory, turned to ashes before his very eyes. The Iron Man Match and now being in the battle royal match for almost an hour had already had their way with him. It was too long to be in the ring and he knew it. At 37 years old and an iconic injury history, he wished he had it in him to just flip an internal switch and die instead of bare the humiliation of having to walk away again. The entire flight home from Scum Jersey had been one of both inner and outer turmoil. He couldn’t get comfortable in the slightly less cramped space afforded by first class airfare. And he had a terrible nagging feeling that this would be, yet again, his last match with the company. 

And yet, his primary care doctor told him that upon ultrasound, there was no further damage to the knee. It looked the exact same in terms of stability that it had before his return. Psychic pain, he said. Most likely a combination of the mildest bit of inflammation with some kind of deep seated psychological distress. It was common, opined the doctor, for a man approaching 40 to suffer from these kinds of spiritual aches and that they actually most commonly manifested in physical form. Maybe helplessness at the inability to stop time from passing him by or the notion his better years were behind him. Could be borne out of a lack of accomplishment or uncertainty of what was to come next. Sometimes it was about not feeling loved or needed. Sometimes sexual frustration. There was a wide array of possibilities; the main thing, the doctor said, was to seek help.

When Hodges pressed him on what he could do for sleep, the doctor told him to get more exercise.

But I train three hours a day. There has to be a reason I can’t sleep.

The doctor shrugged. Maybe you just need to talk to somebody.

A prescription for a four pill supply of Vicodin, prednisone, an antidepressant, and a referral for outpatient psychiatric services. He couldn’t believe it. It was good news that he didn’t understand. Something had to be wrong. Never before had a patient been so aggrieved to hear the words structurally intact and no new damage. 


Hannah picked the medicine up. Hodges chose to take the prednisone. The rest of the medications sat unopened on his night stand on top of the list of mental health specialists he was given.

As a former addict of substance, he arbitrarily set the hard limit that he couldn’t have the narcotics, and he didn’t want any pills to alter the way he experienced his already limited scope of emotion. He wasn’t in any emotional distress. As far as Matt Hodges was concerned, his mental health was beyond reproach. He’d been told by a number of semi-romantic partners and booty calls over the years to seek help,just as he had been by his doctor, but he wasn’t the chief problem in any of those situations. In his mind, they were projecting their issues into him, a simple decoy for their self hatred. And besides, he had been very clear with the myriad of sexual partners that orgasms were all he was capable of providing, and even then they would mostly be his own. If Hannah hadn’t become pregnant, she would’ve suffered the same excision. 

This corner he painted himself in wasn’t a problem for him anymore. He had by and large made peace with it. It didn’t haunt him in the ways it had before.


What he couldn’t make peace with was failure.

Being less than. 

The unbearable splitting pain that had consumed his every day.

Depleted of all energy and possessed by caffeine, he stared blankly in the general direction of his two sons as they played in the backyard. He sat on the patio furniture watching the children run about with no particular rhyme or reason. Devoid of energy, he was trying to be an involved father, but the level best he could muster was this half interested gawk as the boys ran around the yard.

“Daddy! Come push us!” Matthew Jr. and Ian giggled to each other as Hodges, without any cognizance, stood up and responded with robotic intent. He pushed the swing with his foot to send the two boys into a spin and gradually watched them pick up steam. 

Round and round. He had to consciously remind himself to blink. All he wanted was his bed. Each time the boys came back around, he gave a left footed shove to the edge of the tire swing. And each time he picked his foot up, he felt a twinge in his right knee from bearing all of his weight.

He needed to get to sleep. 

Fuck being awake. 




“I’m worried about him,” said Hannah Hodges as she watched her husband give anergic shoves with his foot through the sliding glass door. He stared off into space as the boys laughed from their bellies. 

“Why? What’s wrong?” Heather, her sister, asked. They had these nightly phone calls as their main source of communication. She lived on the west coast with her husband and three children. 

“I don’t know exactly,” Hannah said. “I know he’s been in a lot of pain lately and it’s not helping matters any. He’s not sleeping very much.”

“Has he taken any of the pain medicine the doctor gave him?” Heather inquired. 

“Not a one,” Hannah said after taking a sip out of her wine glass. “He says he used to like being altered too much. He’s afraid that if he does that he’ll want to have a drink again or something.”

“Jesus. Was he ever that bad? Like a serious addict?”

“He says he was,” said Hannah, “and I guess I don’t really want to find out how bad it was by the way he talks about it. I do know that he really enjoyed his booze.” Years ago, she had seen the unfortunate suffering of her now husband as he spent days in a naked sweat, ridding his body of the demon. 

“Well, you know, the first step is admitting you have a problem…”

“I know. But I’m really worried about him and it’s more than just the pain.” She watched as the boys slid out of the bottom of the tire. They ran off to the sandbox. Matt, without a thought, sat down on the patio furniture and resumed taking large swigs of what must have been lukewarm black coffee. 

“What else is it?”

“Well…he’s been...I don’t know. Just kind of muttering to himself. It’s weird. I’ll catch him saying things to himself under his breath, which is very unusual for him. Then when I ask him what he said, he says nothing.”

“Maybe you’ve never noticed it before and he does it all the time,” Heather offered. “Don’t we all talk to ourselves?”

“But that’s just it, “ Hannah said. “He doesn’t.”

“As your sister I feel like I’m supposed to tell you when you’re looking for problems. And this is one of those instances,” Heather tried to reassure all the way from Wyoming. “Things are changing a little bit. He’s been on the road a lot. He’s back to work. He’s hurting. The poor guy has a lot on his plate.”

“There’s something else,” Hannah said, her eyes fixed on her husband. “We haven’t exactly been having sex. It’s been a few weeks. Since I think the day before he left for New Jersey.”

“Couldn’t that be because he’s in pain?”

“He’s had his good days and his bad days with pain since I’ve known him but it’s never slowed down his sexual appetite.” She refilled her wine glass to the halfway mark. “We’ve always had a great sex life. He just seems completely uninterested. And I’ve gone to bed in some extremely sexy lingerie. He doesn’t bat an eye.”

“Oh, Hannah…”

“He just gives me a kiss on the cheek and rolls over. Stares at the wall, he says. I don’t know. Do you think...he might be cheating on me?” The thought of her husband stepping out on their marriage was a visceral gut check, but with a man on the road, it did feel like a question that needed asked in light of recent events — even if just for simple reassurance. 

“Have you gone through his phone?” Heather asked. “I would be surprised if Matt was cheating on you, but it might help to ease your mind if you saw it.”

“No, and I know all the warning signs of cheaters as well,” she said. “Do you remember Robbie? That guy kept his phone on him like it was his fucking dick. That’s a cheater’s behavior. His phone is sitting right here. Right in front of me. So either he’s cleaned it out of evidence or...I don’t know. I don’t know, Heather, I just know that something isn’t quite right with him.” Hannah tried to keep her frantic tone at bay. “Or maybe, just maybe, he’s better at cheating than the average guy? Fuck.”

“I really do think you might just be overreacting a bit,” she said. “I’m also going to tell you this. Matthew Hodges is one of the very best men I’ve ever met and there’s no way he’s going to cheat on his wife. I also think maybe you’re stressed out being home alone with the boys. Maybe you guys need to take a little trip or something. Get away for a few days. See maybe if mom can watch the kids?”

Hannah sighed. “Alright. You’re probably right. Maybe he just needs a full night of sleep, too. I mean I know how bitchy I can get without enough of that.”

“Exactly, Han. Just let things be, and things will normalize on their own. Dave and I went through something similar, remember, when he got promoted at his firm.”

“Yeah,” Hannah responded nonchalantly. The two situations were barely comparable. Dave was every trust fund kid who’d ever been set up for success by inherited wealth. He never had to struggle just to do something he loved the way she was watching her husband struggle. She knew that this was how her sister related to the problems of others. She took a sip of red wine and watched the scene through the window. Matt exhaled deeply and finished pounding down the coffee like he was a frat boy shotgunning a beer with no noticeable effect. Her beautiful baby boys chased each other around the yard. 

Just a rough patch. That’s all this is. She mouthed the words I love you so much to him through the window. He didn’t move an inch as he watched the kids. 

But Heather was right. She had to be. Everything was going to be fine. 



So it comes to this. An eleven PM showdown with a bottle of NyQuil. I probably should use that antidepressant in hindsight. Use it as a chaser. not operate heavy machinery. Pffft. I’ll do what the fuck I want, thank you very much. I don’t want to cede to the notion I’m depressed. Instead, I take four tiny pink tablets over the counter Benadryl and sit them on my tongue before I clutch the child proof cap of the bottle with my right hand. 

Shhh shhh shhh, no no no no no, don’t scream. I won’t drink you. Not all of you anyway. I need some of you left for tomorrow night. I’m going to put my mouth on your neck and suck down whatever I can get in one mouthful. Pack you right into the walls of my cheeks and then suck down your sweet cherry flavor with that three week expired milk aftertaste. And you like that. Don’t you. 

I realize this may not be your intended use, but fuck it. I don’t care. It’s sleeplessness that’s brought me to this. Nothing more. You see that man in the mirror? He looks like a sick animal. That’s what happens to a man when he’s deprived of rest for days and weeks on end. The bags under those eyes are some knock off designer Gucci brand. Look at me. Some psychotic looking blue eyed rabid freak. I hate what I see. You can’t tell unless you pay very close attention, but the freshly buzzed sides of my hair are just ever so slightly salt and peppered. I’m turning slightly gray. My face looks weathered. I look rough. I was once young, attractive, and virile. Now I lose my erection half the time without warning and there’s nothing I can do to revive it.
  

Bottoms up.

Mmm. You don’t taste as bad as I remember as a kid, after all. Look at the bottle, Matt. Maybe a quarter of it gone? It’s fine. Put the cap back on and lock it up in the medicine cabinet. You need your beauty sleep tonight and the next night especially. In a few days you get to test out your knee. 

...Actually, fuck that. One more sip, just for good measure.

I have those pills downstairs. My knee still hurts like hell. Maybe just one on top of this will help me get to sleep. I told the doctor I couldn’t have them and didn’t want them. It’s a test of the indomitable human spirit. He said, it’s just a few to get you through the worst of it. Sure. Maybe a pill, some nyquil, and a little bit of whiskey, essential oils, CBD, melatonin, exercise. Everybody has an idea on how I’m supposed to fall asleep. My wife, god bless her stupid little soul, does research throughout the day to see what I can do differently. My eyes hurt. My knee hurts. She comes to me with several ideas. Plays with my hair while I lay in bed. Rubs my back. Makes recommendations. Thanks honey. I settled on a bottle of nyquil and benadryl because it seems to have a low abuse potential. If this home remedy of over the counter tranquilizers doesn’t do the trick I’m going to stomp out a bird’s nest of unhatched eggs while mama bird watches.

And then who knows, maybe I’ll just die. Nothing wrong with that. It’s probably what’s best for me. No more pain. No more sleepless nights. No more finding a puddle of piss on the floor next to the toilet. Doesn’t sound half bad sometimes.

I lock up the medicine cabinet and head to the bedroom. It’s 1am. Please, god, let me sleep. 
W O R L D

C L A S S

Matt Hodges

[Image: hodges.png]
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#2
OOC: pretty benign piece from last week that I sent to Olek and forgot to post until now. Relevant only for character development.
W O R L D

C L A S S

Matt Hodges

[Image: hodges.png]
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