An Old Man Loved

Rodrigo was sixty-four when his wife died. In the middle of the night. Just after midnight. Or so the coroner’s report would read. He'd been peacefully asleep beside her. Her face was calm that morning. Bleary eyes making out a soft expression on clay-cold lips. He tries not to think of what he could have done as there was nothing. It was a massive cardiac arrest. She would have died in the time it took to dial 9-1-1.

Rodrigo was sixteen when he left the small village in Columbia with his brother and sister leaving their parents behind. They were sending them to America “Para una vida buena, llena de comida y oro.” They did always have food but gold was harder to come by.

Rodrigo was sixty-six when he met Howard. Howard is one year older but looks a decade younger. He tells Rodrigo constantly that as a black man he is incapable of aging but the way he limps out of armchairs and benches says otherwise. They become fast friends.

Rodrigo was twenty-one when his first son was born. Angelo, named after his grandfather, is a beautifully fat and joyous baby. He laughs just as much as he cries and Rodrigo can't wrap his head around such a small version of his own face looking up at him. They have the same fingernails.

“Papi, por favor. Just because you love him doesn’t mean you’re in love…”

“Mijo, do you forget that I have loved your mother for longer than you have been alive? That I KNOW what love feels like? How my heart como se dice, pumps!”

“Pero Papi, since when are you gay?”

Rodrigo was fifteen when he kissed his best friend Miguel en la boca. They’d spent the entire morning fixing Miguel’s bike, the tire patched up with some tar and goma from his dad’s truck. It actually worked and they’d ridden to the top of the village, overlooking the river everyone washed their clothes in. The sun was setting, the air was cool. It was all very romantic but fifteen year old Rodrigo only understood that his heart was pumping so loud he could feel it in his ears.

“Why did you do that?” Miguel says as he touched his lips, eyes as big as the moon.

“I don’t know.” Rodrigo answers truthfully. “I wanted to?”

Rodrigo had fallen asleep on a park bench. He was sixty-six after all and he was allowed to do silly things like that. That’s how Howard finds him.

“Hey grandpa, wake up before you get mugged.” He pokes him in the leg with his cane. A cane that is never supposed to be acknowledged because Howard was not old, he was seasoned.

“Eh?” When Rodrigo opens his eyes, he sees the face of a man so beautiful he wonders if he has died and if this is Papito Dios.

“You speak english? Levante papi, no bueno.” Which is the full extent of Howard’s spanish.

“I am awake, so sorry.” Rodrigo rubs his eyes and sits up. “Gracias.”

“No problema. You mind if I sit down?” Howard points to the empty space next to Rodrigo. He nods because yes, this is a free country and this bench outlooked the lake under the shade of fir trees and therefore quite coveted. “Name’s Howard. You’re the new guy here.”

“Rodrigo Armando Luca Rojas.”

“Roddy. Gotcha.”

“No Roddy, me llamo Rodrigo! What if I called you Wardy?”

“Cute.” Howard smiles, his perfectly aligned, white teeth shining in a smile that makes Rodrigo’s heart pump a little faster.