I want you to take a good look at me. I was a young man once, if you can believe it. That kite flew away a long time ago, though. Death could sneak in and whisk me away any minute. I have a plan, though: I haven't bathed in weeks. Not even Death would want to touch a finger to this dirty old man.  

Right now, I'm putting on my coat, getting ready to walk to the drug store. I've got to get medicine for the wife and I. Ol' Death could very well be hiding in the sleeve of my coat like a spider. I slip on my shoes and hope he's not hiding in there.

I open the door and throw a scarf around my neck. What's an old man like me doing out in the cold? I've never minded the cold, to tell you the truth. Cruel people like me can always stand the cold. Can I tell you a story? I don't want to think about the present right now, let's head over to the past. Here's a story I think to myself whenever I'm sad to make me feel better; it never works:


In the year nineteen and sixty-four I was a soldier in the Vietnam war. I didn't die, obviously, but I came close a couple of times. I was determined to stay alive because I had a beautiful wife at home with a newborn son who didn't have a thing wrong with him. During my wife's pregnancy I had an irrational fear of the baby being born with something wrong with it. Looking back, however, I believe that I put that thought in my head intentionally, for no reason other than pure strangeness. But thankfully, my son was born healthy and happy. But here's a new thought: What if he dies unexpectedly? That's another thought I believe I intentionally let myself play around with.

When my son was born it was three o'clock in the morning. My wife didn't look very pretty during the delivery because she was all sweaty and had no make-up on. I would've never drempt of telling her that, but it's true. She was also in a great deal of pain and pain is not attractive. Conversely, I can say that during the delivery of my son I felt I looked my most attractive. I was truly a man then. I had convinced a young woman to allow me to have sex with her, and there, laying in a pool of placenta, was the proof. I was so terrified he was going to die that I even prayed a couple of times, if you can believe that nonsense.

I'm not ashamed to say that I was very much afraid of dying. The concept of nothingness is so profound that I can't help but panic when the thought arises. If my newborn son had been able to speak, I would've liked to have asked him about nothingness, since it had only been about nine months for him. By the time he gets old enough to talk he'll have already forgotten about it. During the days before my deployment I became desperately afraid of nothingness. I had convinced myself that I was surely going to die in that war. A bullet would imbed itself into my skull and I would slip into the dark pool of nonexistence, to wade in forever. Want to know a secret about yours truly? The thought still scares the hell out of me.

We brought our son home the day after he was born. It was a scary thing taking him away from doctors who knew exactly how to care for him. It had to be done, though. During the night before my deployment, lying next to my wife with the baby in a crib at the foot of our bed, I was torn between being terrified of shipping off and being terrified of my son dying. I allowed the two feelings to alternate. Somewhere in between the two, my imagination, in attempt to wisk me away from the panic, managed to sneek in a story. It was a story of my childhood that I had not thought about in a long time. Here it is:


When I was very young, around the age of nine, I was friends with this other nine-year-old boy named Derek who lived across the street from me. He had a large birthmark that started in the middle of his forehead, covered about half his nose before stopping in the middle of his right cheek. Derek would take advantage of my friendship every chance he got; I couldn't do anything at home by myself without him knocking on the front door with a baseball glove in his hand. I lived with my grand-mom and he also lived with his grand-mom. He called his grand-mom his "mammaw." Everyone has their own thing to call their grand-mom.

Derek and I liked to get on our bikes and explore this small patch of woods to the left of the neighborhood. Derek had a dog that he brought everywhere. He was brown, large, and friendly. Looking back on it, I believe his grand-mom got that dog to protect him from other kids roughing him up because of his birthmark, or to at least act as a deterrent for those considering to do so. I remember, Derek and I were riding around inside the woods when Derek's dog caught the scent of a septic tank. He must've enjoyed it; he started running in that direction. Derek followed him. The very thought of his dog getting away from him was terrifying to Derek. The next part of this story is heartbreaking; Derek was pedaling his bike too fast as he came up to the creek which separated the septic tank and when he clutched his brakes, the chain came off the tire. The bike didn't brake and Derek went headfirst into the ditch. Without getting into too much detail, here's what happened: Poor kid drowned in the creek.

Here's something I'm ashamed of: When Derek first tripped off his bike and fell into the creek, I laughed because it reminded me of an old cartoon or something like that. I was a kid.

Here's something else I'm ashamed of: The night before I shipped off to Vietnam, my wife refused me sex because she was still very sore from giving birth. I forced myself on her. I clutched her wrists and pinned her to the bed. It was not sexually gratifying and I truly don't know why I did it. I was not in my right mind. I felt I needed to have sex with a woman once more before I died. Like I said, I'm ashamed of it.


But let us now return to the present. How old do you think I am right now? I was twenty-five when I was a solider in Vietnam, so that makes me sixty-nine at present. I am currently in the summer of my sixty-ninth year. I haven't got much longer to go. You think I'm scared about that? If you said yes then you would be very correct. I'm still on my way to the drug store to pick up the wife's medicine, and also a chocolate bar for myself that she will not know about. My wife now is not the wife I had during my time in Vietnam; she and I divorced and parted ways during the winter of my forty-third year. My current wife has never seen me in the throes of panic such as my previous has.

I am now entering the drug store. First I pick up the chocolate bar. As soon as I leave it's going right in my pocket, only to see the light of day again when I am alone. The pharmacist is a friendly young lady with short, dark hair. She knows all our prescriptions and has them ready for me, which I truly appreciate. Vaguely, I feel the need to apologize for all the sexual fantasies she's made appearances in that would no doubt disgust and offend her. I purchase my items and exit the store.

As I'm walking the three or so blocks back to the house, the thought of death and nothingness once again fills me with panic; it was like a mugger waiting around the corner. I brielfy consider accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior, but my masculinaty will not allow it. I endure it, as I have done so many times before.

I am now entering the house. My wife is sitting by a window asleep, the sun falling on half her body. In the natural sunlight, her aged face can't seem to decide whether it wants to be pretty or ugly. Like the old dog that I am I walk slowly to her, sit down and put my head on her lap.

"I got our medicine," I say, and she wakes up a little bit.

"You got a chocolate bar too, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. And I'm going to eat all of it."

"No you're not."

The thought of death and nothingness comes upon me again most unexpectedly and I know this time it will be a struggle for the times. If these thoughts were a man I would shoot him. My wife is now, for the first time in our courtship, seeing me in the throes of panic. I clutch my face, hard enough to leave marks, and fall onto the floor. The left side of my body feels completely numb; my left arm is paralyzed and drops to the floor; and now my whole left side is completely paralyzed. Something is happening now. Something just happened.  

I am awaking now in a hospital. The first thing that is said to me is that I've just had a stroke and am lucky to be alive. Here comes my wife. She is crying. I am happy to see her. She doesn't look very attractive with her face red as an apple, wet with tears, and her cheeks and forehead scrunched up. I stand up out of my bed, against everyone else's discouragement for me to do so. "Hello, my lady," I say to her, grabbing her hand. I act like I'm going to kiss it but instead I kiss my own hand. It's my favorite joke.

"Lay down, you fool. You almost died."

"I did die, my lady. Only for a little bit, though. You want to know what death is like?"

"No, I want to know what you laying down and getting some rest is like."

"Something just happened."

"Lay down, darling."

Let me tell you what death is like. Please remember that I am not in my right mind. Here's what death is like: All of the sudden you're in an old house. There are pictures hanging on the walls -- Norman Rockwells and comforting stuff like that. You walk down the hallway into the living room. There's an old man rocking back and forth in his rocking chair. "Excuse me?" you might say to him, or, "What's going on?" I said, "Nice place you got here." It was true; it really was a nice house. Then you and the old man tell war stories to each other. I made a lot of mine up to sound heroic because I really didn't do jack shit in the war. Then you can either come back to earth or you can slip away into nothingness. You can guess what yours truly decided to do.

Here comes the doctor. He's foreign, maybe Pakistanian. Briefly, I wonder if he only knows how to heal Pakistanian people.

"Goo' e'ning sir," he says. "You ha' a s'roke an' are lucky to be alive."

"I beg your pardon but I can't understand a goddamn word you're saying," I say. "Where's my chocolate bar?" I ask my wife

"You don't need to worry about that right now."

"If you got rid of it I swear to God this marriage is over." She puts her hand on my forehead and runs it back over my hair. It feels so good and she knows it does. "Did I ever tell you about my best friend drowning in the creek when I was little?"

"Yes, many times."

"His bike fell on top of him and he couldn't get up."

"I know baby."

"His dog was just a-barking and a-barking."

My old enemy returns for one last fight. The panic blankets itself around me. In a desperate attempt at resistance I stand up out of my bed and tell the doctor that I want to fight him. "Come on!" I yell. My legs are weak and they will not hold me much longer. "Put up your dukes, you son of a bitch!" With my enemy squeezing his intangible hands around my neck, I throw the weakest punch I've thrown since I was a child. My left side once again becomes completely paralyzed. My enemy thrusts its killing stroke into my chest. I feel dull impact before I hit the floor again and black out.  

"You again?" the old man in the rocking chair says.

"Me again," I say.