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waiting without the angel
7:25 a.m.., Monday, Mar. 26, 2007
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He sits alone, waiting for the girl to return. He knows she may not. Sometimes she forgets. Just like he forgets sometimes, that she's only there for the money.
There's a world of weariness in the old man's soul. A head full of persistent memories that won't go away no matter how hard he pushes.
He counts the days on his fingers, starting over when he runs out. He considers the television, his only source of escape now that he can no longer get out of bed. By his count, it should be a Tuesday. He's not sure why it matters. The shows are the same every day. As are the meals.
He knows when lunchtime nears, a big black man will come lift him from his bed and dump him into a wheel chair. It will be either Charlie or Isaiah. Not much difference between them. Both smile but don't mean it. Both say his name a lot. And both take things from his closet when he's sleeping. There's not much left. Just clothes and that old sweater that nobody would ever want.
Nobody ever asks if he wants to go to lunch. They just assume.
The girl's job is to talk to the inmates. And to cut their hair and nails. She's supposed to find out how he's doing and fix or arrange things when needed. Like funerals.
She'd shown just as Regis was coming on, and had left before the first commercial break, promising to return with a video game she'd borrowed from one of her sons.
And now, Ellen was on. The audience was laughing about something he'd neglected to pay attention to. He'd heard from one of the other inmates, that the she was butch, queer, like that neighbor back in Tulsa.
He shook his shoulders, indifferent. He'd not felt a stirring in that thing for years.
He moved his eyes from the television at the foot of his bed, to the small mound before him. His body beneath a sheet and single light yellow blanket. He jiggled his right foot, needing to convince himself that it was really parts of him under there. That it was really he, himself that was lying there, at the mercy of others. Old and decrepit. Sad and lonely. Nothing more than a flimsy vestige of what he'd once been.
He still wasn't sure how it had all come to this. It seemed one minute, he and Esther were at the house. The two of them celebrating his retirement. The next, she was gone, and he was here, alone, unable to make sense of anything. Most especially, those idiots on Passions.
But they wouldn't come on till after lunch.
He suddenly remembered he'd dreamed the night before. About himself in bed with an erection that wouldn't go away. The girl had come and put her mouth on him till he came. That was the image he had now. Her, dabbing at something at the corner of her mouth.
She was Hispanic. His father had told him dark women were all whores. But she never wore lipstick. Or a dress. And her hair was always tied back, tight. Like the expression on her face when she found a mess in his sheets.
He closed his eyes and tried to see Esther. She'd been young and pretty when they'd first met. He knew that to be true, but found it impossible to believe. She'd grown haggard and tired over the years, frequently angry. Her eyes, bloodshot, came to him at the oddest hours. As if she were some angel that worked for the devil instead of the man upstairs.
That was the last time he'd seen her.
His life had been a lot quieter since then.
But not a day went by that he didn't wish it had of been him they found that day, belly up on the kitchen floor.
He shrugged his shoulders again and nodded at the television. Ellen, was talking to someone on the telephone.
After she was through, Charlie or Isaiah would come fetch him. He wished he could hide under the covers.
Maybe if he just hid his teeth instead.
Yeah, he thought, nodding as solemnly as if he were in church. Maybe that would work.
If Esther could see him, just then at that moment, she'd see that old glimmer he used to have. That mischievous twinkle in his eyes that would make her pull his face close, and kiss him loudly on the mouth.
Then, maybe she'd smile too.