A Story. By Me.

An Unlikely Friendship


Milton Joseph was a simple man, with a plump, pot belly, liver-spotted head, and round red ears over powered by tufts of thick white hair. If he could transfer the hair from ears to his scalp, why he’d be all set, he’d exclaim from time to time to no one in particular.


Milton lived in a one bedroom on the corner of Larkspur Avenue, a bustling street at the epicentre of his small town. At eighty-seven, Milton was old – no question about it. He wasn’t middle aged or in his golden years, Milton Joseph was just plain old.


Occasionally he’d stand in front of his sturdy cheval mirror – the one that was a good decade or two older than his twitchy little landlord – and look at himself. Taut white socks over vein covered pruney knees. Sweat stained t-shirt clinging to sagging flesh. Droopy beige skin that hung in haloed sacks over sea green eyes.


He’d remember when his skin was taut, fresh. When rigid abs and chiselled features were all the currency he needed in the world. He’d remember this, and he’d smile, his yellowed, gap tooth grin proving more frightening than endearing. And at this, he’d smile wider, and sometimes he’d chuckle; a phlegm filled, shaky sound.


Sometimes he’d sleep for days on end, purposefully unplugging his phone and shutting off his alarm. Other times, he’d watch in awe as one sunrise after another floated across his window.


“Mr. Joseph,” little Eli Nestles from 12A would call from his front door, gingerly tapping his fingers against the wood. “Can I come over?”


Some days Milton didn’t hear Eli’s quiet taps. Other days fatigue and the comfort of his downy bed kept him from answering the door. But most days, most days Milton would drag his body up from the worn arm chair and limp to the hallway.


“It’s late, Eli, my boy,” he’d call out. “Shouldn’t you be in bed or doing homework now?”


“No, Mr. Joseph, “Eli would reply, as he always did. “I ain’t got nowhere else to be or nothing else to do.”


And Milton would busy himself with unlocking the many locks that littered his door; half grumbling, half smiling as he did.


He’d usher the little boy in, asking about his mother or school or if he saw the football game the other night.


Eli wouldn’t ever say much. Milton’s questions were greeted with a shrug or a grunt at best. So it was Milton that did most of the talking, while little Eli sat on the swivel chair gulping chocolate milk and scarfing down Oreo cookies that Milton brought just for that purpose.


He’d talk about the war and his two ex-wives. His daughter who’d moved halfway across the world and rarely ever called. He’d talk about his days spent as an Ad man and his dog, Lenny, the best dog a man could man ask for, who’d finally died twenty-three ago. He’d talk about his mother’s pumpkin pie and the smell of his dad’s cigars. He’d talk about his buddies in the twelfth infantry and sweet Suzy Jane who he would have married if it wasn’t for that damned Saul Barton. He’d talk about the time his brother, Calvin, almost burned down the house trying to start a campfire with stolen matches and about Pearl Barminter who kept bringing him homemade apple cobbler even though Milton hated apple cobbler as much as he hated Pearl Barminter. He talked about his yellow toenails and his damn hairy ears, his ever fading eyesight and his scratchy skin.


And Eli would listen intently, offering up a chocolate stained smile, empathetic little sigh or, rarely, piping up with a question or two.


“Do you miss your daughter a lot, Mr. Joseph?”


“Is that why your leg’s all funny?”


“Can’t you just tell her you don’t like apple cobbler?”


When 9 p.m. came, announced by the buzzing of Milton’s alarm (an always jarring reminder that it was time to take his pills), he’d hem and haw and coax Eli towards the door, promising, as he always did, that he could come over again real soon.


Eli would look up at him with those stoic brown eyes and then turn and trot slowly down the empty hallway to his mother’s apartment, his stick thin fingers tracing lines down the walls as he went.


Milton would watch him, just to make sure he made it back in safe and sound. Then he’d quietly shut his door, replace all the locks and swallow his nightly pills, an unwitting smile always making its way across his face.


And Eli, cocooned in blankets and curled in the corner of the bed he shared with his three brothers, would smile too.