BE BACK SHORTLY

Alan put a foot in the door, but it wasn’t his foot. It belonged to the old man who worked in Morse General Store. Alan had driven down there at five of opening Monday, eager to make his week’s worth of purchases, food, bicarbonate of soda, some nails and screws. The old man wasn’t there. It was nine and then five after. Finally the old man appeared on his bicycle, a skeleton pedaling. “What you waiting for?” he said. “For you,” Alan said. The old man waved him off.  “Time is a subject,” he said, “I’ve studied longer than you’ve been alive.” He made a sniffing noise. “Courtesy of kings,” he said. Alan, suddenly white with rage, stepped toward the old man and lifted him clean off his bike. He pulled him into the car and hightailed it for home. The old man started asking questions immediately and when they weren’t answered he started singing in a high reedy voice, first “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live,” then “I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister,” then “Evicted Tenant.” Alan knew every song, which also made him think that he should know this old man, but he didn’t. The dirt road met with the front tires and particulated around the rear ones. Arriving home, Alan dragged the old man into the front hall, put his foot in the front door, and partly closed it. “This is rank cruelty,” the old man said. “And I know why you are acting this way!” Alan wheeled on him. “Why?” Alan said. The old man stared straight at Alan. His eyes bored into several spots on Alan’s face. “Because,” the old man said, “you have tried for thirty years to kill happiness in those around you, and you have failed every time. I am hungry, but I feed myself. I am frail, but I sing out. So you can just go ahead and act like a struck match. I’m not burning.” Alan knew that he wouldn’t take the old man’s foot out of the door. He’d make him stand there forever if that’s what it took. But something in what the old man had said was a hammer upon a string in his piano. “Dad!” he cried. His dad whistled “Arroyo” but didn’t say a word.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas