The Old Man

She put the CD in and after a little New Age chime there was a lifeless country/rock muzak, three chords strummed over a drum machine. Then a voice sang earnestly, "Destiny Tel-e-com” and the music softened and another voice said:

"There is a wave of excitement and opportunity sweeping the planet that is changing the lives of those it touches. It is a powerful wave that has just barely begun, but already its effects are undeniable. Ordinary people are turning their lives around, finding hope and independence and freedom by making a simple decision to take control of their destiny."

The music rose up again and the earnest voice sang, “Destiny Telecom…Destiny  Telecom.”

Then the narrator said:

"Welcome to Destiny Telecom International. The Greatest Business on the Planet Today.”

He lunged at the eject button and nearly punched it.

“Don’t break it!” she said, laughing.

“What the fuck?” he asked. His face had genuinely pained expression.

“What?” she said, innocently. Then she smiled.

“My dad gave it to me,” she said.  “Ah, but it’s so…Inspirational!”

She lifted her arms and looked around wide-eyed.

“Stop the car. I have to go, like, succeed at something. Right now.”

“You succeeded,” he said. “I’ll have that shit in my head for days. Good job.”

“I’m serious, pull over!” she said. “Don’t you see it?”

She lifted her arms again and looked around, awed by the wave of excitement and opportunity sweeping the planet. Then she crossed her arms and settled back in her seat with a huff.

“Fine,” she said.

She lifted one hand and waved meekly at a passing field.

“Bye bye wave,” she said.

He smiled.

“Is it gone?” he asked.

“All gone,” she said. “I just saw it like roll over the horizon.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “But...maybe it’ll come back around, huh?”

She sighed and lit a cigarette. Then she put her feet up on the dash, took a long drag, tilted her head back, and let the smoke drift out on its own.

“I can’t believe he would give me that crap,” she said. “Sometimes I think he’s lost it already.”

“Maybe he has,” he said.

“But he’s only, like, 50.”

It was a very bright, hot day in late June, and they were driving to the country.  There was a stretch of road she wanted to check out.  The road ran parallel to a railroad track and was lined with old, leaning power lines, the kind with colorful glass insulators connecting the wires. She had driven by once and noticed that many of the insulators were missing and she wanted to walk the stretch of road and search the ground. She was always scouring flea markets for insulators because she used them in sculptures, and for doorstops and paper weights and other things. She had them everywhere.

She was excited today because she was sure they would find a lot of them. She brought two backpacks and she hoped to fill both. He agreed to drive her and help her look. He often drove her places because she was pretty and she asked him to.

“I know my dad has,” he said.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Gone. Totally. He can’t stay awake past 8 o’clock. And he takes, like, 10 naps a day too!” He shook his head. “It’s fucked up,” he said.

“No doubt,” she said.

She paused for a moment, looking out the window, and then, without turning to him, said, “Why the fuck would he think I would be interested in that crap? A fucking pyramid scheme….Why?”

“He just wants to, you know, connect with you or whatever,” he said.

“We should go fly a kite together! I’d like that,” she said.

She sat up straight, and her feigned enthusiasm quickly changed to bitterness.

“He’s a fucking weirdo,” she said.

They’d been driving for about an hour. He’d gone to her house at around 11 like she had asked, and he was shocked to see her come bolting out the door with the backpacks as soon as he pulled up. She was never ready on time.

“Here. Right here,” she said. “This looks good.”

He pulled over. There was no shoulder to speak of, so he pulled off into the grass. She stuffed her cigarette, the fourth, out in his ashtray and they walked over near the power lines. The track was up a small hill about 15 feet away.

“Here.” She handed him a backpack. “You know what to look for, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Should we split up or stick together?”

She thought for moment. She was all business now.

“Stick together,” she said. “We’ll be more thorough that way.”

“OK,” he said.

“If you find a chipped one, go ahead and bag it. They don’t have to be perfect.”

“OK,” he said.

“But if it’s…well…nevermind,” she said, and then added, “If you aren’t sure, just ask, OK?”

“OK,” he said.

They’d been at it for a while. Both backpacks were about half full; they’d found a dozen or more insulators each. Whenever she found one, she would let out a happy little yelp and he too felt a little jolt of excitement each time he spotted something bright and smooth buried in the weeds. Most of the time the object would turn out to be a plastic bottle, but he found enough insulators to keep him engaged. They were all either green or clear glass, and they were all the same shape.

“Are these the only kinds you can find now?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” she said. “They have some cool ones…all kinds of wild colors and shapes…but you can’t really find them anywhere, you know, in nature. Lots of people collect them. Hey! Check it out.”

She dug a green one up that had been buried almost entirely.

“Awesome!” she said. “Not even broken.”

She bagged it and walked up the hill to the track.

Whenever he found one, he’d pick it up and brush as much grass and dirt away as he could. They all had markings, serial numbers of some kind, he assumed. The really were cool, in a way. In reality, they were nothing but the technology muck of their day, the things that were so ubiquitous that nobody even noticed them. But now there was a certain charm about them. They were thick, heavy. They were even kind of pretty.  He wondered what people must have thought of them back when the lines were first put up.

“Hey.”

He wondered how they’d made them all. Some machine, obviously, but in his mind he pictured a great warehouse full of glassblowers.  He imagined dozens of old men in overalls, rags stuffed in their back pockets, producing dozens a day. The floor is concrete and covered with bits of glass, so they’re all wearing the really heavy boots….

“Hey!”

He turned to her. She was crouched on a rail, looking down on the other side of the track. She was perched there like a bird with her feet on the rail and her arms clutched around her knees, and she was staring at something. There was a note of fear in her voice. He walked up the hill toward her.

“What?”

She was silent. He came up beside her and stopped. At the base of the hill, there was a very old man crouched on one knee.

After he caught his breath, which the shock of the strange scene had disrupted, he wondered where the old man could have come from. You could see a good mile down the road in both directions and there were no cars, other than his, in sight. There were no houses nearby either. The old man was like a ghost. He was right there in front of them, no question of that, but he seemed unreal.

The old man was washing his hand. With his left hand, he held a large plastic jug, like the kind bleach comes in only there was no label on it, and he was pouring it over his right hand.

He looked at her. She was still perched motionless on the rail. She was watching the old man with an expression of intense scrutiny, like she was absorbing every detail.  He looked from her to the old man and back to her.
Then the old man stood up. He had on white shorts and a white, short-sleeve, button-down shirt that was totally unbuttoned.  He was very old. He was quite tall but his legs were gangly and frail and his gut sagged far below his waistline. His hair, what there was of it, was bright white in the sun.

He was still pouring the bleach, or whatever it was, over his hand. It was cascading over his hand: above the hand the bleach, or whatever it was, was a milky color, and the stream from the hand to the ground was pink. The old man poured and poured but the shade of pink never lightened.

After a minute or so, the old man carefully knelt and put the jug on the ground. Then, slowly, as he rose again, he slumped forward a little, as if to secure his balance, and lifted his arms up straight and out to the side. His legs were bowed and a little shaky, and his right hand was solid red and dripping. Solid red, as if he’d dipped it in paint. He stood that way—arms up, hunched forward, trembling slightly—for a long time.

“It’s blood,” she whispered.

She gazed intently at the old man and tapped the back of her left hand all over with her right forefinger.

“There’s little…gouges…all over it,” she said.

He looked closely at the old man’s hand but he could see nothing but a thick red coating and a steady drip from the wrist to the ground. He cleared his throat.

“Uh, sir,” he managed. “Sir. Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

The old man said nothing and gave no sign that he had heard. He swayed a bit and almost fell, but he righted himself. He never looked up or made a sound.

“Sir. Sir what happened to you? Are you hurt?”

He was startled to hear sharp beeps. He looked down and saw her shakily working her cell phone. Her dad had bought her the phone, just a few weeks ago….

* * * *

When the ambulance came and the cops asked questions, they could only shrug and shake their heads. No, the old man never said a word. He never moved except to sway a little and right himself again. The old man had cut himself, but nobody was sure how. It was like something exploded in his hand. It was strange. He was probably in shock.

One of the cops was nice but a little morbid. He told them they get calls like this all the time. Old people just wander off and hurt themselves sometimes, he said. It was sad but true.

They spoke little on the drive home. He couldn’t get the image of the old man out of his mind. There was something so strange about it all. It made no sense. Where had he come from?

She stared out the window. The backpacks full of insulators were in the trunk. She was trying to think of what to do with them.

Without thinking, she pushed the CD in and impossibly excited voices filled the car. Testimonials.

"I think Destiny is the most incredible program I have ever seen. It is changing lives everyday. It has changed mine."

"A 21st century product line. The greatest products that have every touched down on this planet."
"Destiny is a company here to stay, and it's going all the way!"

"It is the most awesome opportunity you have ever seen on this earth, and if you don't sign up your gonna regret it for the rest of your life.”