Last Call

In my lifetime I’ve known two people who took their own life. Two good and honorable men who, at either their darkest or most liberating of moments, decided they had had enough of this world and chose to leave it all behind. Now, I never cared to do any statistical research on the subject, but I daresay this puts me in a regrettably exclusive club. Suicide is one of the last taboos in our enlightened world and happens more than we realize, just not to someone we know. Let alone two people.

One was a childhood friend who lived across the street when I was growing up. It wasn’t until years later, long after I lost touch with him, that I heard he was found dead in his basement, leaving behind a young, though apparently estranged wife. That’s really all I know there.

The other was one of the funniest and most innately intelligent men I’ve ever known. He and I came to be good buddies when I was a writing student living in Chicago. That came to an end in the early morning hours of April 4, 1989, a Tuesday, when he was found lying in the alley outside his apartment with the gun still in his hand. Some said later he had tried to make it look like a burglary attempt gone bad. All I know is that I had stopped over to see him only two nights earlier and we went out to get something to eat; nothing at all seemed out of the ordinary. He was thirty-six-years-old.

Why bring this up now?

Sooner or later – if we’re honest with ourselves – we all go through times, long or fleeting, when we feel lost in our purpose. While I’ve never been in crisis to the point of contemplating suicide for even a moment, there have been times when I felt discouraged and uncertain enough about my professional future, and I’ll leave it at that.

There’s an old adage that says you first must lose yourself before you can find your true self, the real you. Thinking back to these two lost friends, especially my Chicago buddy, I’m reminded of the power of this proverb. The good news people will tell you that everyone finds their way again. The bad news folks will say…ain’t necessarily so.

 

Back in 1984, after graduating from college, I didn’t have a damn clue what to do next so I moved down to Chicago, thinking possibly about Graduate School and definitely about the chance to see what it would be like living in such a famed city. Needing work quickly I took a job as a busboy at a health and fitness club that happened to serve its membership with a fully-stocked bar and restaurant. Soon enough I got the chance to do some bartending, and that’s when Jim Vavrinchik came into the picture. Head bartender at the aforementioned Lakeshore Athletic Club, he became my de facto boss.

 I can’t say we became friends right away. Like I said, he was my boss. He was also a first-rate bartender who could be a gracious gentleman or a no-nonsense presence, depending on the customers and situation at hand. One night I was closing up the bar and the phone rang. It was Jim. My first thought was that he was calling to remind me to do something or other, when in fact he was inviting me to join him after work for a beer at a neighborhood watering hole called Quenchers. That turned out to be a fateful night for me. In time I met some of his friends and started to feel more at home in Chicago. But I was just as grateful to spend late nights sitting side by side with him at Quenchers or some other such tavern.

Looking back on it now, there was always a sense about him that he was living more for today than tomorrow. He was overweight. He chain-smoked. And he could outdrink anybody all night long if and when he wanted to. (I know for a fact that when you went out drinking with Jim Vavrinchik you never ended the night early.) He never talked about his past, and I never asked – probably one of the things he liked best about me. We never talked about current events or politics or women. No, our conversation lent itself more to baseball, old Brando movies and whatever other bullshit popped into our heads at two in the morning. And I loved it.

He even taught me the words to the theme song of “Have Gun, Will Travel,” a TV Western from the early Sixties that was a favorite memory of his youth. At the end of a particularly “relaxing” night, I’d sit in my car outside his apartment, waiting for Jim to get out, but I knew what was coming. He’d start singing quietly and before long I’d be joining in a terrible two-part harmony:

“Paladin, Paladin where do you roam?

Paladin, Paladin far, far from home.

 

‘Have Gun, Will Travel’ reads the card of a man…

A knight without armor in a savage land.

 

His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind…

A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin.”

 

 

(Maybe it doesn’t sound funny now, but…well, you had to be there.)

 

Jim never married - his preference and lifestyle wouldn’t allow it. But it wasn’t until after his death that I learned he had a young daughter living with her mother in New Orleans. Maybe therein was a reason for his ultimate decision, but…who the hell knows? I heard, too, that he had been enrolled in a nursing training program at the time but quietly dropped out without telling a soul. One of the sadder aspects of the whole thing was that Jim did have so many friends, any one of whom would have done anything to help him out.

But, as they say, that’s all in the past now – twenty-seven years ago as I write this. When enough time goes by, so does much of the sadness. But not the mystery.

Still, it’s a fanciful thought that I could sit down at a nearly empty bar late at night and have another beer or two with Jim now. It would be fun to reminisce and do some catching up, that’s for sure. I’d want to have a serious conversation with him about our younger selves and the hopes and expectations we secretly carried with us. But I know we’d just end up bullshitting like we used to do –  probably minus the singing this time.

When I think of Jim these days I am reminded that deep inside we all have a bit of a restless soul that longs for something more. And while I've always been leery of writing a tribute to him and having it turn into some maudlin, clichéd sermon about overcoming life's tough turns - no way he would have wanted that - it is impossible for me to tell this little tale without acknowledging that I, too, have had my own private fears and doubts to fight. And that’s okay. When it comes to that we’re all in good company.

 

 

 

 

 

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.”

-          Henry David Thoreau

 

 

                                                                                                  

 

Chicago, 1986

 
 

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.”

-          Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

And the More I Write...

Due to the overwhelming response to my last post about favorite writing quotes (Okay, there was hardly any response at all, but such is the blogging life, and this, dear reader, is where a little self-indulgent imagination comes in handy.), I thought I'd put down a few more quotes, for my sake if no one else's. Words and wisdom from renowned writers can go a long way in teaching, inspiring and even at times comforting the likes of us lesser but well-intended scribes. So, with that in mind, here are some more I found of value:

10)  "The end of the story is always found in the beginning."    - William Sloane

 9)  "And I was sardonically amused at those who referred to writing as if it were an act of              supreme inspiration. Writing is fiendishly hard work."               - James Michener

8)  "In my own experience, nothing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family and friends. To most people, even those who don't read much, there is something special and vaguely magical about writing, and it is not easy for them to believe that someone they know - someone quite ordinary in many respects - can really do it."
                                                                                                       - John Gardner

7) "Words have a great, great power to move us. After everything is said and done, it's the words we're listening to on television and in movies the whole time - the cadence of words, the truth of words. Words have magical power."
                                                                                                      - David Mamet

6) "I see but one rule: to be clear."                                                - Stendhal

5)  "Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot."                                                            - Stephen King

4) "Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), 'Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?' chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death."
                                                                                                      - Steven Pressfield

3) "People can see straight through storytelling that is false, staged or cynical. It has to come from the heart, not just the head."          
                                                                                                      - Richard Branson

2) "If a story is in you, it has to come out."                                  - William Faulkner

1) "Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."                                                                                            - Tim O'Brien

  

I Write, Therefore... I Quote

What makes a quote really good? More than good, what makes it memorable, powerful, even magical?

Simply answered, the curse and the beauty of words lie in the eye of the beholder.

How many books have you opened and the first thing you see before you get to page one is a short quote or two. There’s even a special word for them in literary circles. For what it’s worth, they’re called epigraphs. Some are intriguing and set the table for the main course to come. Others, like an unknown poem or ancient text, can be so vague and mystifying as to be next to meaningless. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I really supposed to know what that means?

On the other hand, when someone says something that strikes deep and strikes a nerve, there’s nothing better.

I have always enjoyed a clever quote, a few choice words once spoken or written that, for whatever reason, reveal a spark of uncommon wit and wisdom that taps into my own truth. More than once I have used what I considered a good quote to punch up a short piece of my own writing. Like this:

“Good writing consists of trying to use ordinary words to achieve extraordinary results.” -- James Michener

The right quote operates on two levels. At first reading, it makes its point, plain and simple. At least it better. But then there’s just a moment where your mind flits back to what it just read and says, ‘Hmm. I like that. That works.’ It’s clever, but it’s true.’ And following the idea of author Stephen King that writing is refined thinking, well, why not borrow someone else’s thinking and add it to the mix? Why not plug in a thought or two from some of the masters of the craft to build up your own writing when you need it.

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I collect quotes. Touching on all sorts of topics. I write them down in a notebook dedicated to just that purpose, and I would suggest everyone do the same. Whenever I come across a quote that makes me pause and speaks to me, I write it down. Gathered together in one place like that, they’re a wonderful touchstone of inspiration and guidance whenever good things try to run and hide — and sooner or later they always do.

I do my best work with words (as opposed to, say, drywall or computer programs), so many of my favorite quotes reflect, as you can see, on the craft of writing. With that in mind, and with a respectful nod to Rene Descartes’ famous meditation, “I think, therefore I am,” I offer a few more of my top iterations by writers on writing to help guide and prompt the pursuit of my craft. I write, therefore…

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” — Richard Bach

“Writing is easy. It’s the words that are hard.” — Mark Twain

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”- Benjamin Franklin

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” — Ernest Hemingway

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” — Mark Twain

“The first draft of anything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway

“God gives you the best plots.” — Norman Mailer

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.” — Truman Capote

“If a story is in you, it has to come out” — William Faulkner

Twisting Fiction into Fact

I was going through boxes of old magazines and scrapbooks in the basement of my parent’s house, sorting and sifting through parts of their past, when I first came across a peculiar little article. More specifically, it was a short, untitled sidebar piece clipped out of a magazine and taped to a sheet of heavy paper. From the masthead I saw that it was from the August 16, 1964, issue of Newsweek magazine.
 

 

A list of curious coincidences on the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy was making the office duplicating machines hum in New York last week. Under the title ‘Strange as It Sounds,’ the synchronism read:

 

-          Both Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy were concerned with the issue of civil rights.

-          Lincoln was elected in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.

-          Both Presidents were assassinated on a Friday and both in the presence of their wives.

-          Both Presidents were shot from behind and in the head.

-          Their successors, both named Johnson, were Southern Democrats and both were in the Senate.

-          Andrew Johnson was born in 1808 and Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908.

-          John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald were Southerners favoring unpopular ideas.

-          Booth and Oswald were both assassinated before it was possible for either of them to be brought to trial.

-          Both Presidents’ wives lost children through death while living in the White House.

-          John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theater box and afterward ran to a warehouse.

-          Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran to a theater.

-          The last names of both Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.

-          The names of Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson each contain thirteen letters.

-          The names of both John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald each contain fifteen letters.

-          Lincoln’s secretary, whose name was Kennedy, advised him not to go to the theater.

-          Kennedy’s secretary, whose name was Lincoln, advised him not to go to Dallas.

-           

 

 

Coming less than a year after the national trauma of Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, one can imagine the goosebumps and raised eyebrows when readers took all that in back in 1964. (Like my father, who obviously thought enough of this corollary list to clip it out and set it aside.)

Well I too was intrigued. So I decided to do a little research on the subject myself. A couple of taps and clicks on the computer and I found out that this same comparison of the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy has been circulating for years. But alas, a little fact-checking by historians and pseudo-scholars alike uncovered a few problems.

For starters, the ‘author’ behind these comparisons has never been established. Usually not a good sign.

Secondly, while President Kennedy did indeed have a personal secretary named Evelyn Lincoln, there is no record of President Lincoln ever having a secretary or staff member named Kennedy. Whoever thought that one up was good. Real good.

Too bad it never happened.

Which begs the question – what is the veracity and the meaning of the rest of the list?

Anyone with the vaguest notion of American history knows the common fate of these two celebrated figures. Since the other oddities on that list do hold up under historical scrutiny, the overall effect is enough to make one think twice about dismissing outright those funny little things called chance and destiny. That’s a good thing to ponder.

But there’s another note to be found here, a cautionary one. The line between fact and entertaining fiction can be a fine one, easily and discreetly crossed by anyone these days. If there’s one thing history and media and politics has taught us over the years, it’s that a little stretching of the truth goes a long way in getting and directing people’s attention. For better and for worse

Urban myth and folklore has always been part of our entertainment culture. Nowadays that story culture is being stretched like never before with blogs and websites of every ilk. There is fake news and “data dredging,” whereby vast amounts of data are mixed and matched until they seem to present fact and identity where none exists at all.

So consider this a friendly reminder, dear reader, that everything you see in black and white isn’t always as simple and straightforward as, well, black and white. Take it from Newsweek in 1964.

Or better yet, take it from Lincoln himself, who purportedly once said: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.”

That one I'd like to believe. I really would.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Timeless Art of an Open Letter

“Way back in the 20^th century, when people led private lives and wrote personal letters and messages meant only for the eyes of the recipients…an open letter carried some weight.”

Linton Weeks

An Open Letter…About Open Letters

 

“A letter is an intimate thing; a whisper between two souls in a noisy world.”

 

Susan Marie

   poet and author

 

 

                                                   The Open Letter, as literary form, remains something of a contradiction and mystery, a throwback to an earlier time of artful writing and rhetoric. Under the guise of an intimate exchange, the open letter is actually intended to be read by a wide and public audience. When done well, it speaks at once to private lives and universal themes. Its roots go back to the Bible (e.g. the Apostle Paul's Letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon) and it shows itself today in the form of countless blogs and social media posts of virtually anyone with an internet connection. 

An open letter can express political anger and social angst about anyone and anything. It can also speak plainly of the most personal feelings of love (or yes, animosity) toward a mother, father, sibling or spouse.

To that end, my father, Clarence Stolt, penned such an open letter in February of 1963 while riding on a train back to his hometown in Wisconsin the day after his father died. It first appeared as a published piece in a church bulletin and shortly thereafter in the monthly newsletter for the Veterans Administration’s Milwaukee home office where he was employed his entire life.

Yes, I am clearly and unabashedly biased here, and indeed I have shared this letter publicly before, but there is something about its homespun eloquence that still draws me into that rolling railroad car fifty-plus years after my father wrote them. But more than that, I offer it here as a prime example, not to be forgotten, of the timeless art of the Open Letter.

 

An Open Letter to My Dad

The phone seemed to jingle a little more nervously than usual when Carol called at the office and said you had slept away peacefully.

It wasn't unexpected. We both put up a bold front in our last visit at the St. Paul V.A. Hospital 10 days ago, but inwardly we knew.  You made it clear that 85 was a lengthy life and you had no regrets in leaving.

I boarded the Hiawatha train the following day and found the quiet of a streamliner rolling northward an ideal place for reminiscing.  You had a full life, Dad. Coming over from Sweden in rugged pioneer tradition and starting a new life in northwestern Wisconsin was no easy task.  But it sure developed your initiative, independence and, best of all, the good old virtue of common sense which more than compensated for your meager schooling.  Never gave it much thought before but your working years must have been in excess of 60 years.  I don't think you were idle a day until you reached 75.  With limited means you saw that we three kids went to college, which is a splendid tribute to both you and Mother.  Remarkably good health blessed your life until that pesky hip accident. This, coupled with Mother's passing, dulled your zest for living a little, but you kept such thoughts pretty much to yourself.

Two old photographs come to mind.  The faded confirmation photo in which your eyes speak sheer devilment, and that picture of you in your Spanish-American war uniform displays a physique few servicemen boast today.  Not much fighting in that conflict, but those training camp conditions you mentioned on occasion didn't make me a bit envious.  Incidentally, I'm told you were the last of the Spanish-American vets in Pierce County.

By golly we had some great times together.  Those fishing trips on the St. Croix river:  (remember the time I cast your new rod into the depths of the Mississippi?); those leisurely car trips along Lake Pepin where as a youngster you did some commercial fishing; those trips to the Minnesota State Fair.  Oh yes, there were many more – the pheasant we snitched out of season; and how you enjoyed coming to Milwaukee to see the Braves perform.  Never could figure where you got the stamina to sit through those laborious doubleheaders.

Our Christmas gathering last December left the most pleasant memories.  You were feeling exceptionally chipper and I was amused by your comment that Kent Francis, my youngest, really warmed up to you on this visit.   I know how happy you were two years ago when he came along to carry on the family name.  Kent is a dynamic chap, a little too mischievous at times; I'm sure he takes after his "Gwam Pa."

Truthfully, Dad, I never heard anyone say a harsh word about you and my memory isn't good enough to recall all the compliments concerning the love, respect and help you gave your fellow man.  Typically, you never bothered to mention to me your recent generous gift to the local church.  You are certainly worthy of the Lord's promise: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard…the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him."

Thanks for everything, Dad. I know you are having a marvelous time now, and deservedly so (though I'd like to know how you explained about that pheasant incident). I won't say goodbye – just so long for a spell.

 

Sincerely,

Clarence

Neighbors

Remembering an Old Man and the Memory of a Lifetime

I’d like to think that old man did it for a reason, a good reason. That he moved on of his own free will, leaving behind no regrets and no explanations. Owing nothing to nobody. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all say that when it’s our time to go?

The setting was a pair of ground floor apartments in a converted duplex in Chicago, a tired old building in need of a paint job and more. It sat next to a cobblestone alley that back in the day could have been a good route for north side bootleggers, but had long since disappeared from civic prominence.

As a grad student new to the city, finding a decent room for rent quickly became a top priority. With only a few days until the beginning of the fall semester, I found the ad for a furnished two-room apartment in the local paper, and as far as I was concerned it couldn’t have been a better stroke of luck. Centrally located in the city, close to an El station for easy transportation downtown to school, the place was simple and affordable — two of the finest words a student can hear. And as if that wasn’t enough, when I first met the landlord he told me I had a quiet neighbor, an older gentleman who had lived there a long time and always kept to himself.

Good enough for me.

The first thing I noticed was the name on the man’s mailbox, directly below mine at the front of the building. ‘P. Stavrakis.’ it said in heavy black magic marker on a piece of old masking tape. So right away I knew his name. That was easy enough. And doubtless more than I needed to know about the man.

The way I figured it, if you lived out in the suburbs you gauged people more on what you see. Here in closer quarters one bases things more on what one hears. For instance, the old man must have had some working years left in him because five days a week I would hear him leaving right at 12:30 every afternoon, then coming home again at ten o’clock at night. Not likely an office job of any sort. 

We had tenant parking but every time he left the building I never heard an engine starting up. So I could assume he didn’t drive a car. And he had to be a loner. Never once did I hear a guest’s voice or a phone ring in that apartment across the hall. The only sounds I ever heard were the occasional muffled sounds of a television game show or the sizzling of meat on the stove.

To be fair, in those first days and weeks in the city I pretty much kept to myself, too. I didn’t know anyone and I tried my best to concentrate on school, allowing myself as few distractions as possible. It just so happened that one of those distractions came to be that old man next door.

I caught my first glimpse of him late one morning when I was getting ready to go to class. Through my window I saw someone coming down the alley carrying a bag of groceries. I stepped closer to the glass and peaked around the ugly blue curtains. With his stooped shoulders, traces of white hair and soft, careful gait he gave all the appearance of a man who didn’t want to be noticed. 

I say traces of white hair because he always wore a brown baseball cap low across his forehead, resting atop thick black-framed glasses that further hid his features. Call it urban camouflage.

I followed him till he slipped out of view. Seconds later I heard the creaking of floorboards coming down the hall, followed by the jingling of keys, the gentle opening and closing of the door, and then finally the sliding of the lock. That was his first greeting to me That was P. Stavrakis.

The next clue came a few nights later when I first heard the music. It was late on a Saturday night. I was lying on my couch reading when the faint streams of a melody slipped out from behind his door. It was a wistful, melancholy mix of strings and mandolins scratching out from what must have been an old phonograph player. Strange music. Music from the old country. No lyrics. Just the melody. 

And as I did an image came to mind: the man sitting there in a straight-backed chair, in his pants and white undershirt, maybe a drink in his hand, listening and remembering happier times, times long gone. And the only reason I could think of that a man would play music like that — a woman. Definitely a woman. Who was she, and what happened to her? To know her story would be to know a big part of his.

I tried to keep reading, but after a few minutes it was hopeless. I put my book down, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and turned out the light. There in the soft glow of a streetlamp I leaned back and together we listened to the music.                                                                                    A few days later I was coming home from class; it was raining lightly so I was walking a little quicker between the El station and my apartment. I slowed down long enough to grab my mail and bring it inside, throwing down what there was of it without looking at it right away. When I did get around to going through it I noticed a cream-colored letter addressed in a woman’s fine hand to Mr. Pietr Stavrakis. 

The letter was postmarked five days earlier, from Albania of all places, with some funky-looking stamps commemorating that country and the sovereign reign of King Konstantin. No return name or address given. Seeing the obvious mistake, my first thought was to go back and put the letter in his mailbox. What the hell business was it of mine?

But holding that parchment-like envelope in my hand got my imagination going. What if it was a love letter? Long ago lost but recently found? Maybe from the woman behind that sad music? Or maybe a relative with impending news. Bad news from a son or daughter. Whoever it was from, it had to be something important, coming all the way from Albania.

I could put it back in his mailbox, or I could go out into the hall and slip it under his door. He might appreciate that. A neighborly gesture. Then again, he might wonder who was handling his personal mail. Either way, I had to do something. It was late afternoon and he might be coming home any minute. I decided to slip it under the door.

I swear, the floorboards creaked louder than ever when I stepped into the hallway. What if he was home? What if he heard me and suddenly opened his door? What would I say? Damn, should I knock or just leave the letter on the floor? I leaned my ear up to the door. Not a sound, though I could definitely smell something, a sour cabbage-like smell that seemed to saturate the wood. Last night’s dinner? More like every dinner from every night of the last how many years.

I left it there under his door and quickly went back to my room.

It wasn’t until later that night that I heard him coming down the hall, followed by the jingling of his keys and the opening and closing of his door. After waiting a few seconds I peeked out and saw that he had picked up the letter. 

All was quiet over there for a minute or two until I heard glass shattering on the floor. It was enough to make me jump. My first thought was to run over and see if he was all right. But something held me back. It wasn’t long before he started playing the music again. It sounded even sadder than before. And he kept playing it all night long.

The next morning, a Friday as I recall, was bright, cool and clear — a first taste of autumn in the air. I was on my way to catch the El when I looked up and saw coming toward me on the sidewalk none other than Pietr Stavrakis. He was wearing the baseball cap again and his hands were buried in the pockets of his well-worn overcoat. Did he recognize me? Should I say something? Did he even know I was his next neighbor?

Right as we passed one another our eyes briefly met. Neither of us said a word. As I reached the end of the street, about to turn the corner, I stole a quick glance back at him but he was already gone.

A few weeks later I went home to Wisconsin for the weekend, and when I returned Monday morning I grabbed my mail, looking it over carefully this time to see that it was indeed my mail, and entered the building. I was coming down the hall when I saw my neighbor’s door wide open. That was strange. 

I slowed down, a little afraid of what I might see. Inside was nothing but bare cupboards and blank walls. A curtain fluttered at the open window. I cautiously stepped over the linoleum threshold to get a closer look. The old appliances and furniture were still in place, but it felt as cold and empty as a midnight bus stop. 

Despite the open window and the fresh scent of air freshener, I could still catch that peculiar smell — probably the only thing he did leave behind.

The landlord startled me when he came up behind me carrying a mop and pail. Stepping out of his way I asked what had happened. The landlord shrugged, saying matter-of-factly that the old man left him a note last week saying he was leaving. Along with the note was enough cash to cover the last two weeks of the month. 

Apparently, Mr. Stavrakis never had a lease and always paid cash for his room and board. And now just like that, he was gone. I asked the landlord if anything bad had happened. Did he know why the old man left? He shook his head, stepped into the empty apartment and closed the door behind him. End of discussion.

For days afterward, I wanted to sneak in and scour the place for any clue Pietr Stavrakis might have left behind — anything that would tell me something about who this man was. But like I said, he didn’t owe anyone any explanations, least of all me.

Years later it’s one of those memories I can’t let go of for some reason. The memory of an old man who by happenstance once lived under the same roof as me; a man who stayed a while and then slipped out quietly with no one giving it a second thought.

Well, almost no one.

 

           

                       

-end-