Public domain image via Pixabay.com
The Old Man
I live an orderly life. I like it that way. I like things to be neat and tidy. Everything in its proper place. I find comfort in things that go according to schedule. I even have a morning ritual that doesn’t change — even on the weekends.
I get up, grab the clothes I put out the evening before, and go to the bathroom to take a shower. It’s much more pleasant now that my big brother has gone away to college. The towels are always where I want them to be, the room is always tidy and I don’t have to deal with the pool of water my brother inevitably left behind after his shower.
When I get out, I dry off, get dressed, fix my hair and go downstairs to eat breakfast. My mother always has it ready on time, and my father always reads the paper and discusses politics at the breakfast table. After breakfast, I go back upstairs, finish getting ready and then head off to school. The only thing that has changed in this routine in the past few years has been his arrival.
Every morning, for the past two weeks, when I walked to school, he’d be there, sitting at the corner bus stop. I hated walking past him. He was the antithesis of my life and the way I led it. He was dirty. He was unkempt. And he smelled. But every morning I did it. I held my breath and walked past him.
If only there had been another way to walk to school, I thought. But the bus stop was located on the only road that led to my school, so I didn’t have a choice.
He looked the same every morning. Old Oxford-print over coat. Gray hat. A paper bag neatly placed by his side.
I only guessed at what was in that bag — but it wasn’t very difficult. Sometimes when I’d walk by, he’d slump forward in his drunken stupor, startling me to jump. Other times, I’d hear him snore, mumble or perhaps cough.
It didn’t matter — I despised him. It didn’t matter that he, on occasion would smile at me. I’d smile perfunctorily back, and think to myself, “How dare he sully my pristine suburban sidewalk with his filthy presence?”
It really bothered me the way he’d follow me with his eyes and smile. I didn’t care how lonely he looked — that didn’t give him an excuse to stare at me all the time. Dirty old man. Maybe he’d make more friends if he’d stop drinking.
Then, one day, it all changed. As I walked by him, holding my breath, he leaped up, clutched his chest and started gurgling words I couldn’t hear.
I screamed with surprise — he had been so still a moment before. He turned and looked at me, imploringly, and murmured “Help me.” Then he slumped down on the bus stop bench and twitched a bit.
What could I do? I hated him, but I was not without compassion. After all, he was a living creature with all the rights that go with that.
I walked around the bench to lend assistance. The stench was unbearable, I could barely breath.
When I got close enough, he grabbed my arm — I shrieked again — and he pulled me closer, so I could hear.
“The bag,” he whispered.
“Ugh.” I was so disgusted. How could he think of booze at a time like this? I tried to jerk my arm away so I could leave.
He held on tighter, as if the convulsive pain in his body would go away if he only held on tighter. “The bag,” he repeated, his fetid breath filling my world. “My pills.”
Now I understood. He let go of me as I went over to the bag. Sure enough, the bag was filled with prescription drugs. “Take once a day,” “take twice a day,” “generic,” “generic,” “generic.”
I brought the bag over to him. He whispered — a harsh rasping sound like branches brushing against a window pane in a storm — “the green one.” He was loosing his energy, and I was barely able to hear what he said.
In a panic, I rummaged through the bag, looking for “the green one.” I found a green bottle among the more common orange-brown and brought it out. He shook his head. “The pill.” He twitched again, but with less fervor than before.
I scrambled, once more, through the bag looking for the green pills inside amber bottles. At last I found them.
I took one out and showed it to him. A Mona-Lisa smile tried to cross his face, then he opened his mouth.
I gave him the pill, then realized he needed something to drink. I tore through my backpack, found my juice and helped him take the pill.
At that moment, the bus turned the corner. When it stopped, the bus-driver came out, looking very concerned. I mentioned the pill and he ran back into the bus and radioed for help.
“Can you stay with Mr. Sanguinetti until the ambulance arrives?” he asked me. “I’d stay, but I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“But I’ve got to go to school.”
“They’ll understand. Here’s my card if they don’t.” He handed me his business card, and that was that. He got into his bus and headed out to his next stop. The bus drove off, and I was left alone with the old man.
He had stopped twitching and was now breathing deeply, except for an occasional rasp. I looked at his face, the lines that meandered across it made it look like a three-dimensional topographical map.
He opened his hazel brown, bloodshot eyes and looked at me. He tapped my hand with his. It felt dry and scaly. He murmured something about knowing I would be kind, and then the word “thank.” He winced in pain. But his eyes conveyed everything that his voice could not.
The ambulance arrived. I told them the story. They behaved like the bus driver — they knew this man, and they seemed to know me. They rushed us off to the hospital — ignoring my protests that I had to go to school — where I had to repeat my story several times. It seemed that everyone knew Mr. Sanguinetti, and seemed unusually delighted to meet me.
A man from a lawyer’s office met with me and took down my name, address and phone number. “He’s been dying for the past two weeks. He had no one else,” he said to me. I didn’t understand what he meant. Then he shook my hand with a strong staccato movement and left. Finally, someone drove me to school — in time for fifth period.
I never saw that old man again. Mr. Sanguinetti died quietly in his sleep that night. When I walked to school the next day, I automatically went to hold my breath as I passed the bus stop bench. And then I felt sad.
About a month later I received a check by certified mail for $20,000. The old man had added me to his will only a week before his death. He hadn’t known my name — which is why the lawyer was called to the hospital — but he had liked me just the same, and he had no one else to leave his “fortune” to.
When I realized this, I felt guilty. I thought I hated that old, smelly man, but now I missed the comfortable ritual he had brought to my life.
END
