Trembling With Fear 10/02/2022

Hey!, by Robert Pettus

“Hey!” came a jovial voice from behind.

I was in the process of taking the laundry out of the drier; bent over to pull the clothes out from the machine sitting on the ground. I turned to look in the direction of the voice and saw an old man standing in the doorway. He was tall – over six feet – and mostly bald. He was wearing plaid pajama pants, a dirty old tee shirt, and a green windbreaker jacket. He had old, thin glasses that looked like they could snap at any moment. His eyes were wide. He looked, for some reason, happy to see me.

“Uhh…hey,” I responded, quickly turning back to finish pulling my clothes from the drier. When I’d finished, I turned back around. He was gone.

I saw him again a little later that same day. As I was coming back in from my evening run, he was standing outside the door of his apartment. 

“Hey!” he again said. 

That’s what I think he said, at least; I’m not completely sure because I had my earphones in. Beat on the Brat by Ramones muffled any sound coming from the world outside my thoughts. He looked cheerful, though. He raised his hand up to wave at me as I put my head down and walked by. 

As I opened the door to the stairwell, I turned back slightly and looked in my periphery to where he had been standing. He was no longer there, but I could see the door to his apartment closing. He lived in apartment 1B. 

In the following weeks, I saw that elderly man patrolling the halls of the complex with awkward regularity. Seemingly every time I was doing laundry, or coming in from a run, or coming back from work, I saw him walking; either pacing the hallways or limping around the parking lot outside. His gait was more of a waddle than a true walk. He clearly preferred his left leg to his right. He would place all of his pressure on his left side, and then, like a compass drawing out a circle, swing his right side around to take the next step. Then, by quickly dragging his left foot along the ground, he would avert his weight from his weaker right side back to his left. 

I always assumed he was just getting in his exercise; walking as many steps as he could each day without getting too far from his apartment. Most gyms were closed thanks to the pandemic, anyway; not that he seemed like the gym-going type; he didn’t. He struggled enough just walking out his door.

I also had the hunch that he may have just been lonely, and he walked the hallways and parking lots hoping to find someone he could talk to. This idea was partially confirmed one afternoon when I witnessed an encounter he had with another tenant of the apartment complex and the UPS driver delivering a package to her. I was standing out on my apartment balcony, which overlooked the parking lot, and saw him shuffling over to the front entrance, where she was signing some paperwork.

“Hey!” he said.

The both of them ignored him; ostensibly not even recognizing that he was there. He still looked as happy as ever.

“Hey!” he said again, continuing to stand at conversational length from the woman and the delivery driver. They were going on about some typical topic of small talk; the unseasonably warm weather, I think. Their voices were muffled by their masks; they probably couldn’t even hear most of what the other person was saying.

The old man didn’t care, though. He probably didn’t even care whether any of them could understand each other or not, so long as there was a conversation to participate in. He never became discouraged. He looked as content as ever. Eventually, after the woman had walked back inside and the delivery driver had driven off, he turned and walked back out toward the parking lot, where a car was coming in at a pace much greater than responsible parking-lot speed.

The wind, which had been gusting feverishly, whipped at the back of the old man, lashing his green windbreaker and pushing him out into the parking lot. He didn’t notice, or at least he didn’t seem to mind. He fumbled, caught himself, and then stood staring vacantly, though happily, out into the distance. 

The car didn’t slow its pace. It drove right past the old man, only avoiding clipping him by mere centimeters. It continued to its parking space, slamming on the brakes and abruptly stopping the vehicle. The loud music coming from within, which was clearly The Hardest Button to Button by White Stripes, stopped. The door opened a second later and the young man formerly behind the wheel began walking nonchalantly to the front door of the apartment complex.

“Hey!” I screamed down at him from the balcony. He looked up, startled.

“Hey!” I needlessly repeated. “What the hell are you doing? You almost killed him!” I was pointing at the old man, who was still standing in the middle of the parking-lot.

The young man looked to where I was pointing and stared for a couple seconds. He then looked back up to me:

“Uhhh…what?” he said.

“You heard me, you bastard! You could have fucking killed him!”

The man once again looked to where I’d been pointing, staring confusedly. He then looked back to me:

“You’re fuckin’ with me, man!” He said, “That’s not cool!” 

He started giggling like a nervous child. He was stoned off his ass. High as balls.

“You’re fuckin’ with me, man!” He repeated as he shuffled to the door. He was gone before I could throw any more vulgarities at him.

The old man was still standing in the middle of the parking lot, completely unaware of what was going on. He eventually turned and looked up to me, waving:

“Hey!” He said.

He then put his head down and walked back inside.

I continued to see the old man fairly often; always either patrolling the bottom floor hallway or circumnavigating the parking lot. He always had only that one word to say. He was always in a good mood. 

A few weeks later, as I was once again doing my laundry, I ran into the landlady as I was leaving the laundry room. 

“Hey!” she said, “How’s it goin’?”

“Not too bad!” I replied, “Just doing the weekly chores!”

“I hear that!” she said. “Sunday fun day, am I right? Whoever coined that phrase was full of shit!”

“That’s a fact!” I concluded.

I ran into her again as I was heading back down the stairs to retrieve my laundry. 

“Hello again!” she said, “We’re bumping into each other a lot today!”

“Yep!” I responded. 

I began walking past her toward the laundry room, but before I’d completely walked away, I turned and blurted a question:

“Who lives in apartment 1B?”

“Uhhh…what?” she responded.

“Who lives in apartment 1B; that one right there?” I pointed at the old man’s door.

“Well, first of all,” she began, “I can’t tell you the names of the people who live in each apartment. You’ll have to ask them yourself if you’re curious. But, in the case of that particular apartment, it doesn’t much matter: the place is empty. It’s been empty for about six months now.” 

I stared blankly in disbelief.

“What?” I said finally, “…what about the old man that lives there?”

She tapped her foot on the floor a few times, as if to aid to her memory, and then said:

“…Ooooooh! You mean Mr. Wilson! No, he’s not there anymore. He unfortunately passed away about six months ago.”

“…Oh,” I finally responded. 

It was all I could manage to say.

I stared ahead, for some time, in a detached daze. Eventually, the landlady smiled, as if to signal her departure. Before she walked away, however, the door to 1B opened. 

“Hey!” said Mr. Wilson.