A Quiet, felt Moment (a short story for old folks only!)

A Quiet, felt Moment


“It is late,” said the old man’s wife.
“Every night is late, at 11:00 p.m., midnight, 3:00 a.m., and 4:30 a.m.,” said the old man.
In the nights now, the street outside his window was noisy, and so he’d read until he got tired, waited for it to become quiet, and when he felt that moment, he’d lay down in bed, he felt the difference, falling to sleep. The neighbours, new neighbours, the store owner selling beer—unlicensed to do so—strangers, all sitting at the little corner store, outside on chairs by tables, leaning against cars, drinking beer, singing songs, making noise, to all hours of the night. But he would be woken up, always woken up, by the drunks, the car horns, and the loud music from the car radios. He would be woken up numerous times throughout the night, besides having to relieve himself; and then there was the little fat lady with five dogs next door, she had to take them out three times a night and they’d run in the park across the street, into his garden.
“Last week the old man tried to commit suicide,” said one of the two drunks sitting on the edge of the curve across the street from the old man’s house.
“Why?” asked his companion.
“He couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“No reason.”
“How do you know there wasn’t a reason? How do you know he even tried?”
The two drunks sat on the edge of the sidewalk, on the curve drinking two quart bottles of beer, looking at the old man’s house across the street, at the second story window, where he slept. There were two other drunks sleeping it off under a tree in the park, near the corner, by the bicycle shop, the lady next store to the old man’s house, brought her five dogs out of her apartment to do their duty, to relieve themselves. And they went right for the old man’s garden, where the dim arc light lit them up.
“His wife takes care of him,” said one of the drunks.
“What does it matter, if he complains about all the noise on his block, he can go back to America,” said the second drunk.
“We better move before he looks out his window, thinking we are robbers and shoots us with his revolver.”
The old man now is looking through a hole he made in his curtains.
“What is it dear?” asked his wife.
“These drunks again, from the store.”
“You’ll be tired in the morning if you stay up all night.”
“I never get to sleep anyhow until you get up it seems nowadays.”
The old man motioned with his fingers in the shape of a pistol, at the drunks, they didn’t see him, “a little more and I’ll get back into bed,” he told his wife.
“Now what are you doing?” asked his wife.
“More drunks and the lady, the crazy one next door is allowing her dogs to used our garden as a toilet again.”
“Come to bed please.”
“They think I wanted to kill myself, Angel, the day security guard told me so, how foolish, can you believe that, I wanted to kill them, not me!”
“How would they know?”
“The lady with the dogs, she gossips, makes things up, to get attention I suppose.”
“Oh…ool,” said his wife, in a fading voice.
“No fear for their soul, no respect, no blood in their face.”
“I’m tired dear, come to bed, you get all worked up over nothing.”
“They say I got plenty of money, and they wish I’d go back to America, and they think I stay up all night for no reason.”
“I suppose so, but they don’t have wives, you have.”
“A wife would be no good for drunks.”
“You can’t tell them that.”
“I know. I’m happy to be old. An old man is a scarce thing.”
“Not always, he can be a nasty thing also.”
“I wish it was quiet again.”
The old man looked at the park and the church across the street from his window, had pulled back the curtains, then he looked left, down towards the store, where there was four drunks, all drinking beers, leaning against the cars.
“When they going to finish?” remarked the old man, waiting for his wife to say something, to answer him, and he looked at the bed, she had fallen back to sleep. He then looked at the clock it was 3:00 a.m. He would lie in bed in another hour, and it would be quiet for a moment, and he’d be exhausted and fall to sleep, he knew this, “I suppose,” he said in a whisper, as if he was talking to his second self, “It’s all about getting old.”

4-17-2009 /dedicated to my neighbours in San Juan Miraflores, Lima Peru