Coe Review

the past, and the past—the army, childhood escapades, how things were in
the good old days—is our chief topic of conversation. We'll talk about the
present, too, of course, especially sports and politics. As for the future, well,
we all know what's coming. The less said about that the better.
I'm a relative newcomer to the group. I've only been a young fella for
seven months—since Donna died. Some of the old timers have been here
since before the playground was added, back when Westmorland Avenue
was two-lanes. No one has died since I joined, although Clyde Summers
told me we lose a couple a year on average. So we're about due.
Four of us are widowers. Two of us have wives in the process of dying.
And then of course Wayne Cramer's wife was recently diagnosed with
Alzheimer's. Gregory Bohne is the only bachelor among us. We tell him
he's a lucky bastard, and maybe one or two of us actually believe it.
Simon Johnson, eighty-seven his next birthday, is the oldest of us. He
has the shakes and forgets things easily and is rarely seen unaccompanied by
his buddy, Jim Noyes. Simon is dropped off at Burger King every morning
by someone driving a Volkswagen bug, one of those new ones. He'll sit
nervously watching the door until Jim comes in, and then he'll wave and
holler in a mixture of anxiety and relief, "Jim Boy, Jim Boy, over here!"
Someone told me he is so attached to Jim because they were in the war—the
Big One—together, but I suspect it's mostly because Simon is a widower,
and Jim is all he has left, war buddy or no war buddy. You get lonely.
When word spread this morning—Monday, two weeks to the day since
Howard Reese sat there in that paper crown—that they'd already made a
change in the district manger position, Simon took it hard. "Howard Reese
is gone!" he exclaimed, voice cracking. "He's gone! Old Howard Reese is
gone. Oh no, oh no, Howard Reese is gone!"
He wouldn't let go of it. Even Jim Noyes couldn't get him calmed down.
In a minute he was blubbering like a baby. The others thought it was pretty
funny. Al Kopplelman laughed so hard he had to take a pill. I tried to laugh,
too, but it got to me, and I had to leave.
I went into the men's room and splashed water on my face, only then
remembered there were no paper towels. I didn't feel like sticking my head
down by one of those hot-air hand driers. I stood there at the sink, looking
at myself in the mirror and waiting for the water to dry on my face so no one
would think I'd been crying.
My god, my god, look at me. Look at me! My head tilts forward on my
scrawny neck like a buzzard's. And my hair—when I was a teenager I'd stand
in front of the mirror for an hour, tapping at that thick hair with a comb,
getting it just so. Lord, how my father would hoot, Hey, Troy Donohue,
24 Old Wars