Malcolm is 51 years old and recently divorced after 23 years of marriage. He has a son named John, who is a Junior in High School, that lives with him most of the week and his mother a couple days on weekends.
Malcolm had shoulder length dark brown hair and a scraggly beard during his early twenties. He also wore glasses. As his hair gradually thinned and receded throughout the next two decades his hairstyles got shorter. The beard went away too as it got grayer during his forties. Now both his head and face are clean-shaven. He had corrective surgery on his eyes several years ago and no longer needs glasses to see. Malcolm gained a lot of weight over the years but lost it all and then some after his wife left him. He is now skinnier than he was in High School and looks and feels about 20 years younger.
Malcolm is a very outgoing person but he’s also not afraid to spend time alone. He is an avid reader on many subjects and likes to keep up on current events and politics when he has free time. He is a registered Democrat but if categorized by his believes would probably be considered more of a Libertarian. He only registered as a Democrat because that’s what he learned to do as a kid. He has considered changing his party affiliation several times over the years but felt guilty about the possibility of making his grandfather, who was a very pro union person, turn over in his grave.
Malcolm usually gets loud and obnoxious when he feels misunderstood or not heard. The behavior or insecurity comes from growing up in a large family. He had 4 other siblings and he was the second youngest. To get what he wanted he had to speak up and be aggressive or he would be lost in the shuffle.
Malcolm never moved too far from home. He had no driving desire to move away from the small town world he grew up in like all of his brothers and sisters and many of his peers. He liked the widespread simplicity and innocence of the people living there. Even the criminals were more misguided than authentically bad. He saw nothing wrong with staying put and figured that he could take a vacation if he ever got the urge to travel.
Malcolm also still lives in the house he grew up in. He moved back in soon after getting married. The house was big enough for him to continue living there with his wife and son, along with his parents. There were never any problems with the arrangement either and it saved them a lot of money on rent or a mortgage payment. His parents simply lived in an in-law wing of the home when they were not spending winters down at the condo they bought in Arizona right after his father retired after 35 years of working every job imaginable at a local cutlery factory. The arrangement also made it easier for Malcolm to take care of his parents as they grew older needing more help and more difficult for his ex-wife to lay claims on when they divorced.
While in High School Malcolm was a member of the varsity wresting team for 3 years because he really enjoyed it and was so naturally talented at the sport however he never bought into the jock mentality usually associated with being athletic. He genuinely liked everyone, even if he didn’t agree with them and was just as open to sit with the smart kids as he was with his teammates at lunchtime. It was hard for most people to see this aspect of him though because he came across so loud and tactless in public at times. He also was careful not to get too close with most of his male friends because he was afraid of being rejected by them or called a sissy for being so caring in private.
Most people though liked him in general but were just put back sometimes by his aggressiveness. They got over it quickly once they got to know him, especially the girls. He was far from a ladies man but treated girls honestly and like an equal, just like his guy friends because that was how his father treated his mother. Girl classmates of all shapes and sizes loved being around a guy who didn’t just want to have sex with them and not have to worry about his intentions. He was never hurting for a date or girlfriend because he was so trustworthy and liked by all the girls. Malcolm though was oblivious to this, he was just being himself, looking into their hearts and not at their figures and it made many of his peers very jealous and wonder if he was up to something. He figured if he wanted to have sex he’d just coordinate it with his friend Ann and she did the same with him. It was what they wanted and how their relationship was, even though they didn’t have to. It was just one component of their unspoken intimacy. Both were very happy with the simple arrangement and neither really thought about having it any other way.
Malcolm’s father got him a full time job working at the factory right after he graduated from High School. He didn’t think he wanted to go to college at that point in his life. All it took was sweeping floors on C Shift for a few months for Malcolm to figure he needed to do something else with his life. He started taking civil service tests and eventually scored high enough on one to get a better day job at the nearby State reform school. He then signed up for and attended community college part time at night while working full time during the day. Over time he got an associates and batchers degree in public administration and was promoted into management. Not something he planed on but he did enjoy the challenges of the work he was assigned.
Malcolm married Kris, a woman he met at work, after they went out for about a year and got engaged. She was a clerk in the business office. Looking back he realized he didn’t really know her that well because she didn’t talk much, all of her friends and family where just as quiet and tight lipped as she was but she loved to fuck and boy she was good at that.
After High School sex and dating for Malcolm became a lot less frequent, not because he didn’t have opportunities. Ann went away to college and he didn’t have much time to date between school and work responsibilities. Kris easily fit well into the time he did have available and she gave him everything he thought he wanted at that time, lunch together at work because he didn’t like eating alone and sex before going to bed at night. The first few years of their marriage was spent doing what they had been doing all along, instead of getting to know each other. Unfortunately after that time passed, she got pregnant and when John was born she quit her job to stay home and care for him instead. Malcolm and Kris quickly got caught up in the whirlwind of raising a kid and routines of running a household. They had no or little common ground beyond raising their son. The novelty of their relationship was long gone and sex became boring and eventually as common as talking for them, almost non-existent.
Malcolm was OK with the changes because he thought they were normal for this period in their life, didn’t want a divorce and thought that things would get better over time because they loved each other, even though they didn’t. Malcolm gradually began to realize that what he and his wife had was a marriage, not necessarily love. Instead of his wife, he just talked to his friends like he always had, which were still mostly the women he hung out with in High School who where still looking for a man to share more of themselves with in other ways besides sex, since most had husbands and families at this point in their lives.
The past few years brought about major inner and outer changes for Malcolm. His whole perspective and paradigms on what really matters most and how the world works were totally altered. Along with the ending of his marriage, both of his parents died, he accepted a buyout/early retirement deal from his employer of 25 years in lieu of getting laid off, started his own small business and lost over 50 pounds of weight. His life was not the same and he did not look like the same person anymore. Despite the brutal stress he endured in such a short period of time he actually felt a lot healthier and happier than he had in decades both mentally and physically.
He used to be argumentative and had very strong opinions. Now he’s much more accepting and no longer feels the need to have people agree with him. He stopped being so concerned about his old job as an administrator at the local juvenile detention facility connected to the reform school he started out working at so many years ago and finally let go. He was unnecessarily creating his own stress. Eventually he realized that the place existed and ran fine long before him and will continue to do so
long after he dies. Malcolm also didn’t have to help take care of his elderly parents or live with his ex-wife and her antics anymore. He and John now were finally free enough to enjoy their lives and relax a little. Even Malcolm’s new business was low key and more something to occupy his newfound free time with productively than actual income. His monthly retirement check gave him enough money to meet his financial needs. His business offers contract-consulting services to government and private agencies that deal with rehabilitating juvenile offenders. There was plenty of work out there to keep him busy for years.
The divorce was no big surprise for Malcolm, Kris or anyone else that knew them. It became apparent years before they actually did it. They were just waiting to see who would take the first steps to initiate it. Neither were heartbroken or full of anger at the other when Kris got the nerve up to file for it. It was just the process of divvying up the assets afterward that caused all the hard feelings. Kris expected more