Karl Wagner - The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII

“Let me tell you a story.” The old man laughed. I knew him, but he was not my friend. It was strange and weird, the way he danced… with his hair greased back and wet. His lips moved slowly and his wonderful words owned a flavor I could not forget, the dance romance of a toothpick broken at the tip. “Those were the days,” he said as if it meant something and I kinda figured that to him it did.

For a moment I thought he might have seen a monster the way he flicked his little eyes and lifted his greasy hand to one side, the left. There was fear in those old eyes but it quickly disappeared as he laughed again. I was sure the old man had seen something I hadn’t. Possibly couldn’t. It was a haunted look… I think a fear of death. A regret that passed like some weird wind. The old man looked sick. “You never know where they must go,” he coughed. He went on and on, a vibrant speech that could have been a song. And then he said, “I live to wash her,” and I understood the rest. It was a story I’d heard before but that didn’t stop him from continuing as he picked up the mirror and tears formed… then began to flow. Yeah. First a waterfall and then a river, the tears that showed. The tears were old. It hurt me to watch this as I suspect you know. I think there was still this deep pain somewhere inside him, and it welled up in those sad eyes because he could not forget the girl he had known for more than fifty years. And it just came out. A tango of emotions , mixed with doubt. It just seemed weird. To me, at least at that time, it did. I saw what those deep scars of time had done to him and could have cried as well but I held back and listened now.

“I met her at the grocery story,” he explained. “She was buying broccoli if I remember correctly. And of course I do! No—I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Her blonde hair danced as she walked down the aisle. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I didn’t know what to say. But she smiled. God—she was beautiful and young and wild. Words weren’t needed. The air hung silent. I stood there, with her not far away. She had stopped to pick up that broccoli—lunch or supper—it didn’t matter. She didn’t talk. But I was mad about her. No one else was around. We shared the aisle, just her and I. The moment that will last forever as her blonde hair fell and her eyes met mine. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite like that since. And before that I didn’t know what love was. It was just a word you understand. It had no meaning. None whatsoever before I met the girl, a fate as kind as any fate could be. Before that day I was not alive. But since—with her—every day has meant so much to me. So much, you see. I even learned to like broccoli. She could fix broccoli like no one else. Maybe that’s a part of it. I don’t know.” The old man was getting into it as he rambled on. It was easy to see that he still loved that girl. He finally sat at the table.

The old man looked down. His bloodshot eyes moved slowly. He forced a smile. A strained reunion. The past had come back to haunt him or so it seemed. Fond memories danced like a rampant dream, growing luxuriantly as he spoke the words that drifted like a bitter tea. Something had been lost and it was easy to see that the old man had never really liked broccoli. Even if he said as much. It wasn’t that broccoli so much though that haunted him, but the girl he had met fifty years before in the grocery store. Fifty years. And he still talked as if it was yesterday. When he had met the girl and fell in love and started eating broccoli. The whole affair bothered me.

It wasn’t normal to dwell in the past like that. I was sure the girl was dead. I had gone to the funeral only the week before. And here he was going on about her as if she was still alive. Going on about when he first met her, talking about her blonde hair and blue eyes and what he lived for as if that mattered. The whole damn thing was nearly enough to make you cry though we know old people can be like that, living in the past and the sort. That still doesn’t mean it’s not strange. Or that it’s healthy. They get a little crazy sometimes. And that’s too bad, indeed!

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why they go loony tunes. But they often do. This being a point in fact. The way the old man was living in the past. Yet his story fascinated me (in a way) I must admit. There was more to it than that, ya see. And as he sat down he continued, the story unfolding like a bizarre strange dream. His despair becoming more evident with every word. The old man looked frail. Almost dead himself! It almost hurt me to see him go on that way though I don’t think I could have stopped him even if I wanted to. And I had no reason to do that. No reason at all. I thought there might be more to the story. Something he hadn’t told me. So I stayed. And I listened to the weird scarecrow speech. The old man meant nothing to me and yet when his eyes sparkled (only occasionally) it sent a shiver through me. There was no doubt he still loved her though she had been dead for more than a week.

I’d seen ’em put the coffin in the ground. The old man had been there. He surely remembered the funeral. And burial. They covered the coffin with the dirt at his feet. He couldn’t have forgotten something that had happened so recently, only last week. The old man never shed a tear for the girl though he wore a mask of stoic disbelief as he said the words that have come to bother me. He said, “I live to wash her.” That as they scooped up the dirt at his feet. He’s not been the same since. But there’s no way he could have forgotten the affair. He never would talk about it. The old man merely escaped to the past as indicated by his weird speech. Yet there was more to it, I really believe. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s only a feeling I have. He’s funny that way. The way he makes you think there’s more than what meets the eye, some bizarre meaning to everything he says. And that seems crazy. Very much so though that’s only a figure of speech because all he does is sit at the table, only getting up for the occasional dance. And, of course, talk of the past. The world he must still be in with the blonde-haired girl he picked up at the local grocery store fifty years ago… today… I think. I wonder how much broccoli he’s eaten since then? Just a passing thought. Not something I would actually ask, content only to listen to the old man. And not ask questions he might think stupid. Those questions I have mere guesswork of a curious cat. I’m sure you know what curiosity did to the cat!

I’m only paid to listen. That’s what I do best. I can’t help it if there seems to be some mystery to all this. The old man’s face looks like broken glass. He only closes his eyes occasionally. He’s always wearing that mask. For some reason I don’t think he’s telling me everything. He’s hiding something, I fear. I just know he is. His smile is so weird. It’s the broken glass of despair that gets to me most as I listen. The old man isn’t happy. He rambles on and on about the girl. It is a fine ballet of words. But hints of something dark and secret. Something beyond my grasp. He seems edgy, a live wire that is nearly worn out and still has loose broken ends. The conflict comes from within; a deep chasm of pain I can’t quite explain. A place I can’t quite get to though I’m beginning to know where it is. This bothers me a great deal. He acts as if he doesn’t know the girl is dead. He talks about her in the present tense. This just doesn’t make sense.

I saw her as he did. In the coffin. Cold. And dead. She is six feet under, I tell you. He couldn’t wash her if he wanted to. So I don’t know why he keeps talking like this, about the girl in the present tense. It’s getting a bit eerie. It is. Bastard’s on a strange trip! Too much broccoli, I suspect.