Losing Walter

A knocking came. So early in the morning, I had yet to prepare my day with caffeine. The officer waiting in the hallway of my apartment building looked irritated through the peephole of my front door. I wasn’t going to answer it, obsessing over the elixir I desperately wanted to ingest. She, had no intention of waiting, for her fist pounded on my door with the weight of her position.

“ I can hear you inside Mr. Browning, please answer the door sir, it’s regarding Walter Awls.”

A rawness played with my insides, something was off and morbid thoughts slithered into my mind. I unlocked the door, opened it and looked at her through bed crusted eyes, keeping my distance in fear of my morning drenched breath.

“ So sorry officer, I am not sure of the time right now. Please come in.”

I let her in and another uniform appeared from out of the darkened hallway holding what seemed to be a saddle bag from off of a motorcycle. The door closed behind us and I followed my surprise guests into my kitchen. The kitchen, an open concept with an island for eating, equipped with bar stools for comfort. Each cop grabbed a seat and I continued my morning routine.

“ We are so sorry to disturb you this early Mr. Browning...” The female cop started, with a look of gloom on her young face.

“Please call me Tyson” I blurted out, as I held down the button of my french press. My tone displaying the impatience I felt for the liquid gold I was preparing.

“Mr Browning, sir, we have some bad news.” The other cop continued. “Mr Awls passed this morning at 3:44, And you were listed as his next of kin. This was left for you, it was amongst his items left in tent city.”

Walter Awls, a man I had come to know over the years, from my work in the soup kitchen not too far from my apartment. I wasn’t an upright citizen or anything, I only chose to give up my time for the girl I had fallen in love with as a child. Strange thing to do, I know, but I hadn’t seen her since we were careening towards prepubescents, and I had no idea how to approach the situation. So after weeks of walking by her work and mustering the strength to say hi, I finally gained the stones and walked in. Although I knew her right away, she only saw a stranger. Desperate to change that, I applied for a job instead, choosing not to mention how we had known one another.

Half a year later we had become good friends, me never admitting to our collective past. Yet every day I fell deeper in love with her and her button nose. Her nose, the item on her face that never changed. The very reason why my love was inspired, her perfectly strange but cute bulbous nose, who's nostrils would flare whenever she was focused on a task.

The day I broke down admitting my feelings and our childhood, was the day I met Walter. Walter found me in the ally behind the Soup Kitchen, hidden amongst the cardboard, pretending to organize the boxes for recycling as I cried broken hearted. He listened as I wailed about my unfortunate reality, never shamming me or my perspective. When the tears slowed and my consciousness came back from the dark, he lovingly reminded me on how important it was that I tried. That so many don’t, including himself. Mr. Awls told me he was proud of me and I cried once more, not out of sadness but out of joy.

What Walter did not know, is that I never had a father. Only the random men that found joy in my mothers arms, infrequent as that was. She was a loving and beautiful woman, who may have been a bit too fat, or a bit too black for some. She loved me with her whole heart and I had missed her so much in that moment. His unruly hair and meticulously coifed beard gave him an air of dignity that was only heightened by the worn out evergreen corduroy suit he adorned himself in. I found myself wishing my mom was still alive to meet such a man. We had ended up spending the rest of the evening in that alleyway talking about our lives. Walter about his reason for leaving the stock market in the mid 80’s and why he found most people tough to love. I about my years without parents, losing my mom at 15 and having to support myself in fear of getting lost in the system. I may had lost my childhood crush that day, but I had gained a father instead, of that I was certain.

My heart was filled with the connection I had to Walter, a heart now shattered by this news. He wasn’t much of a fan of the human experience, but chose to stay because of the moments we had shared. Although my hearts desire left the soup kitchen shortly after my exposure, I stayed on for Walter and enjoyed three more years of his fellowship. His last days on earth were spent half in my company, half in the cold embrace of the streets of Toronto, chasing troublesome habits that dimmed his loneliness. Holding back my anguish I looked at the cops expecting a lecture, instead they both shared their sympathies with me. The male cop turned to grab something off the floor, and presented a bag that looked like nothing Mr.Walter Awls had ever owned.

From the now obvious motorcycle bag, the cop pulled out a sealed manilla envelope addressed to me. Fireworks of nerves still churning my insides as I opened it and reached inside. Along with what I assumed to be his last will and testiment, was a Moleskine notebook in black. The edges were slightly curled with smaller pieces of coloured paper peaking throughout it, the elastic band slightly frayed from over use. I had seen Walter holding this book, in fact, I had noticed he hardly ever putting it down. It was the map to his treasure, a treasure I thought was a fantasy woven by self medication. $20,000.00 in bonds, stolen from the firm he had left in 1984.

My devastation must have been obvious, because the cops looked at one another while getting off the barstools in my kitchen and awkwardly shared their condolences. They couldn’t seem to leave my space fast enough, taking great strides to the entrance of my apartment. I jogged to my front door to open it for them. The cops focused on the aperture to the elevator at the end of the hallway, now illuminated by the rising sun. I waved to them from my door then closed and locked it. Alone once more to acquiesce to the mood of the day, tears sleepily falling from my eyes.

I walked back to the kitchen, poured myself a steamy cup, grabbed the envelope and Moleskine notebook from off the bar, then shuffled off to my bedroom. Today maybe best celebrated from my bed I thought, and crawled back into the plush comfort after placing the most important tools for my future on the bedside table.