A TALE

 

No answer came at Desi Young’s door. This disturbed the nephew since Desi Young was no longer young.

Desi Young was 93. Though he shouldn’t drive, or so the nephew thought, Desi Young’s car was parked in the driveway, which meant the older man should be home. The nephew pressed the door-bell button once more before banging on the door in a flourish of loud knocks.

With no answer, and given Desi Young’s 93 years, and the car still being in the driveway, and since he was Desi Young’s nephew, well, middle-aged grand-nephew technically, the nephew flipped through his keyring until finding the key to his great-uncle’s door and let himself into the house.

“Desi,” the nephew said, speaking in a loud tone that was just a couple octaves short of a yell, knocking up the volume and the urgency when he continued, “Uncle Dez.”

No answer in the silent, afternoon grey of the house. Just the overloud sound of his voice. The nephew found Desi Young in a chair, his head back, his arms and legs slack, an open book in his lap.

“Uncle Dez.” This time the nephew said the name in a near whisper. “Desi,” he continued in a hushed caricature of a yell, though it was really only an exaggerated whisper.

The nephew bent close to his great-uncle’s face. He reached out to touch Desi Young’s shoulder, to see if Uncle Dez was still Uncle Dez, or if this prone figure in the chair was instead Uncle Dez’s remains. A light touch on Desi Young’s shoulder. Nothing. A slight shake. Nothing.

The nephew settled back on the haunches of his calves, and Desi Young awoke with a start. “Who, what?” he yelled, his head snapping forward, the open book flipping from his lap to close on the floor. He startled his nephew, who lost his balance, landing on his behind.

“Uncle Dez, it’s me,” the nephew said.

Desi Young squinted through his age and the fuzz of a nap to recognize his grown nephew, grand-nephew, sprawled on the floor, at the foot of his chair.

“What are you doing down there?” Desi Young said. “Coming into a man’s house. What? You don’t know how to knock? Then you nearly scare me to death. I’m no spring chicken. Give a man a heart attack crawling around on my floor at my feet.”

“I wasn’t crawling on your floor,” the nephew said, getting up. “And I knocked but you didn’t answer.”

“What? You break into any house where someone doesn’t answer the door? What? You knock once then kick down the door? That how the young people get their kicks these days? What if I’d been on the can? Or walking around my house with no clothes on?”

“Why would you be walking around without clothes?” the nephew asked.

“I could’ve just got out of the shower and wanted a drink of water,” Desi Young said. “Just me here. Why get dressed first? It happens. I don’t expect to walk out of the shower and find that my nephew’s broken into the house, crawling around on the floor.”

“Uncle Dez, I didn’t break into the house. I have a key. Remember? You gave it to me in case …”

“Oh,” Desi Young said, interrupting, “you thought I was dead? Man don’t answer his door because he’s taking a nap. Not expecting any company. I have a phone, you know, you could call first, instead of showing up at the drop of a hat. Anyway, you knock a couple times, don’t get an answer, though I could have been out with people — I do know other people, you know; or I could have been taking a shower; or in the bathroom; or taking a nap; or just didn’t answer because I didn’t want to come to the door; and you assume since you knock and I don’t come to the door that I’m dead. That it?”

The nephew could have answered, yes. Yes, I thought you were dead, Uncle Dez. Instead, he changed the subject.

“Here, you dropped your book,” the nephew said, picking it up for Desi Young.

“See, see, not only do you almost kill me because you think I might already be dead but you lose my place,” Desi Young said, taking the closed book.

The nephew watched his Uncle Dez flip through the pages and couldn’t help wondering what a 93-year-old man would need to read about. Why bother, the nephew thought. He’s in his 90s. What else did he need to know?

“What’s with the book?” the nephew asked.

“What? What’s that mean? What’s with the book?”

“You know, why’re you reading a book?”

“Why am I reading a book? Cause I got it from the library. I go there every week. Have been for years. Why am I reading a …” Desi Young stopped. “Oh, I see, you don’t mean, why am I reading a book? You mean, why is an old man reading a book, don’t you? Well, let me ask you, why’d you bother getting up this morning?”

“Come on, Uncle Dez …”

“No, you’re what in your 40s, 50s?”

“I’m 51, Uncle Dez.”

“All right, you’re 51,” Desi Young said. “You’re old enough to know time flies by. You’re old enough to know time doesn’t get any slower. It just speeds up. Even if you live to be as old as me, you’re old enough to know that even that age will come before you know it. So, I ask you, with that knowledge, why bother getting up?”

“Well, I had things to do, like coming by to see my favorite uncle …”

“Don’t try buttering me up,” Desi Young said. “I’m willing to bet at some point during this visit, you would have asked if I’ve been eating.”

“Well, yes …”

“Why?”

“Come on, Uncle Dez …”

“Why should I bother eating? I’m 93. Why bother? I might die soon?”

“I didn’t say that, Desi.”

“No, but that’s what you were thinking about my reading a book,” Desi Young said. “Why’s he reading a book when he’s likely to be dead soon.”

“Well …”

“Well, nothing. You know why I read this book? And why I read every week? Because I’m not dead,” Desi Young said. “Same reason why I eat. My body’s hungry and it needs the fuel to keep me going. Same thing, reading a book. My mind wants to know and I still learn things that apply to my life. That’s why I read a book. So, if you’re going to ask why an old man’s going to read a book, you might as well ask a 5-year-old why bother to learn how to read in the first place? We’re all going to die eventually, but the answer is we ain’t dead yet.”

The nephew sat silently for a moment, watching Desi Young’s search for the right page in the book. When he found it, Desi Young placed a folded napkin, from the table beside of his chair, on the page as a book mark.

“Now, I’ve got a few books that need going back to the library,” Desi Young said. “How’s about you drive me there? Who knows, maybe you can check out a book or two and learn something you can apply to your life, like not assuming your great-uncle is dead just because he’s 93, or because he doesn’t answer the door. Let’s face it, it’d be better learning from a book that an old man might be wandering through his house naked for a drink of water than experiencing it in real life.”

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times.