Leonard Henry Scott is a Bronx born and raised graduate of American University, with an MLS degree from the University of Maryland. He was on the staff of the Library of Congress for many years and presently resides in National Harbor, Maryland.
~~~
January 13th
The familiar “Breaking News” ribbon swirled with bold red urgency across the bottom of the screen.
“Oh My God!!” Mavis exclaimed.
“What?” Lamont asked, walking quickly along from the counter to the fat leather couch with his coffee and buttered croissant.
“He died!!”
“Who died?”
“Look.” Mavis paused from her grief momentarily to point at the flat screen. And there he was in all of his bountiful youth and glorious beauty, a rhythmical prancing peacock in a sea of doll-painted girls with big hair and shiny leather pants; dancing and dancing and singing and dancing. He was wonderful.
“Dead? Oh no! But how’s that even possible?” Lamont inquired.” He was in his 30’s maybe.”
“Forty seven,” Mavis corrected.
“Wow. But still.” He shook his head with disbelief, then suddenly perking up. “I remember that song,” he said nodding to the flat screen. “It was so popular.”
Lamont got to his feet and started to sing a dance around the room with a great wad of barely masticated croissant tucked into his cheek. Then, suddenly after several loud “Boogie Boogies,” and a couple of joyful “Yeah, Yeahs,” he was all at once overcome with sadness. He stopped dancing and slumped down onto the couch.
“I really, really like that song,” he said sadly.
“Yes,” Mavis added through her misery. “He was incredibly talented and he will truly be missed.”
Lamont nodded and reverently closed his eyes.
* * *
March 15th
They dawdled over the morning paper, reading and switching off sections. He had coffee. She had tea. It was Saturday morning.
“Did you see this?” Lamont held up page one of the A section, pointing to an article below the fold.
“Yes, I did.” She shook her head back and forth. “He went to Dartmouth, according to the story. I guess boneheadedness is not measured by the SATs. How could any intelligent person think that diving off a third floor hotel balcony into a swimming pool at 3am is a good idea?”
“Plus,” Lamont added. “It says here he missed the pool entirely and landed on the walkway. He didn’t even have good aim. Boy, I’ll bet that was messy. What an idiot!” Lamont scolded. “In the great book of stupid ideas, that’s got to be in Chapter 1, just below swimming with the gators and adopting a rescue hyena.”
“He was 27,” Mavis tsked. He was on that TV show forever as a boy. I think with these child stars, when they become adults they sometimes wind up missing a few pieces.”
“But he was really good in that movie where he played a small town deputy sheriff who travelled back in time to hunt down Jack the Ripper.”
Mavis laughed and shook her head disdainfully. “That movie didn’t make any sense.”
“No, it was good.”
“What about the zombies?”
“Zombies are popular. It was a fantasy.”
“And what the Hell was Jack the Ripper doing in Arizona anyway?”
“They explained all of that. Plus the movie won an award.”
“For special effects, not acting!”
“The effects were amazing. Plus, an award’s an award. And so it is an award winning movie.” Lamont persisted.
Mavis snorted, suddenly trapped in the high walled prism of Lamont’s crystalline logic. Although clearly, they would not agree on the lasting importance of this particular cinematic achievement, Mavis did offer one grudging concession.
“He was a really good actor, really good.” She said.
“Yes he was, but what a stupid thing to do.”
“The most stupid thing of his entire life. He’ll live to regret that.” She snickered.
“Look at you,” Lamont smiled. “Telling jokes about dead people.”
“It’s just too, too sad. You just have to laugh.”
“Okay… although I don’t really get the connection between the sadness and the laughing.”
The two of them fell silent as they reflected on the sudden loss of yet one more young, talented person.
“Probably drugs,” She said sadly.
“Probably,” He agreed.
* * *
August 2nd
Lamont rushed into the bedroom.
“Hey Mavis, you know that doctor we saw in that documentary we saw on CNN last night, the one who developed the vaccine for that mosquito virus in Africa?”
She paused from rearranging her underwear drawer.
“Yes, those were awful mosquitoes!”
Lamont laughed, “You mean as opposed to those cute adorable good mosquitoes that everyone keeps as pets?”
“Yes, yes I do.”She said defiantly. “What about him?”
“He died this morning.”
“Oh, my God! We just saw him last night!”
“Yes, I said that…I just said that. They reported his death on the news. But they didn’t say how he died.”
Mavis dropped a handful of underwear and raised an index finger. “He was 96 years old.”
“Okay. But I wonder how he died.”
“More than likely, just a guess now,” Mavis spoke patiently. “He might have just died from being 96.”
“No, people die from something other than just being old. Besides, don’t they say that 90 is the new 70 or something like that?”
“No, Lamont, nobody says that.”
“Are you sure about that, Mavis?”
“Yes, people who say stuff like that are morons. Life is what we thought it was. And while we’re at it, yellow is not the new green. Small is not the new big and regardless of what the boys in the locker room say, ‘No’ is not the new ‘Yes,’ anymore than death is the new life. Although, on that score there are some who might disagree. But still…”
Lamont looked at her seriously. “What the Hell are you talking about?”
“Look Lamont, it’s simple, we’re all born with this knife hanging over our heads, a kind of Sword of Damocles if you will. It follows us all everywhere we go, suspended on a thread…”
“You mean from a sky hook or something?”
“…Yes, suspended from a sky hook, exactly. And it is always there over our heads. Only when we’re young the sword is small like a pocket knife but razor sharp…”
“Open or closed?”
“…Open.” She held up her hands in a dramatic display of exasperation. She thought of saying ‘duh’ but that would have been overkill.
“To continue,” she continued. “But as we grow, the knife also grows, bigger and bigger with our increasing years, until in later life it has become a great, heavy, gigantic sword suspended over us by that same thread which grows weaker as time passes, struggling under the weight of the sword. So, by the time you’re 96 (if you’re lucky to make it that far) the thread is so worn and weak that it will pop at the slightest provocation. Your cat dies, you team loses, or you get the sniffles and suddenly the thread pops, the sword drops clear through your skull and bang you’re dead.”
“Wow.”
“And what is this all about?” Mavis continued more. “It’s about making way for this relentless surge of new people who are coming up to take our place.”
“New people, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Well, screw the new people” Lamont said with some irritation.” We’ll just stay.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I agree. Screw them.”
* * *
December 26th
“Mavis, look at this picture”
Lamont held up a colorful centerfold of the latest issue of a very popular tabloid. It depicted rows and rows of famous people who had died during the year. Each one smiled out from the page, radiant with essence of life.
“There’s been tons of people who died this year.”
Mavis winced in the midst of preparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the kitchen counter. “I can’t begin to tell you all of the things that are wrong with that sentence.”
“Like what?”
“Forgetting about the grammar part, if you measured the amount of people by weight instead of numbers, eight 500 pound people would technically be tons of people. But it would only be eight actual people, which would miss the point of what I think you are trying to say.”
“You’re just being too picky. Plus, I think tons is or are a good description. How many people weigh 500 pounds? Damn few, I’d say. Tons of ballet dancers would actually be lots of actual people. ”
“Point taken,” Mavis relented, finishing the construction of her sandwich. It was perfectly cut, perfectly plated. She silently mused that (although it wasn’t actually cooking, per se) it could be featured in a cooking magazine (many, most? Things in cooking magazines are not actually cooked) or maybe even Southern Living if it had a garnish of some sort, perhaps a sprig of mint. She wondered if the editors were anti-crusters. Mavis could never figure why chefs and foodies find bread crust to be so objectionable. After all, it wasn’t gristle or fat or bones. It was just bread, completely edible and nutritious as well.
“Here, look at this.” Lamont impatiently shoved the tabloid between Mavis and her perfect sandwich. She looked at the picture. But in that moment, all she saw were French fries as she was now all at once wondering if they went with peanut butter sandwiches.
“Here,” Lamont insisted.
She made a mental note to check about fries and stared at the picture.
“Looks like a bumper crop of dead people.” She observed.
“All this year.”
“Really? That’s amazing.”
“It says right here” Lamont went on enthusiastically, “more famous people have died this year than in any other year.”
“Hmm,” Mavis said and studied the picture carefully. “I know her,” she nodded. “I didn’t recognize her name or his or this one over here,” she pointed. “But these people have all been on TV since the beginning of time. And they’re all dead? My God, they’re like relatives almost. It’s like a whole page full of dead relatives. This is crazy.”
She looked up at Lamont with amazement.
“So many,” She said glancing back at the picture. “Except for this guy,” she pointed “or her. I don’t know who these people are or exactly what they did.”
“Hmm,” Lamont said, examining the picture. “This lady is some sort of corporate mogul and this guy over here invented something. I have no idea what it is. I don’t even know how to pronounce it.”
“Still,” Mavis shrugged, “An awful lot of famous people here, people that I know, or…knew.”
“That’s true and the year’s not over yet.”
“You think there will be still more? There’s only a few days left”
“Yes.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Sure.”
“A hundred dollars.”
“Okay.”
“But, anyone else has got to be someone we both recognize, not some tech nerd, avant-garde poet, or unpronounceable Russian painter.”
“Okay, it’s a bet.”
“Okay.”
They shook hands to make it official.
* * *
December 31st
Mavis and Lamont had been planning to stay up late and watch all of the New Year’s Eve festivities on TV. However, they seemed to be out of the basics, specifically a trifecta of necessaries: bread, milk and potato chips, the latter being essential to the true enjoyment of the night’s anticipated celebrations. They already had dip in several varieties. So, a quick trip to 7-11 was called for.
The car was parked across the street from their apartment building. As Lamont stepped off the curb keys in hand, he was promptly and completely run over by a great hulking black SUV with its headlights not yet turned on. Because it was electric, it made no noise, like a ghost, a three thousand pound speeding ghost. The SUV stopped afterwards and the people inside came over to look at him. Lamont lay stretched out flat on the asphalt car keys still in hand. He was now a silent, altogether squashed figure, supine on the street. Nobody in the history of the world had ever been more dead than Lamont was at that very moment.
* * *
Some days later, after the initial waves of grief had subsided and the “arrangements” were well in hand, Mavis pondered the bet. Since Lamont was a person that they both knew, he met their definition of a famous person. But certainly, she reasoned, he did not meet the spirit of it since this interpretation would have included scores of objectively unfamous people from second cousins in Philadelphia to faintly remembered long ago dry cleaner cashiers. However, she finally conceded that although Lamont had not actually been famous in an objective sense, he was in fact more famous to her than practically anyone else in the world. Therefore, in this particular instance an exception might be made. And so she concluded that all things considered, Lamont had won the bet. But the fact that he wouldn’t be around to crow about it would be a bitter sweet victory at best. Then there was the issue of the money. Although in his present state he had no use for money, he still deserved something for his win. It was only fair. So, Mavis determined to buy a herself pair of shoes in his honor.
* * *
April 3rd
It was a perfect spring afternoon. The warm air swirled with sweet flowery smells and the cheerful music of new birds up from Florida. Mavis, unaccustomed to her new yellow Lamont memorial spring high heel shoes, took the slightest misstep while alighting from a city bus. She lost her balance and suddenly out of control, careened haphazardly forward striking her head severely on the metal post of the Bus Stop sign. Although not discernible by mortal eyes, at that very moment a massive sword fell from a broken thread tied to hook in the sky. It sliced a great invisible hole clear from the top of her skull to the bottom of her chin.
She died immediately.
* * *
August 1st
A young couple with a small child moved into the apartment that the Lamont and Mavis had shared. On this date (along with some of their other remnants) a practically new pair of yellow memorial shoes was placed on sale at the Goodwill Store three blocks away. Eventually, all of the possessions (precious and trivial) of all the world’s departed souls would fall to the hands of new people.
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