The Man of Flesh and Bone

The old man sat in the parlor in his favorite chair with a good book across his lap but he had given up on reading many hours before. The room was large and warm and the night was calm and cool but the only sound was the crackle of the low fire and the house was much too quiet.

He could have turned on the noise of the radio to ease the loneliness and most nights he would have but tonight it felt wrong, like a betrayal. Instead he stared into the flicker of the fireplace and let himself dwell on the memories, the ones that were always just beneath the surface these days. He brought them out and let them breathe, let them catch the air, like the faded laundry he had left dangling between the kitchen cupboards.

He had not always been alone. Once the house had echoed with life, with the laughter of the children and the clever tongue of his wife Lois and the barks and claw-clattering of his old dog, Bessy.

Now the children were grown and his wife had passed and even the old dog had dragged herself off to die. He had gone out to look for the dog but he had not looked so hard. She had been a wily old mutt and she would not have run off, and he had not really wanted to find her like that, either. Even an old dog had a right to the dignity of a little privacy in their final hours.

Yet the old man knew his lot was better than many. He was not unloved. His eldest son Clark Junior had stopped by just last week, checking in. It had been some time since his last visit and the old man had been shocked to see how old his son had become, how like an old man he seemed himself now. Grey and faded, like father like son. He was a good boy but he had never been much of a talker and the visit had been a quiet one.

Clark Junior had mowed the lawn and cut the grass which the old man had let grow long, not because he could no longer cut it on his own--he still had his strength and could have cut it quicker and neater himself--but because without Lois to worry him about it he had forgotten. Clark Junior had also bought a six pack of beer and as daylight faded they had sat in the parlor in silence and drunk them, not to get drunk but to fill the evening stillness. He had gone to bed early, in his old room, and woken up before the sun and driven home.

The old man knew much of this son’s brooding nature was his fault and for that he felt guilty. When the old man had come back from the war he had not had so much laughter left and words came harder than they had before, and the children had suffered for it. The war had been terrible. He had seen far too many friends die and though he had not been injured himself still he had come home a broken man. They had all told him he was a hero but no matter how often they said it he had never felt like one.

There had been good years after that, though. Many good years, with his work and the children and the bustle, and Lois to fill the silences. But now the fire burned low and the house was much too quiet.

He had buried her in his homeland, a million miles away. She had always wanted to visit but of course they had never gone. Now she would always rest there, and maybe one day he would join her. Maybe one day soon.

The phone in the parlor rang, shattering the fragile silence like breaking glass. Not the fancy new phone Clark Junior had bought him last Christmas, the cordless with the red digital numbers and the built in answering machine, but the older, sturdier phone. The blue phone. It had been many years since that phone had last rung, since the voices on the other end had realized that calling was pointless. Longer still since he had picked it up, since he had decided that some things were more important.

But tonight he stared across the room at the old phone and realized he had no excuses left.

Slowly he pulled himself from his chair, his joints not aching though as always feeling like they should, and strode across the room. He halfway hoped the ringing would stop before he reached the phone, but it did not.

He set the phone to his ear but did not say hello. There was no need.

“We need you,” a voice said. He did not know the voice but that meant nothing. The plea was simple and plaintive and struck him harder than any blow ever had.

He let the blue phone clang to a rest on the cradle and stood staring at it for a long time.

We need you.

And there were no excuses left.

With unnecessary slowness he went to the stairs and climbed them, careful to skip the fifth step, which squeaked horribly and would disturb no one now. He went to his bedroom closet and peered within, searching for his uniform. Not the army uniform, which hung neatly under plastic, heavy with medals and as neat now as when Lois had put it away fifty years before. He would never wear that again. The other uniform. The one he had worn after the war. The one he had promised Lois he had thrown out, ages ago, but had not, could not.

Carefully he pulled it out from beneath the other boxes and unwrapped it and set it on the bed. Red and blue and a touch of gold. Good colors. Strong colors.

Once it had fit him snugly, like a second skin. But many years had passed since then, and though he was still tall and still strong, his muscles were not so large and his shoulders were not so wide and his waist had shrunk right down to nothing. He pulled on the pants but the smooth cloth immediately pooled around his ankles, leaving him standing in his underwear. The shirt at least would stay on, but his arms swam in the sleeves and cloth billowed as he twisted about.

Undeterred, the old man went back to the closet and foraged around. He found a pair of yellow suspenders hanging from a hook behind the door. He pulled the pants back up, clipped the suspenders in place and pulled the loops over his shoulders. The sleeves he wrapped once around his arms and cinched tight with a pair of safety pins.

He stepped before the tall mirror beside the bed he and his wife had shared for over fifty years and looked at himself. An old man stared back at him, red and blue and yellow, and grey. His uniform sagged everywhere. Even his cape looked wrinkled and listless.

He looked ridiculous and he knew it.

He snapped his suspenders and grinned at his reflection, his teeth still strong and white as bone. His wife was dead and his dog was dead and he found he had very little pride left. Let them laugh. He could still do what needed to be done.

He pulled on his boots and headed for the bedroom door.

The old man took the stairs five at a time, the careful steps of a few minutes before now just one more fading memory. He stepped outside the front door, walked across the lawn he’d forgotten to mow again, passed the overgrown garden he'd never quite gotten around to weeding. Passed the battered old Oldsmobile he’d never really needed.

With a grin, the old man broke into a run, and in three long steps leapt straight into the air. He shot right over the neighbor’s tall house in single bound. Just to prove he still could.

A moment later, laughing now, the metal on his suspenders shining in the moonlight, he shot skyward for the first time in a generation. He blazed across the night sky far faster than any speeding bullet.

There were no excuses left. And he was needed.