kolmanlit
Old Man
"Run for cover.
They're shooting.
Bullets are flying,"
the old man at 275 Decatur street yelled.
He opened his door
in his soiled gray pants
and red and blue plaid shirt,
to no one there,
missing the eleven-year-old boy,
who just knocked hard
and ran off.
"I heard a sad refrain
whispering my name."
The boy did not like being chased
so often while playing on the sidewalk
near the old man's house.
Next week he bangs on the old man's door again.
A week later the same.
He wonders if the boy
is part of the "criminal element that's taking over."
Nowadays.
There's something wrong in life.
A boy bothering me at my door? he thinks.
"There'll be hell to pay
when I catch him," he says,
in the grocery store.
One day,
the old man put on
a pair of black pants
and his army boots,
ready to catch him at the door.
No one came.
He stood there for three hours.
"There's a bad criminal element
around here," he says to a neighbor.
After another week passes,
he decides the boy isn't so bad after all.
Bad stories from a town getting gloomy.
The old man was not hallucinating.
They're shooting.
Bullets are flying,"
the old man at 275 Decatur street yelled.
He opened his door
in his soiled gray pants
and red and blue plaid shirt,
to no one there,
missing the eleven-year-old boy,
who just knocked hard
and ran off.
"I heard a sad refrain
whispering my name."
The boy did not like being chased
so often while playing on the sidewalk
near the old man's house.
Next week he bangs on the old man's door again.
A week later the same.
He wonders if the boy
is part of the "criminal element that's taking over."
Nowadays.
There's something wrong in life.
A boy bothering me at my door? he thinks.
"There'll be hell to pay
when I catch him," he says,
in the grocery store.
One day,
the old man put on
a pair of black pants
and his army boots,
ready to catch him at the door.
No one came.
He stood there for three hours.
"There's a bad criminal element
around here," he says to a neighbor.
After another week passes,
he decides the boy isn't so bad after all.
Bad stories from a town getting gloomy.
The old man was not hallucinating.
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Old Man
Old Man
