South Central Noir

Other pedestrians gawked at this presumed refugee from a retirement home passing by them on this sunny morning. A few took his picture or a brief video clip with their smartphones and wondered how he’d gotten loose from his keepers. One empathetic soul dialed 311. Another considered calling the police but didn’t. For even though the elderly gent was white, they figured that given his agitated state he might come to harm, though the odds were in his favor he’d be treated professionally.

“Can I get a witness?” the old man said jocularly, spreading his arms wide as if he were a pastor welcoming his flock. He encountered a young man and woman walking side by side from the opposite direction, laughing and talking and unaware of his presence until they nearly collided with him as he abruptly stopped in their path. “I mean, damn,” he said, swaying and doing a 360 on the sidewalk.

“Mister, is there somebody I can call for you?” the women asked softly. She was tall, with stylish basketball shorts and a nose ring.

The old man stood alert as if a soldier snapping to at the appearance of a superior officer. “I regret to say we are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way interfered with interstate commerce. Or words to that effect,” he guffawed.

“Time to go,” the young woman’s companion said. The two breezed around him.

He watched them for a moment then stepped into the roadway, heedless of the traffic. A motorcyclist had to act fast to avoid hitting him.

“Get out of the street, you fuckin’ idiot!” the rider swore as he roared past.

The old man doffed his hat to the receding figure and machine, his back to oncoming vehicles. A truck’s brakes screeched and several cars jerked to a stop.

“And away we go,” the old man said, smiling. He managed to make it to the other side of the street and continued on. Rounding a corner, he spotted a group of people lined up for a table at a popular neighborhood café. He stopped again as if also lining up for brunch. Several regarded him and muttered. He simply stood there swaying and humming, though occasionally he’d wander over to patrons sitting at outside tables, invading their space. He would then return to the line. Finally, the owner of the restaurant came outside to talk to him. He was a heavyset, middle-aged man with a head of thick hair.

“Sir, I need to ask you to move along,” the owner began. “You’re making some of my customers uncomfortable. Do you know where you should be? I can call an Uber for you. Happy to pay for the ride, okay?”

The old man fixed the owner with a quizzical look. “I need to be among them, don’t you see? Left to their own devices, who knows what devilment they’ll be up to? This is for their good too, understand?”

“And where is this place you need to be among them?”

“Ha,” the older man replied, wagging a finger at the owner. He backed away and headed farther down the block.

“I tried.” The owner held his hands aloft and went back inside his establishment.

The wanderer took several more turns and was now nearing a residential area. In this section of the sidewalk, the serpentine roots of a large tree had caused a portion of the concrete to rise and buckle. The old man’s feet got tangled and over he went, landing face-first on the sidewalk. He gashed his head but was still alive. A bystander saw what happened and hurried over to help.

“Hold on, I’m calling an ambulance.”

The old man groaned and rolled onto his back, gazing up at the sky. His breathing was labored but his face was untroubled.

The helpful bystander knelt beside him. “You have any ID? Somebody I can call for you?”

“Yes,” the old man answered, “put in a station-to-station call and find out all their also known as... ases.” He giggled.

“I’m sorry, what?”

The fallen man began to tap out a phrase in Morse code on the concrete with his index finger. Three other people had also gathered around and though they noticed his finger moving, they assumed it was a spasmodic response to his fall. An ambulance soon arrived, and after his head wound was attended to, he was carefully loaded onto a stretcher, a neck brace having been snapped in place as well.

The phrase he’d been tapping out was Reason frees us from fear. He would last three more days, tapping out the phrase all the while, and succumb to complications arising from an unforeseen heart attack in the hospital. On a ventilator, his eyes fluttered open seconds before death as he stared at an image only he could see.