The Stubborn Old Man

"Achoo!" It started as a slight annoyance, but after a month it now challenged his sanity. "Achoo! Achoo!" David clenched the arms of his chair so tight you could hear the leather grinding from the next room. His left leg tapped as if it were trying to express his aggravation through a foot version of Morse Code. The blood vessels in his eyes throbbed and strained from his failing efforts to make words appear on the blank page by staring at it. That second cup of coffee wasn't doing his blood pressure or dental hygiene any favors. Fearing the top of his head was going to explode like the steam whistle on a locomotive, he turned his frustrations outward towards those responsible. Cursing the conniving real-estate agent, who assured them that this was 'a quite neighborhood' and of course the source of his madness, Mr. Langley. The old man next door. For the brief moments when he wasn't blasting mucus out of his nose and mouth, the old man was snorting the leaking fluids back up into his balding dome to reload for the next assault on David's ears. Even the sound of his New Balance sneakers loafing through the grass was beginning to make David cringe. He was becoming more and more creative in finding new ways to loathe everything about Mr. Langley. "Well it's April, I'm sure he just has bad allergies. It'll get better in the summer." His wife, Laura had tried to reassure him, but that was a week and a hundred thousand gesundheit ago. Besides, why on earth would he continue gardening if the allergies were so bad? That's maddening David thought. What a stubborn old man. Another "Ah... Ah... Achoo!" belted out followed by three obnoxious sniffs. David's spine coiled at the phlegm concert. He could stomach a lot of unpleasant things but sinus discharge made his skin quiver. All this seemed to be happening directly over David's shoulder. The old man's garden wrapped and weaved along the entire front and left side of his house. The disgruntled writer's office was less than ten feet away, well within the relentless blast radius. The garden itself was immaculate. Evergreen boxwoods were discreetly planted in the surrounding begonias; resembling dark green islands in a vast sea of pink and whites. Stretching for the sun, a section of orange, red and purple tulips looked sweet enough to eat. From the wide range of vibrant plants down to the river rock border, nothing in the garden seemed out of place. Everything looked as if it were individually selected and had a fascinating story to tell. All together humming a harmonious tune of the beauties of nature. It was one of those lawns that wives wish they had and husbands with their wives hadn't seen. That is probably why he started at 7 o'clock sharp every morning and pushed through until nearly dark, David figured. He was out there blowing and wheezing away because it would take one person all day to keep that garden maintained. That night David reached his breaking point. "Now he's affecting my writing! I can't get anything done. All I hear is sniff, sniff, sniff, sneeze, sneeze, sneeze!" Venting from the bathroom his words were muffled by the toothbrush in his mouth. "C'mon, it can't be that bad." Laura said while pulling the comforter and sheets back as she slid into bed in the conjoining room. "Hmm!" Using the grunt as a placeholder until he could spit and rinse his mouth. With a minty clean mouth he continued his objection. "Oh, you have no idea Laura. I'm going to say something to him tomorrow. This has gotta stop." He said joining her in bed. "Tell me again why you can't just do your work in another room or turn your radio on?" She progressed into the lotion and oil rubbing part of her nighttime routine. "First of all, that den is the perfect spot for my office, remember, that's what won me over about this house in the first place." Rolling to his side and resting on his forearm, to drive his point home. "Secondly, I shouldn't have to adjust my life around my neighbor." David was blind to the irony of his own stubbornness. "Well please, whatever you do just be nice. Think if it was your grandpa or something." Her bleeding heart was the yin to his yang. She always balanced him out and kept him honest. He promised he would be nice as he kissed his wife goodnight. There was nothing special about the following morning. It played out how it had the last month. Both husband and wife were up by a quarter past six. David was dressed for the day after sliding on a pair of grey sweatpants and a faded Baltimore Orioles t-shirt that looked older than he did; Laura's routine took a smidge longer. After tending to their German Shephard Slyvester's dog duties, the man of the house made breakfast. They ate French Toast and laughed at how out-of-date their dishes and flatware were. They bounced ideas back and forth about remodeling the kitchen as they finished their coffee. The only mention of old man Langley the entire morning was at their front doorway as Laura again reminded him to mind his manners. Once more giving her his word as he sent her off to inspire the nations youth at George Jefferson Middle School. Mounted on the wall, his dial clock read 6:57 as he lurked behind the dark oak desk which had witnessed the creation of his two published novels. With a belly full of buttery egg bread and hot bean water he watched the numbers in desperation. He obsessed over it like a gambling junkie locked in on the big game. He wasn't a overly religious man but he found himself praying to whatever higher power would listen. All he wanted was a day, even half of a day with no Langley loogies. With no other competition for sound, the ticking of the clock was magnified to a countdown on bomb. The tension in David's chest wound tighter and tighter with each circular flick of the big and little hands. At last the clock clicked to 7:01 a.m. Then 7:04... 7:07... and 7:09. Still no sign of the old man. Afraid to acknowledge the existence of his window and jinx it, he leaned back in his chair and eavesdropped like a secret agent. After thorough investigation his spy mission concluded that the garden next door was uninhabited. David's prayers were answered. His neck and shoulders were released from anxiety's death grip. A wave of exhilaration in the form of a laugh tremored up from his stomach until it burst free in a low pitch chuckle. While his torso expressed itself in an interpretive dance, his fingers were drawn to the keyboard as if there were magnets on the tips. The words were firing out of his brain and onto the page as though his mind were synced to the laptop via Bluetooth. They weren't just letters coming together to form content; no, they were succulent flowing expressions of dialect, that stimulated all five senses. Davey, this is some of your best work, he applauded himself with a smirk. Consumed in this magical world he was creating out of thin air, his ego began to pound its chest. Deadlines be damned, I'm finishing this thing today he snickered as his digits were coasting on cruise control. Oozing with enough arrogance to make a king blush, he continued the love fest with himself Move over Stephen King, here comes- "Ah... Ah... " He froze. His curled fingers hovered over the keys motionless, unsure if the sound was fact or fiction. "Achoo!... Achoo!... Achoo!" The immense shock wave from the geezer's sneeze attack jolted David right out of his chair; severing his intimate connection to his laptop in the process. Without a sane thought in his head, he was on his feet and stomping his way out of the office. Propelled by a jet pack of anger, his surroundings were a blur as he flew out the front door and cut across his lawn. He was so engulfed with rage, by the time he reached the white picket fence segregating the two territories that he was unable to speak. Having no regard for footwear, his bare feet grinded their indentation amongst the blades of grass. On the verge of spontaneous combustion, he tried to clear enough functioning brain power to vocalize his exasperation. "Excuse me." David's words were so flat they fell right out of his mouth. Oblivious to the hot-headed author steaming behind him, the old man continued working away on his hands and knees. "Ahem!" Dave exaggerated with great pleasure, giving the old man a taste of his own medicine. Mr. Langley turned around at a pace acceptable for a man his age. The balmy spring sunshine glistened off his perspired noggin, while his little remaining white hair joined forces with the breeze to defy his comb-over efforts. "What can I do for ya, neighbor?" Asked the old man. Gingerly rising to his feet, he favored his brittle back with a wince. The combination of the noticeably weakened body and general kindness in his words helped ease the tension. David was still running hot but the flooding memories of fishing with his grandfather helped extinguish some of the fires; he also remembered the promise to his wife. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but my office is right over there." David's stiff index finger pointed towards the wood framed window a few feet behind him. "You remember? I'm a writer." He hinted towards their initial conversation in his driveway upon moving in. "That's right. I remember." Mr. Langley nodded to show he followed thus far. David's foot began to tap again as his frustrations were back on the stove top and set to high. Do I have to spell it out for you old man? "Okay. So can you see what my predicament might be?" David's words barely escaped before his jaw clamped shut, preventing him from saying what he really wanted to say- Obey what the laws of nature are telling you and get your old keister inside! "I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you're getting at." Mr. Langley adjusted his pestering eyeglasses, clunky from the sky-high prescription. Combing both hands through his thick scalp of bed head, his cheeks inflated as he puffed out pure outrage exhaust. As the walls were closing in and David sensed the war against his inner rage was going to be a losing battle, he was distracted by an electronic beeping sound. "Oops, that's the tea-timer." The old man clicked a button on his wrist watch that went out of style over two decades ago. "Why don't you come in and we can chat over a glass? I make a mean Ginger." The flood gates opened. "No!" David's shout on that Tuesday morning echoed through the deserted suburban neighborhood. His head twitched from side to side in disbelief as his palms reached for the heavens for answers. "I don't want any damn tea! I just want you to be quite!" Mr. Langley could only respond with wide eyes and extended brows. "It's the allergies." David elaborated his point after reading the old man's confusion. "It's the sneezing! it's the wheezing! it's the queezing!" Speaking with such fury and speed he even threw in a made up word. "It's all of it! Every day for the last month. All day, every day! I can't take it anymore!" David stopped after yelling it all in one breath. There is only so much air he could blow out before he had to take some back in. Cooling down from his childish outburst, something worse began to overtake the anger. Guilt, the size of a watermelon ballooned in his gut. The smokey aftermath of his tirade bombings was clearing, and the damage was regrettable. Mr. Langley removed his spectacles and turned away to mask his shame, drying the few tears that had dribbled down his weathered cheeks. "I hope you could forgive me." The old man's voice broke as he gathered himself. "I'm just a foolish old man." "Mr. Langley. Mr. Langley I'm sorry... I didn't-" But the old man had already retreated back to his home. Disgusted in himself David leaned forward to rest his hands on the waist-high fence. The sharp and pointed tops of the fence reminded him how soft hands really are. Jumping back with minor scrapes and scares, David felt he deserved the pain. He had made an eighty-eight year old man cry. Big tough guy, huh Davey? To his surprise, not only did Mr. Langley answer his knock and accept his apology, he extended the tea offer again. David figured that was the least he could do. "Sorry again for my behavior, Mr. Langley. I've had some anger issues in my past that clearly aren't behind me." David sipped the steaming amber drink. The old man was right, it was a mean glass. "Please call me Paul. And it's okay. We all have our good and bad days." Paul Langley responded over his shoulder, returning the piping hot kettle back to the kitchen. "This tea is terrific, by the way." David called out to his host who was now out of sight. "Thank you. I can't take credit though. It's my wife's recipe." Paul hollered back. David's still bare feet were comforted by the massive living room area-rug. Resting on the couch and enjoying his herbal drink, he scoped out the place. It reminded him a lot of his grandparents house. The combination of countless family portraits, crucifixes and scenic paintings really took him back. A silver picture frame on the mantle of the fireplace caught his eye. Wandering over to get a better look at it, he recognized Mr. Langley in it. He must have been in his early 20's. The woman in the photo with him was beyond beautiful. "That's my wife. That's Rose." Paul said, interrupting his gaze. "She's gorgeous." Rick added looking up from the photograph. "Yeah. She was really something." Paul smiled as if remembering a specific memory. "She would light up any room she walked into. She had this way of- she would look at you and make you feel like you were the only person who ever existed." Paul did a poor job of hiding his glossy eyes this time. "Don't even get me started on her laugh." He allowed himself to chuckle a little himself as he lowered down into a recliner chair with a quilt draped on the back. "Her spirit was contagious. All the way until her last breath." Trailing off as he rocked back and looked out the window. "I'm so sorry." Placing the picture back, David offered what little he could. "Don't be, son. I'm not. She gave me the greatest 67 years. I don't regret a single day I spent with her." There was a fiery passion in his voice, but also a deep pain. How a person might sound if they could continue living without half of their heart. David nodded as a sign of understanding. Taking another sip of his tea he noticed an ocean painting. "That's a beautiful painting." He notioned towards it with his shoulder. "Yup. Rose painted that one." Paul said. "She was good at everything." "That garden outside, that was her masterpiece. She would be out there all day it seemed like. I could watch her for hours. Gah, you should've seen her in a sunhat. Knock your socks clean off!" Taking a deep slug of his tea he rocked back in his chair. "As you've noticed by now I do have some allergy problems." Paul snickered at his guest. "And to answer the question you've probably been wondering for the last month, 'why does that stubborn old man keep doing it?' I guess it's because- because it's the last thing of her left. She built that garden from weed grass and dirt. I do it because a piece of her still lives through that garden, and I want to be with it every second I can." That night David was waiting for Laura at the door when she came home. He held her tight in his arms and reminded her how much he loved her. There would be many more troubling days for David as a writer, but never again would it be caused by a sneeze. From time to time he would hear his neighbor with the beautiful garden, battling nature from just outside his office window. But that was just the stubborn old man.