The List

  Dara Girard

  Contents

  About the Story

  The List

  About the Author

  Also Available

  The List

  Dara Girard

  Published by ILORI PRESS BOOKS LLC

  www.iloripressbooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Author.

  * * *

  About the story

  When Lamar sees an old man struggling to carry his groceries, he watches from a distance.

  A safe distance.

  A former foster kid used to being feared, discarded or used, he approaches people with caution. If he approaches them at all.

  But, in the spirit of the holidays, he makes a decision to take an action that won’t only change the old man’s life but also his own.

  A holiday short story.

  The List

  The old man was struggling.

  Lamar watched him as a brisk wind swept through the parking lot, nipping at the collar of his worn bomber jacket. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the No Parking sign. He wanted to rush over and help, but he kept his distance. He had to plan how he approached the old man in the green and black flannel jacket, who looked like a packed mule as he strained to carry too many grocery bags.

  The overcast sky made the day seem later than it actually was, as if it were closer to evening instead of early afternoon. The red ribbons on the utility poles seemed to be the only thing that gave the day any color. Even the large decorative snowflakes seemed to fade under the grey gloom. He heard the chirp of birds and the crinkle of cellophane as a group of birds found treasures inside a discarded bag of potato chips; a woman talking loudly on her phone in a language he couldn’t distinguish, while a man in a full beard sat in his truck and wolfed down his lunch as the muted sound of a base beat pounded through the closed windows.

  Nobody seemed to notice the old brown skinned man, with hair as grey as the sky, inching his way down the accessibility incline.

  But Lamar did.

  He adjusted the straps of his backpack before he shoved his hands back in his pockets. He had to approach the old man cautiously and with a smile so that he wouldn’t trigger fear. He was used to people looking at him with fear in their eyes. Lamar knew all about fear. Every day of his life he pretended he wasn’t afraid, although that was all he ever felt. Soon that’d be over. He wouldn’t have to be afraid no more, but first he had to help the old man.

  He crossed the parking lot and kept his voice light when he said, “Need a hand?”

  The man paused, frowned, looked at him with suspicion. At least it wasn’t fear. That was a good sign. Lamar had always been big for his age. At eighteen he just brushed 6’1 and they said he’d likely keep growing. Not that it would matter anyway.

  The man seemed to take in Lamar’s worn jacket and jeans and black sneakers with no laces, he kept them that way because the shoes were tight and he couldn’t afford another pair.

  He smiled at the old man. A practiced smile: A slight curve of the mouth, showing no teeth. It was hard for him to smile, he rarely had anything to smile about, but this man was worth the effort.

  It took him only a few seconds to realize that the man hadn’t said anything; the old man looked up at him almost frozen. His frown stayed in place but his brown eyes began to fill with tears.

  Lamar took a panicked step back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m just trying to help.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t trying to rob you or nothing.”

  The old man set his bags down with a tired sigh. “I know that,” he said in a full-bodied deep voice that shocked Lamar by its resonance. “It’s just—” He wiped his eyes. “Nobody’s asked me that and meant it in a really long time.”

  Up close the man didn’t look as fragile as he’d appeared from a distance. He stood average height with a stocky frame. Perhaps it was the bags that had made him look so small only moments before.

  Lamar lifted most of the grocery bags leaving two for the old man to carry. “Where’s your car?”

  He shook his head as if in regret. “No car. I’m taking the bus.”

  Lamar heard the rumbling of an engine that made his heart sink. He turned to the street and saw a bus pulling away from the curb. “That bus?”

  The old man released a laugh. “Yeah.”

  Lamar set the bags down trying to gauge how quickly he could get to it if he ran fast. “Maybe I can—”

  “No, don’t try to stop it. I’ll wait for the next one.” He reached for the bags, but Lamar picked them up before he could. “I’ll carry them there. You just take those two, sir.” They were the lightest of the group.

  “You can call me Mr. Howard.”

  “Lamar.”

  “Thank you, Lamar.”

  For a moment Lamar felt as if the soft, warm touch of a sun beam had broken through the grey clouds. Mr. Howard’s words touched his heart, made it feel a little less frozen. He was still cautious, still afraid, but he was helping someone and that felt good.

  There was only one other person at the bus stop: A skinny woman with East African features wearing a peach colored wool coat, typing something on her cell phone. She sat on the bench and had two bulging shopping bags taking up the rest of the space. Lamar cleared his throat. She cut him a disinterested glance and kept typing. He cleared his throat a little louder. She looked up and glared at him.

  He glared back. Don’t mess with me, mama. Not today. He shifted his gaze to the old man then at the crowded bench. She curled her lip but took the hint and removed her bags.

  Lamar pointed to the now empty seat and Mr. Howard sat.

  “You really bought too much if you were planning to take the bus,” Lamar said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “I forgot I didn’t have a car.”

  Lamar silently swore. Did the old guy have dementia or something?

  Mr. Howard’s keen gaze caught Lamar’s expression and he smiled. “I forgot I let my daughter borrow the car,” he clarified.

  “Why did you let her borrow your car?”

  “Hers is in the shop.”

  “Then why isn’t she riding the bus instead of you?”

  The old man grew quiet and Lamar knew he’d said too much. He always said too much. You ask too many questions. You get on people’s nerves, that’s what his fifth foster mother liked to tell him.

  He shifted his gaze to the bakery across the street, feeling heat steel into his cheeks, and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be,” Mr. Howard said with such force Lamar turned to look at him. “Don’t ever apologize for caring. You hear me?”

  Lamar nodded not knowing what else to say.

  Mr. Howard hung his head and Lamar heard him sniff. The old man was sad. To Lamar sadness was like a scent. He could pick it up anywhere and this man reeked of the raw, numbing sadness that all the holiday cheer couldn’t brush away. If he could make him smile, even a little bit, it would be worth it.

  “You got a lot of food and stuff here,” Lamar said, making his voice light. “I could help you get through it if you didn’t want to carry them home.”

  Mr. Howard rewarded him with a laugh then looked at him for a long moment. So long Lamar got defensive. What was he looking at? What did he see? People rarely looked at him, saw him. He was like a shadow.

  “How would you like to earn that privilege?” Mr. Howard finally said.

  “Huh?”

  “You busy today?”

  He hadn’t been busy in a long time. Didn’t plan to be busy ever again. “No.”

  “My wife’s coming out of the hospital tomorrow and I want to get things ready for her.” He pulled out a list from his jean’s pocket. “I have a lot to do and could use some help.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “Friends always start out as strangers first.”

  Friends. He didn’t have those. He’d tried but it had never worked out. “Sure, I’ll help you.”

  The old man could walk.

  It felt like a mile after they got off the bus before they reached the little bungalow tucked inside a maze of a suburban neighborhood. The white and blue house was nice, but when Mr. Howard opened the front door Lamar thought he would hurl. The house stank. He looked around the small living room (where a bouquet of dead flowers marinated in stagnant dirty water), wishing he could cover his nose but both his hands were full so he chose to breathe out his mouth, which made things only marginally better.

  Mr. Howard turned to him. “What’s wrong?”

  “You don’t smell that?”

  “Sorry,” Mr. Howard said with a shrug. “I left a bunch of dishes in the sink, I need to wash them.”

  “It smells like something died. No offense, but unless your dishes are covered in sewage it ain’t them.” He went into the kitchen and saw a white garbage bag leaning next to an overflowing trash bin, the sink piled with dishes and crumbs on the kitchen table. He opened up the fridge and saw fruit rotting. He swore.

  “You said you have a daughter?” Lamar asked just to make sure.

  “Hmm.”

  He wasn’t going to judge. No, he was lying. He was going to judge. This daughter of theirs could take her Dad’s car but never once stepped inside to see the state of the kitchen? First thing on Mr. Howard’s list was to put the food away, but that wasn’t going to happen. First, Lamar was going to take out the trash and open all the windows. He was going to clean out the fridge, put the food away and then clean the dishes. He was surprised to find a stack of laundry too when he opened the windows in the living room.

  That had also been an item on the list, as well as changing the bed sheets and replacing the light bulbs in the hallway.

  Lamar was up for the challenge.

  One thing he was good at was cleaning. At his seventh foster home the house was always tidy. He remembered it smelled fresh like lemons. He liked his foster parents and maybe his foster mother would have kept him if he hadn’t discovered she was having an affair with a delivery guy. He’d promised her he wouldn’t say anything, but she hadn’t believed him.

  He had one great foster dad but then he got sick and his wife said she couldn’t deal with the cancer and a teenager so Lamar had to go. Lamar was always the first to go, like an unwanted appliance. When you don’t belong to anyone you’re easy to discard.

  He scrubbed the bathroom tub, pleased at the progress he’d made getting through Mr. Howard’s list, and briefly wondered if his former foster dad had made it through. He hoped so. Although he knew hope didn’t mean much.

  He jumped and turned when he felt a tap on his arm. He’d shed his jacket hours ago and had rolled up his sleeves, but Mr. Howard still wore his flannel coat. He wondered if the old man was cold.

  “I’ve got you some food,” Mr. Howard said before Lamar could speak. “Come on.”

  He sat at the small, freshly cleaned, kitchen table and tried not to eat as if he hadn’t eaten in days, which was only partially true. He’d survived on a banana and a beef jerky, but trying to tamp down his raging hunger proved hard when he faced the bowl of warm minestrone soup and a roasted chicken sandwich Mr. Howard had just bought from the grocery store.

  Mr. Howard watched him in the same probing way he had before but instead of feeling defensive, Lamar felt okay. He was getting used to him.

  “You need a haircut.”

  He grunted. He’d heard that more than once. People always seemed to act like a haircut was something you could get done for free.

  “When you’re through eating, I’ll get my gear.”

  “You’re a barber?”

  Mr. Howard stood and left the room, Lamar wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard him or was ignoring him. He decided not to care.

  He finished his lunch, cleared the table and then turned his chair so that Mr. Howard could start cutting his hair.

  Lamar closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him in any way—whether harshly or tender, absently or with intent. He felt Mr. Howard’s hand as he tilted is chin, heard the sound of the scissors. For a moment he could pretend that he mattered. He remembered his first haircut, didn’t know how old he was, but he remembered feeling proud by how he’d been praised for being so brave while another kid cried at the sound of the razor. His high pitched screams like those of a wild animal being attacked.

  But Lamar reveled in the praise, he wasn’t praised much. He made it his mantra to be brave no matter how scared and alone he felt. Be brave.

  But right now, in Mr. Howard’s newly cleaned kitchen, sitting in a stiff chair getting his hair cut, he didn’t have to be anything but be still. If he sat still enough he could stretch out this moment. He could be safe and warm; fed and dry. The streets wouldn’t be his home; the fragrance of loneliness soaked in sadness wouldn’t follow him.

  “Your family is going to be surprised when they see you,” Mr. Howard said with pride.

  The magic moment burst. Lamar took a moment to answer: Silence let dreams live. Words killed them.

  “Don’t have a family.” He shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.”

  “What are you doing over the holidays?”

  “I’ve got plans,” he said. At least he knew he wasn’t lying about that. He didn’t like lying to the old man.

  Mr. Howard patted him on the shoulder then handed him a black handheld mirror. “Good?”

  Lamar didn’t look at his new haircut; instead he looked at the reflection of the man smiling behind him. “Yeah.”

  Mr. Howard’s face grew serious. “But I need you to do one thing for me.”

  Lamar felt his pulse kick up speed. He knew that expression. Mr. Howard’s eye’s weren’t just probing now. They were intense. It meant he’d done something wrong. He swallowed. “What?”

  “Stop using a razor. You see those bumps on your neck and cheeks?”

  He felt his face burn. He knew he was ugly. “Yeah. I got acne.”

  “It’s not acne. They’re razor bumps. The way the razor interacts with the hair on your face and neck disturbs it. Follow me. Let me show you what you need to do.”

  Mr. Howard took him to his master bathroom, the one with a bright orange shower curtain and fuzzy flower shaped bathmat, and showed him a new way to shave before he said, “In no time those bumps will go away.”

  “Really?” Lamar said wanting to believe him, but too afraid to hope.

  He nodded before he broke into a wide smile. “It was one of the few things my dad taught me, aside from ‘stay away from liquor and another man’s wife.’” He shook his head and sighed although his brown eyes still twinkled with mischief, “But he didn’t always follow his own advice and there were a lot of other things I had to figure out on my own.”

  Lamar felt himself relax. He’d learned something. Not just about shaving, but about Mr. Howard too. He didn’t have the perfect childhood and didn’t sugarcoat it. His probing brown eyes told him a multitude more than words ever could.

  Yeah, he knew all about having to figure things out on his own. He didn’t have any stories about his dad to share. He’d never had anyone teach him how to shave.

  Food, clothing, shelter and school. Those were the basics and every place he stayed at gave him those things, to varying degrees, but there were the little details about life that no one prepared him for. Puberty had been a bitch. His balls dropped but his voice didn’t for years. A big guy with a soft voice—sheer hell. Then, when his voice finally did drop, it came with no warning. One day he sounded like he’d swallowed helium, the next like he’d swallowed a cave. It freaked him out. Freaked his foster parents out too. His foster mother literally screamed when he’d said “Good morning” to her while she made breakfast.

  It hadn’t been a good day.

  But he didn’t have a lot of good days. Soon that’d be over.

  But today was good. Today was nice. Today he wasn’t afraid of anything. “What’s next on the list?”

  Holiday decorations.

  Lamar had never seen an attic with so much stuff. When he helped Mr. Howard decorate the Christmas tree, he feared it would topple under the weight of all the ornaments—some store bought, some handmade—but Mr. Howard was determined to put up as many as could fit. They also set candles in the windows and decorated the couch with three red and white holiday pillows that said: Believe, Peace, Joy.

  Lamar was tying a red balloon to one of the standing lamps in the living room when the front door flew open and a loud voice said, “I brought back the car, Dad. But I didn’t get a chance to put gas in it.” She saw him then froze. “Who the hell are you?”

  The moment Lamar saw Mr. Howard’s daughter he knew he’d never like this woman with her long fake lashes and faux fur coat. She looked exactly like the pictures of her Mr. Howard had around the house. She looked cute when she was about five years old, smiling in a pumpkin patch, she didn’t look cute about forty years later. There was a drawn, hungry look to her narrow features.

  “This is my friend Lamar,” Mr. Howard said.

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. Not fear. A win for him. He could deal with suspicion.

  “A friend huh? Where did you meet?”

  “In the parking lot at the local grocery store.”

  Lamar stifled a groan. He saw the daughter’s eyes shift from suspicion to disgust. She reminded him he was homeless and probably looked it. “Well, you can leave now,” she said.

 

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