Gryphon: New and Selected Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

As it was, he worked in a bank, and never talked about exactly what he did there. “It’s boring,” he would say. “You don’t want to hear about it.” Margaret agreed; she didn’t. Only toward the end had he raged against the nature of his work. But he didn’t shout at Margaret; he told the trees. He told them how money had gobbled up his life. He talked about waste and cash, and he wept into his hands. Margaret watched him from the kitchen window. She watched him as he lost his memory and began to give names to the trees: Esther, Jonas, Ezekiel, Isaiah. He told Margaret that trees should have serious, adult names. For eighteen months now, he had confused the names of his trees with the names of his children. He wanted his trees to come visit him in the home. “Bring in Esther,” he would say. “I want to see her.”
    Because of this, Margaret no longer gazed at trunks, branches, or leaves with any special pleasure.
    She remembered where to get off the bus and was about to go into the residence when she realized that she had no anniversary present. She stood motionless on the sidewalk. “He won’t remember,” she said aloud. “What’s the difference?” She waited a moment and found that she disagreed with her own assessment. “It does make a difference. He’ll think I’m making it up if I don’t bring him something.” She looked around. At the corner there was a small grocery store with a large red Coca-Cola sign over its door. “I’ll go down there,” she said.
    The store was darker than it should have been and was crowded with confusing teenagers. Margaret found herself looking at peanut-butter labels and long rows of lunch meat. Then she was in front of the cash register, holding two Hershey bars. “I’ll buy these,” she said to the coarsegirl with the brown ponytail and the pimples. She was already far down the street when she realized that she hadn’t waited for change, or a bag to put the chocolate in. It was the first time she had given him a present she hadn’t wrapped.
    Holding the candy bars and her purse in one hand, she opened the large front door of the First Christian Residence with the other. This was the worst moment, because of the smell. Margaret knew that oldsters couldn’t always keep themselves clean and tidy, but their smell offended her nevertheless. Just inside, a man with wild hair and a bruise on his forehead, whose eyes were an angelic blue, smiled at her and followed her in his wheelchair as she walked to the elevator. A yellow Have-a-nice-day sticker, with a smiley face, was glued to the back of the chair.
    “Beautiful day, Margaret. Don’t you agree?”
    “Yes.” This man had been pestering her for months. He was forward, and looked at her with an old man’s dry yearning. “Yes,” she repeated, inside the elevator, as she pressed the button for the third floor, wanting the door to close. “It is indeed a nice day. You should get outside into the sunshine for some fresh air and vitamin D, instead of staying in here all the time.”
    He wheeled himself onto the elevator and turned around so he was next to her. “I stayed,” he said, “because I was hoping you’d come.” The elevator doors closed, at last. “I can still walk, you know. This chair is a convenience.”
    Margaret tried to sound chilly. “I’m going to see Horace, my husband. I don’t have time for you.”
    “Horace won’t miss you. His memory’s bad. He remembers the 1945 World Series better than he remembers you. Let’s go for a walk.”
    “No, thank you.” She remembered his name. “No, thank you, Mr. Bartlett.”
    “It’s Jim. Not ‘Mr. Bartlett.’ Jim.” He smiled. She noticed again his remarkable eyes. The numbers above the doors flashed. It was the slowest elevator she’d ever been on, slow to prevent shocks to the elderly.
    “This is my stop,” she said, backing out into the hallway once the doors opened. As they closed again, Mr. Bartlett leaned back in his