Old Man Brown
(Page 2 of 2)
May/June 1996
Greg Leichner, Kinesis
A week later I heard clomping and banging at the back door. Old Man Brown was struggling up the stoop and into the utility room.
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'I came for my potatoes.' I led him into the kitchen and pulled back the throw rug. 'Get a knife,' he instructed.
With a butter knife, I pried open the hatch to the root cellar and climbed down the steep steps. I brought up a medium-weight burlap sack, set it on the table, and replaced the hatch.
'You got any potatoes?' he asked.
'No! Yes!'
He didn't hear me. He handed me red potatoes one after another, with long sprouts like tails dangling from their rubbery skins.
'Just soak 'em in water, it'll take them wrinkles out.'
He turned to leave and I motioned for him to wait. I had something for him. Why did I think it would be easier to tell him about it in writing? I reached for the note pad by the telephone.
I wrote a poem about you. Would you like to read it?
He raised a finger to his cheek thoughtfully. He set the cane and sack against the wall and pointed to the note pad. I placed it before him and he sat down to write. After a minute he handed me his message.
On the sea
shore
Just an old beer
bottle floating
on the foam
many miles from
Who ever finds
this old beer bottle
will find all
the Beer
all gone
-- Al
'I'm a poet too,' he said, and he rose to gather his things.
I lifted the sack to his hand and opened the door to the back room and the door to the stoop. I held him by the armpit and lowered him two steps to the ground. When he felt balanced, he looked at me and recited, 'Now I lay me down to sleep, over me ten thousand bedbugs creep. If I should die before I wake, I hope to God their jaws will break.'
In the kitchen I glanced at my note to him. At the bottom he had scrawled Yes.
Reprinted from Kinesis, December 1995.
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