Henry

Henry

“My God, is that you?”

Who else would it be? Here I am back not fifteen minutes, and who should I run into, but him. Next, he’ll want to know what I’m doing here; he hasn’t seen me in twelve, thirteen years? Well, I’ve been gone, left, and for good reason. I’m here now because, well, I don’t really know, but there’s something that I can’t explain pulling me back. It’s kind of like a curse, if I don’t do it, black cats are going to cross my path. I’ll be walking under ladders the rest of my life; I had to come back, if just for me.

“So, what you doing here?”

“I happened to be passing by, and I thought…” I lied. Josh was a nice enough kind of guy, till you got to know him. Why Mary married him I have no idea and had no reason to ask. I thought I should explain, but then he began to explain for me. 

“It’s really nice of you to come all this way for Mary’s funeral. I didn’t think you’d remember her. It was so long ago, and you didn’t really know her all that well, did you? "

Mary and I, if it were anyone's business, well, we were...

"It was sudden, you don’t have to ask; she didn’t suffer. She wasn’t expecting to go, she was only fifty-two, but then I bet she was surprised. She was like that though, always liked a good surprise.” 

He went on for a while, but I had stopped listening. Funerals do that to me, I stop listening. If I didn’t, I’d have to jump in the hole with them. They talk to me, or I think they talk to me. I can hear voices anyway, and I assume its them.

I’d forgotten about Mary, until she said hello. She was a nice lady, my friend Tyrone’s sister. I used to spend time at his house, watching TV with his parents, and her. We didn’t have a TV, so. But I didn’t come for Mary. I didn’t even know she’d died, but I also knew, he didn’t know that. So I lied again, not a new record for me, but then, who but me was counting.

“Well, you know, fond memories,” I felt I had to say something.

I had actually come to see Henry. Henry was the one person in my life who didn’t judge me. He never asked why, or how come, or said, “Boy was that stupid.” It wasn’t he didn’t care, its just that he felt it was none of his business. If he didn’t like something, he wouldn’t just, not say anything, but would look at you like he was imitating a piece of unlined paper. His face would be immune of all feeling, his eyes would tell a story of their own, his hair seemed to get a sheen to it as if he’d just plastered it with grease. But he wouldn’t say a word. I got to like that about him.

They were gathered around the grave. There must have been fifty or so people there. The dirt was covered with that green artificial turf stuff. The priest was standing statuesque, reading from his book. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I had heard it before. Mary just wanted it to be over. She said, “This whole ritual cost way too much, and as far as shows go, it's OK, but who’ll remember this next week.” She thanked me for coming, even though it was by accident. I lied and told her I was glad to be there, wouldn’t have missed it for the world; stuff like that. She just laughed; she knew me.

I find the recently departed far more forgiving than I am. The guy who killed her with his car was there. He didn’t stand with everyone else, but he was there. Mary pointed him out. She said, “He shouldn’t have been driving, he was upset. But then so was I. So, we are even, I guess,” and laughed. I found her response quite, contemporary.

Henry hadn’t shown up yet. I mean he was there, but he wasn’t there. Knowing Henry, he probably had to stop off and do a few errands. He was always doing errands. I don’t think I ever knew anybody who had more to do, and got less done, than Henry. He just didn’t have enough time, he’d say. Mainly because he had to analyze everything, study it. Not to see if it was good or bad, or whether it was too big or too small, but because it was a ritual, something he was compelled to do. He said it was like scratching an itch, "you just have to do it."

 I never argued with Henry because it did no good. If you were winning, he’d change the subject, and that’s how you knew you were winning. Then he tells me, “That’s how I let you know, I was winning; in case you didn’t know.” He was like that, a mystery compounded by skepticism. At times what he called, “Hallucinatory vigor.” I didn’t know what he meant but was afraid to ask. Sometimes he’d start to explain something and a few days later, you’d figure out he had no idea what he was talking about. 

He did not however, “Suppose about other’s,” as he put it, and he expected the same in return. It was easier to just ignore him most of the time. But the times you didn’t ignore him, you learned things. 

    “Don’t ever steal anything.” He told me that, “If you steal something, it attaches itself to you like a zebra mussel, you can’t get rid of it, and it eventually consumes you.” He was right.  It happened to me. I took something, I’m not saying what, but It’s with me to this day. Henry says, it’s because we are meant to be truthful. It is how we were able to survive for thousands of years. When we lied, we paid the price, “Problem is, we have a short attention span. Look at Vietnam, WWII, Korea; all big fat lies.”

When he talked like that you had to believe him, you didn’t have a choice. “So, unless you want to be followed around by a lie your entire life, you wouldn’t steal. See what I mean?”

“Well look who’s here.”

 I recognized the voice. He looked the same, maybe a bit thinner. I could actually see right through him, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to ask how it was goin, but it seemed inappropriate under the circumstances. So, I fell back on the old standby, “You’re looking Good.” 

He just looked at me with those eyes, piercing, and his face, well it didn’t change much, but I knew what he meant. “I told you not to steal or lie. Did you forget?” He sounded angry, but I knew he wasn’t angry, he didn’t get angry. He was just disappointed; he’d been listening to me and Josh.   That is something he taught me also about anger. “What’s the point?” he’d say, “it’s like stealing and lying, it clings like lint, and you can’t shake it, so why do that to yourself.”

He had a way of telling you things you already knew, but too stupid, to believe. He made you believe in yourself, more than you believed possible. He also had a way of making me nervous. I always felt like a little mystified around him, waiting for the curtain to get pulled back, and find out he was only in my head. I don’t think I could have dealt with that. I needed him, and he needed me, I think. He said I made him feel wanted, taller, shorter, smarter, dumber, but I made him feel. How do you say goodbye to that?

He wore this stupid hat that had a small brim; it looked like it belonged on an organ grinders monkey. I asked him about it once. He said he wore it because it made people feel better about themselves. I was going to ask him what he meant, but before I could ask, he declared, “You know why.” I left it at that. 

    “So, what’s next?” I asked, expecting a summary of life after death, what to avoid, what to take advantage of, but he just looked at me. “You know,” he said smiling, tipping his hat. And he was gone. Just like that. No goodbye’s, no thanks for coming, nothing, gone. I got more from Mary, and I hadn’t seen her in years. I don’t know if he didn’t know how to say goodbye or couldn’t. I know the feeling. It’s like a hole in your life, and you know you won’t be able to fill it. There’s not enough of whatever it was, to do that. 

He had a head stone, I knew that.  He told me. He bought it for himself. “I don’t want someone didn’t know me, making up stuff about who they thought I was,” he’d said.

I walked across the manicured lawn, past the ornate monuments to lives once lived, and found his place. It is difficult thinking of it as his new home. I new he might not be there, but… “He’s already left for the west coast,” a joke we had between us. There were a couple of people milling around the site. I didn’t know any of them, or I don’t think I did. I listened to them talk. They knew Henry, I don’t know how, but a woman was crying, a man consoling her.

    I came back just to see if he had left, or was just hanging around, “To see what was happening,” as he used to say. 

The grass had come back, he could have been there for years, I couldn’t tell. Time doesn’t mean the same anymore.

The stone he purchased, said simply, “ITS BEEN NICE KNOWING YOU” Simple enough, but memorable. He was like that, simple and memorable. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

    I used to spend a lot of time in the park, still do. It was quiet, and like being in the country, but closer. That is where I met Henry, he liked the park too. I liked the swings, so did Henry. We would spend a lot of time swinging, something about the air moving past your face, your head tilted back; like being able to fly, or so I presumed.  Henry said he’d never been in a plane, so he’d take my word for it. He at times, was overtly literal. 

What I liked the most about Henry, was he listened. Most people don’t listen anymore, they’re too busy talking. Moving, talking, riding, singing, flying, starting, stopping, always doing something to keep from doing anything. Henry said it was a sign of the times. "Everyone going someplace and having nowhere to go."

Henry would tell me to pay attention. He’d said, “Nobody pays attention anymore, that’s why the world is so screwed up.” Little things he’d said, are the biggest things, and people can’t see it because they’re too busy looking for, “The one big thing.”

He’d say, “Take a penny on the sidewalk.” He used to put a penny on the sidewalk down by the bus stop, sit there on the bench, and watch people pretend they didn’t see it. Then he put a nickel down and watch them pretend, to not see that. He said it wasn’t until he got up to a quarter, that anyone even considered stooping down to pick it up. “See what I mean?” he’d say, “Little things. Did you know that a little thing, like an isotope, could kill millions of people if treated to the company of other isotopes? All they have to do is bump into one another, and instead of saying excuse me, they yell, Uranium! 232.” 

He used to tell that to kids when they came to the park. He said nobody teaches science anymore, they teach these kids what they need them to know so they can work in their factories, stores, prisons, and the worst of all, the industrial military complex. “They know,” he would say, “What percentage of those they send to do the dirty work of war, will come back?” He never said, but I’m sure he did know. 

    He was political, but not in the way most people are. He hated all politicians, because, as I’ve said before, he hated liars. No, that’s not really right. He didn’t hate liars; he hated the lies they told. To him politics was supposed to be about understanding. Finding out how the people you share the planet with, live, what they need, and what you can do about it, help. 

He only liked one politician. He believed Eisenhower, was only president, because, "We won the war, like George the first," he would say. "Not that King George, but President George." He liked “Ike,” because he warned the world of the second reason for going to war, “Money.”  I’m sorry now, I never asked what was the first.

Sometimes we’d lay in the grass, and watch the vultures ride the air currents. Moving effortlessly, using the wind to keep them soaring without using an ounce of energy. He thought we should change the countries symbol from the eagle to a vulture. “They glide around up there looking for dead things to clean up. Unlike us, they use what they find, we put ours in the ground. What a waste, what a waste.” He had a different kind of sense of humor.

“Hey, you!”

I recognized his voice. “What you up to? You feel like going to the park? I got nothing going on, nothing to do. How about you?”

“I got to see a guy about something he calls, eternity.” I learned to bend the truth from him, but only when no one was going to get hurt.