Hey!

“Hey!” came a jovial voice from behind.

I was in the process of taking the laundry out of the dryer; bent over to pull the clothes from the machine sitting on the ground. I turned to look in the direction of the voice and saw an old man standing in the doorway. He was tall—over six feet—and mostly bald. He was wearing plaid pajama pants, a dirty old tee shirt, and a green windbreaker jacket. He had thin, old glasses that looked like they could snap at any moment. His eyes were wide, though droopy. He looked for some reason happy to see me.

“Uhh…hey,” I responded, quickly turning to finish pulling my clothes from the dryer. When I’d finished, I glanced back around, over my shoulder. He was gone.

I saw him again a little later that same day. As I was coming back in from my evening run, he was standing outside the door of his apartment.

“Hey!” he again said.

That’s what I think he said, at least; I’m not completely sure because I had my earphones in. Beat on the Brat by Ramones muffled any sound attempting entry from the world outside my thoughts. He looked cheerful, though. He raised his hand up to wave as I put my head down and walked by.

Opening the door to the stairwell, I turned back slightly and looked in my periphery to where he had been standing. He was no longer there, but I could see the door to his apartment closing. He lived in apartment 1B.

In the following weeks, I saw that elderly man patrolling the halls of the complex with awkward regularity. Seemingly every time I was doing laundry, or coming in from a run, or coming back from work, I saw him walking—either pacing the hallways or limping around the parking lot outside. His gait was more of a waddle than a true walk. He clearly preferred his left leg to his right. He would place all of his pressure on his left side, and then, like a compass drawing out a circle, swing his right side around to take the next step. Then, by quickly dragging his left foot along the ground, he would avert his weight from his weaker right side back to his left.

I always assumed he was just getting in his exercise; walking as many steps as he could each day without getting too far from his apartment. Most gyms were closed thanks to the pandemic, anyway; not that he seemed like the gym-going type—he didn’t. He struggled enough merely limping out his door.

I had the hunch that he may have just been lonely, and he walked the hallways and parking lots hoping to find someone he could talk to. This idea was partially confirmed one afternoon when I witnessed an encounter he had with another tenet of the apartment complex and the UPS driver delivering a package to her. I was standing out on my apartment balcony, which overlooked the parking lot, and saw him shuffling over to the front entrance, where she was signing some paperwork, scribbling away as if in a hurry.

“Hey!” he said.

The both of them ignored him; ostensibly not even recognizing he was there. He still looked as happy as ever.

“Hey!” he said again, continuing to stand at conversational length from the woman and the delivery driver. They were going on about some typical topic of small talk; the unseasonably warm weather, I think. Their voices were muffled by masks; they probably couldn’t even hear most of what the other was saying.

The old man didn’t care, though. He probably didn’t even care whether any of them could understand each other or not, so long as there was a conversation to participate in. He never became discouraged. He looked as contented as ever. Eventually, after the woman walked back inside and the delivery driver sped away, he turned and walked back out into the parking lot, where a car was coming in at a pace much greater than responsible parking lot speed.

The wind, which was gusting feverishly, whipped at the back of the old man, lashing his green windbreaker and pushing him further out into the lot. He didn’t notice, or at least he didn’t seem to mind. He fumbled, caught himself, and then stood staring vacantly, though happily, upward into the glaring sun. His eyeballs must have been searing like a couple pork-chops on a cast-iron skillet.

The car didn’t slow its pace. It drove right past the old man, only avoiding clipping him by mere centimeters. It continued to its parking space, slamming on the brakes and abruptly stopping the vehicle. The loud music coming from within, which was clearly The Hardest Button to Button by White Stripes, stopped. The door opened a second later and the young man formerly behind the wheel stumbled nonchalantly to the front door of the apartment complex.

“Hey!” I screamed down at him from the balcony. He looked up, startled.

“Hey!” I needlessly repeated. “What the hell are you doing? You almost killed him!” I was pointing at the old man, who was still standing in the middle of the lot.

The young man looked to where I was pointing and stared for a couple seconds. He then looked back up to me:

“Uhhh…what?” He said.

“You heard me, you bastard! You could have fucking killed him!”

The man once again looked to where I’d been pointing, staring confusedly. He then looked back to me:

“You’re fuckin’ with me, man!” He said, “That’s not cool!”

He started giggling like a nervous child. He was stoned off his ass. High as balls.

“You’re fuckin’ with me, man!” He repeated as he shuffled to the door. He was gone before I could throw any more vulgarities his way.

The old man was still standing in the middle of the parking lot, completely unaware of what was going on. He eventually turned and looked up to me, waving:

“Hey!” He said.

He then put his head down and walked back inside.

I continued to see the old man fairly often; always either patrolling the bottom floor hallway or circumnavigating the parking lot. He always had only that one word to say. He was always in a good mood.

A few weeks later, as I was once again doing my laundry, I ran into the landlady as I was leaving the laundry room.

“Hey!” she said, “How’s it goin’?”

“Not too bad.” I replied, “Just doing the weekly chores.”

“I hear that!” she said, “Sunday fun day, am I right? Whoever coined that phrase was full of shit.”

“That’s a fact.” I concluded.

I ran into her again as I was later heading back down the stairs to retrieve my finished laundry.

“Hello again!” she said, “We’re bumping into each other a lot today.”

“Yep.” I responded.

I walked past her toward the laundry room, but before pushing open the heavy, swinging laundry room door, I turned and blurted a question:

“Who lives in apartment 1B?”

“Uhhh…what?” she responded.

“Who lives in apartment 1B; that one right there?” I pointed at the old man’s door.

“Well, first of all, she began,” I can’t tell you the names of the people who live in each apartment. You’ll have to ask them yourself if you’re curious. But in the case of that particular apartment, it doesn’t much matter—the place is empty. It’s been empty for about six months now.”

I stared blankly in disbelief.

“What?” I said finally, “…what about the old man that lives there?”

She tapped her foot on the floor a few times, as if to aid to her memory—the wrinkles in her forehead scrunching together in thoughtful strain—and then said:

“…Ooooooh! You mean Mr. Wilson! No, he’s not there anymore. He unfortunately passed away about six months ago.”

“…Oh,” I finally responded.

It was all I could manage to say.

I stared ahead, for some time, in a detached daze. Eventually, the landlady smiled, as if to signal her departure. Before she walked away, however, the door to 1B opened.

“Hey!” said Mr. Wilson.

End