Letters to Eddie
by Andy O'Hara

Dear Eddie:

Thanks for the great birthday card--you never pass up a chance to remind me of my advancing years.  I figure seventy is a good start on life, and with another twenty ahead of me, I have plenty to keep me busy.  Here, at Furniture Emporium, folks shut things down at the end of the day and dragged me into the coffee room, where they threw confetti at me and brought in a chocolate cake. Someone smuggled in a bottle of champagne and the boss, Harry Emerson, gave a self-serving speech about age being no bar to a successful sales record.

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Al Persons gave me a 'cow-moo in a can,' and someone was insightful enough to present me with over-the-hill-talking-dentures. Jo Anne Pesach, the old crone from credit approvals, gave me a tube of exploding lipstick along with some lewd remark I didn't understand but made everyone howl. 

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Probably the best present of all was from the new girl in sales, Cynthia Barkley.  When the gala festivity began to break up, she slipped over to me and took my hand.  With a wide, girlish grin, she announced, “Charlie--do you like being called Charles?”

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Caught a bit by surprise, I smiled and replied, “Not at all--can't change the name my mother gave me.”

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“Good,” she laughed.  “I'm Cynthia, and I'm new, but I guess you already knew that, and I didn't know it was your birthday.  But I guess you knew that, too!”

She placed a hand on my shoulder, pecked my cheek with a kiss, and solemnly pronounced, “There--for what it's worth, happy birthday!”

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Of course, you'd have to see her, Eddie.  I guess she's a pretty typical gal for 25, although I must admit that I can still recognize beauty when I see it. She wears one of those midriff blouses that lets you see the ring in her navel--I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of those, but I have to admit it gives me a good excuse to ogle her belly-button from time to time.

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Truth is, she's a very nice girl, Eddie.  I have to chuckle as I watch all the young guys following her around the store.  She has one of those figures that wiggles in all the right ways when she walks, but effortlessly. The joke going around the store is that they send the wives to me for the dining room sets and the husbands to her for the bedroom furniture.  Seems the wives picture me as the valet hovering over their dinner, while the husbands are three aisles away painting indelible pictures in their minds of Cynthia frolicking on their new bed. They call us the butler and the chambermaid.

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It gives us something to laugh about.

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I had to let you know I survived my seventieth birthday and it was not a total loss.Not likely.  Not likely. 

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Your old buddy,

Charlie

 

***

 

Dear Charlie:

I always thought the birthday parties would get better, not worse, as the years pass us by.  Glad you survived.  One could do worse than Bruce Willis as a bodyguard and a pretty handmaiden lavishing kisses on you.  I should be so lucky.

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It sounds like a deadly competition going on between the dining room sales and the bedroom department--keep me posted!

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Cheers,

Eddie

 

***

 

Dear Eddie:

Well, I've found that life plugs along even after seventy.  The winter has been hard, here in Wisconsin, but we're beginning to thaw out and look forward to Spring.  The pipes in my apartment don't freeze up as frequently, although the frequency of my bladder seems to keep me busy regardless.  Since Millie died, it seems my weakened prostate is the only thing I can depend on to liven my nights.

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Our young bedroom “handmaiden,” as you call her, has yet to match me when it comes to sales, but we've become grand friends, indeed. I guess she tires of the ogling she gets from the other young gents around the store and appreciates being able to chum with someone who isn't trying to slide a hand up her thigh. 

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Being a rather quiet type, I've always favored waiting until the lunchroom was cleared before taking a late lunch, and after a week or two, I found Cynthia doing the same.  In fact, I've found myself looking forward to my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for that very reason.  What I’ve enjoyed most, perhaps, is that she feels no pressure to talk--even Millie, bless her soul, was a constant source of jabber. We passed many lunch hours in quiet, yet I could tell she enjoyed my company.  You can imagine the curious looks I began to get from the jealous Lotharios of the Elk Grove Furniture Emporium!

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Navel ring or not, Cynthia is one of those “readers.”  You know--one of the “dangerous” people. She noticed, one lunch hour, that I had a book of poetry.  She looked over, curious, and I found myself pulling it in with some embarrassment. She surprised me with a soft hand on mine, asking to know whom I was reading.

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I laughed, still in some chagrin. “Oh, sentimental clap-trap by Tennyson,” I replied.

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“No,” she smiled.  I found my eyes focused on her lips as they curved.  “No, I love Tennyson.  Please, read that one to me.”

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Eddie, not since Millie have I read poetry to anyone, and I actually stammered as I began reading something that I feared would evoke a giggle from so young and pretty a girl.

 

“Sweet and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.”

 

Far from giggling, this lovely girl watched my face intently as I read, and then sat in silence.  I had a half-eaten peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that was long forgotten on the table. Sighing, she gathered up her wrappers, paused, and left me with, “So very beautiful.  Yes.  Thank you, Charles.”

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Not to keep bringing up Millie, but no one has called me “Charles” since her passing. I guess maybe that explains the little bit of tear in my eye when she left, and it took me a few minutes to collect myself in the lunchroom before I could go deal with Mrs. van Horne’s third day of indecision over cherrywood versus walnut for her dining room.

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I wasn't surprised the next day when Cynthia asked me to pull out my book of Tennyson and read to her even more as she nibbled thoughtfully on a celery stick.  “Tears, Idle Tears” and “The Brook's Song” lead to “The Pure Heart” and, as we tired of Tennyson, I scratched though my closet to retrieve and return the next day with Longfellow and Poe. Lunch hours took on a new meaning and, as I found myself thinking ahead to new poetry with which to entertain her, I occasionally forgot my lunch bag entirely and shared in her carrot sticks, celery and apples.

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It must be, truly, something to behold--this young girl (“SIN-theee-yahhh,” as she delights in announcing to the world), who flits from mattress to mattress in the bedroom department, midriff and navel exposed to the world, giggling and flirting and shaking her bottom so brazenly with customers, suddenly transformed into a soft Victorian maiden, her teeth poised above a piece of celery as her eyes travel through me to a “town that is seated by the sea” or into the “sheen of the far-surrounding seas.”

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As you can no doubt tell, Eddie, my recital skills are improving even as my hairline is receding!

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Sincerely,

Charlie

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***

 

Dear Charlie:

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You are, at last, turning into the old fool you said you'd never be!  I suppose you're beyond talking to, but I also suppose you're harmless enough in your old age.  I hope you haven't started adoption proceedings on this lass--and I don't think there are proceedings by which you can adopt a granddaughter!

You always were a hopeless romantic, Charlie, and I just hope you have your mind set on the more important things. I know Millie's illness pretty well drained what little you had, but you do have your social security to depend on.  You've reached the maximum earning age, so you need to be setting your thoughts to retiring and figuring out what you're going to do with yourself!

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And I want to remind you, Charlie--you have a place here with Emily and me. She's loved you ever since Millie stole you away from her, but I can overlook that as long as you promise not to sneak off in the trees with her.  We've planned on you coming eventually, anyway, and you should be thinking about getting out of that dingy apartment and leaving the city behind!

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Your pal,

Eddie

 

***

 

Dear Eddie:

They say the time never goes quickly enough when you're young, and never slows down enough when you're old.  I am witness to the truth of that.

I am compelled to tell you that winter has passed and the pipes are flowing as steadily as my bladder, now.  If the day ever comes where I start listening to the ads about adult diapers, I hope you'll take me out back, kneel me by the ditch, and shoot me.

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I find myself ready to abandon the city at a moment's notice in the winter, but the snows won't let me out.  Springtime always brings something to the city, on the other hand, that makes me a willing hostage to everything beyond my little apartment window.  How truly I love the wet streets, the umbrellas flapping open and shut to the showers, and the shimmer of the shop lights flashing under the clearing skies. How much you do enjoy in your countryside, Eddie, but how much you miss here in the vibrancy of this city!

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Cynthia and I have already taken to eating our lunches at the nearby park. We moved long ago from poetry to Greek mythology, with which Cynthia is transfixed.  Somehow, the great stories of gods and goddesses and the struggles of the mortals below Olympus have great meaning to her.  Her questions are endless, and I once jokingly brought, from the library, a copy of the Iliad in Latin.  While my high school Latin is rusty, at best, my attempt to amuse her by reading it aloud turned to surprise as she rested her face in one hand and began to absorb the musical oratory of the verse for an entire lunch hour.

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“Charlie,” she interrupted one day. 

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“What?”

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“Charlie, have you ever wondered why you're so old?”

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I looked in her face, startled at first by her question and looking for any mocking or cruelty in her eyes. I realized her question was innocent, even if not understood by me.

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“I guess I don't wonder,” I thought aloud, “because I just am.  It doesn't make it any better, either way.”

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Cynthia slid over more closely on the bench upon which we sat and put her hand on my arm. “Oh, Charlie, that must have hurt.  I didn't mean it that way--I only gave you half a thought.”

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She tucked one leg up under the other and chose her words carefully.

“What I meant, Charlie, is have you ever wondered how we can be such good friends when we're so far apart in age?”

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I shook my head and closed the book.  Sitting back, I stared up at the scattering of spring clouds. 

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“Oh, I don't know.  You're a beautiful young lady with an entire life ahead of you. I'm a dottering old fool with an entire life behind him. I guess you could say we're just crossing paths.”

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“No, that's not good enough.” Cynthia tossed her blond hair back across her shoulder. She turned and raised one finger, placing it gently against my lip.  “I don't ever want to hear words like ‘dottering old fool’ again.  You’re nothing like that.”

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The kiss caught me off guard, Eddie. I’m too shy to detail it but oh, Eddie, it took the breath out of me. She tasted like applesauce. With a touch of cinnamon, maybe. Odd, maybe, but nice.  Then she left me, quite dizzy, sitting on the park bench with my book and lunch bag.

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When I saw her again, she was back in the bedroom department, enticing ogling men into buying her newest mattresses.

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I guess life can be as young as it wants to be.

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We’ll see.

Best always, Charlie