A Soft Day
In Ireland they call it a soft day. In New Jersey, in July, it’s a hard, dangerous day. Light rain had been falling all night and, although it was past noon, it was grey and misty and the steamy air hung like thin gauze over the landscape. The rain-slicked entrance to the shopping mall was clogged with its usual heavy traffic.
The old man had neither a raincoat nor an umbrella. He moved slowly, his eyes fixed upon his feet, making sure they were going in the direction he meant them to. He wore a flat-topped cotton hat with the brim folded down, causing the rain to drip on to his shoulders. He wore a rumpled brown suit and on his dull yellow shirt hung a skinny tie of indistinguishable colour. His shoes were tan and badly scuffed. He wasn’t wearing socks.
After the car hit him no one was able to explain what happened. This was an intersection where no one knew the rules and green means go no matter who or what may be in the way. Unfortunately for the old man, he was walking in no-man’s-land and became the victim of impatience and poor visibility.
The small plastic bag they found under his body contained a birthday card and a roll of Scotch tape. A worn imitation leather wallet identified the old man as Frank P Hastings; white male, 5’ 8”, 132lbs, age 84. The address was a senior citizen apartment several blocks away.
‘God, I hate days like this,’ the young policeman mumbled to himself as he snapped shut his notepad and eased himself into the patrol car. His slicker was wet and the car steamed up immediately. He was hot and uncomfortable. He called headquarters and reported that he was on the way to the victim’s home to notify the wife. The officer looked at the birthday card and Mr Hastings’s wallet and thought that this was the worst part of the job. He liked being a cop. He felt it was important and worthwhile. But this part – telling a victim’s family that a senseless accident had taken away a loved one – this part was the pits.
The apartment was on the ground floor of a three-storey building that was slowly going to seed. Ankle-high grass and plantings – what there were of them close to the foundation – were choked with weeds. The cement steps were chipped and worn.
The officer walked up the path to Apt 1-C. He thought of the day, many years before, when a policeman came to his door to inform his mother that his father had been killed in an automobile accident. That had been a wet day too. He had never seen his mother cry before. She was slumped in a kitchen chair holding her face in her apron and her lament came in soft, quiet sobs. He was on the floor under the table pressing his cheek to the cool aluminium leg. He heard the words but didn’t understand what was happening. ‘I’m afraid your husband has had an accident.’
‘Accidents happen,’ his father always said. ‘We can fix it.’ He clung to the table leg and stared at the policeman’s heavy woollen trousers. They were dark blue with a red stripe running down the side. The red- striped leg bent down and two huge hands reached towards him.
‘It’s OK son, it’s OK. Everything’s going to be all right.’
The huge hands closed gently over his own and slowly pulled him out from under the table. Strong arms lifted him and held him against the rough uniform still moist from the rain. The smell of damp wool mixed with aftershave and tobacco.
The scent comes back to him whenever it rains. The memory is mostly of gentleness and compassion and now he was going to repeat the same scene with some poor old lady who was expecting her husband to be at the door. He knocked several times. It was getting warmer. He wished he had taken off his slicker. He knocked again and the door to the adjoining apartment opened and an elderly woman appeared in the doorway. She wore a cheerfully coloured housedress and was a contrast to the shabbiness of the surroundings. She smiled. ‘Can I help you, officer?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I’m looking for Mrs Hastings.’ The woman’s face looked troubled and confused.
‘Officer, Mrs Hastings has been dead for many years.’ The confusion cleared from her face and her expression turned to fear. ‘Oh my God, has something happened to Frank … Is he all right?’
‘I’m afraid Mr Hastings has had an accident ... The bad weather ... The traffic … He died before the ambulance ever got there.’
The woman caught her breath and slumped against the door.
‘Are you OK, ma’am?’
‘Yes, yes. Thank you; I’ll be just fine. I knew this would happen some day. I always told him I would go shopping for him. And sometimes he would let me. But when it came to buying a card for Mary he had to do it himself.’
‘Mary?’
‘Frank’s wife. He never forgot a birthday or an anniversary or Christmas. They were special days, he would say. Special days that Mary loved most and he would always get her a card.’
‘Does he have any children? Any family?’
‘They had a son, but never talked about him much. I never met him.’
‘I’ll need to see the manager,’ said the officer. ‘I’ll have to go inside.’
‘I have a key,’ whispered the woman.
They entered the apartment and the first thing that hit the officer was the stale, dank odour; like there hadn’t been any air or light in the room for years. In the small living room were a sofa, two chairs and a coffee table littered with papers and magazines. As he looked closer he saw that most of the litter was travel brochures. A small television sat in front of one chair, its rabbit ears wrapped in aluminium foil. Off to the right was a small kitchen. Neat, sparse. It did not look to have been used much. He stepped into the bedroom.
The bedroom was the largest room. It was immaculate. The bed was carefully made and covered with a clean flowery spread that was the brightest thing in the apartment. The large double dresser was adorned with pictures. The frames were arranged in what appeared to be chronological order. There was a young Frank Hastings smiling, his arm around a young and beautiful Mary with palm trees in the background. Honeymoon, guessed the officer. The pictures progressed but they were always the same.
The faces grew older, but they were the same smiling Frank with his arm around a beautiful Mary. And then the pictures stopped.
The walls were covered instead with greeting cards. Each card was carefully lined up and fastened to the wall with a small piece of Scotch tape so that it was open to the inside. Every card was signed, ‘Miss you. All my love, Frank.’ Above each card was scribbled the year in pencil on the fading wallpaper. The first year was 1977 and as each year went by the handwriting became shakier and a little less legible.
The officer slowly examined each wall. He turned to the elderly woman and was about to say something but stopped. Her eyes were filled with tears and she went to the birthday wall and softly brushed the waiting empty space with her fingertips. The officer handed her the package he still held in his hand. She took out the birthday card and wrote, ‘Miss you. All my love, Frank’, and carefully taped it to the wall. Above it, she wrote ‘1998’.
