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Just another face in the crowd. Just an old man on a bench. That was what they thought of him, the mindless passers-by only concerned with fillin’ their fancy bags and rushin’ around tryin’ to look important. As if any of that truly mattered. Webster Johnson waited for Death to come a-callin’. Until then, the whole world would pay for what happened to him.

The wooden bench bit into his back, forcin’ him upright, straight an’ proper. Lafayette Square Mall had just opened and was fairly deserted except for the elderly doing their mall laps. Webster hid his pain by hummin’ a few bars of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” Pain he knew, Lord help him, pain he knew. He had lived a long life, maybe longer than he oughten’ve. He’d face worse in the days to come. His felt fedora, gray like the belched waste of a smokestack, tilted on his head. A chestnut-colored corduroy jacket hung on him like a blanket on a scarecrow. His black slacks drew above his matching silken socks when he crossed his legs, revealing a few inches of his matchstick thin legs. His best steppin’-outs.

“I am tired. I am weak, I am worn,” he sang out loud until he caught himself.

He checked his watch.

Faded coal eyes brooded from behind broad, red-rimmed glasses. He received the glasses from the clinic. Ruthie thought them ridiculous and insisted that the only reason he took them was because the large bosomed nurse called them stylish.

“I don’t truss ‘em,” Ruthie said.

“That’s cause you always lookin’ for an underside.”

“Don’t you go makin’ light of it. I got precedent.”

“You can’t spell precedent. What you got is Tuskeegee paranoia.”

“When have they ever done anything fo’ us?”

It felt like a lifetime ago since they had jumped the broom. The clinic offered to pay for people to be a part of their study and in return receive free health care. She’d have been better off cleanin’ some white lady’s toilet. But the lure of money and free treatment proved too temptin’. He missed Ruthie, still feelin’ the phantom pain of her loss. The dreams of enjoyin’ his golden years with Ruthie exploded like bursting pustules. His eyes betrayed the melancholy about them.

The passers-by ignored the old man on a bench.

The buttery scent of popcorn from the movie theater drifted down the corridor to mingle overhead with the enticing smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls from the food court. Not that it mattered: Webster lost his appetite weeks ago. He realized that he neared the end. Almost ten pounds lost this past week. He would do anything for a slice of Ruthie’s sweet potato pie. Only his momma made better. “Everybody’s momma always made better,” Ruthie often scolded.

With a dapper snap of his wrist, despite the bulky gloves he wore in the warm mall entranceway, he produced a handkerchief from his jacket pocket. He dabbed his sweaty forehead. A phlegmy cough escaped him with a shudder, though not quick enough to prevent him from covering his mouth. He examined his handkerchief. Bad blood, they called it. Maybe he caught it by frolickin’ too much, before Ruthie, and it crawled up inside of him and slept for years. Now it woke up, but they knew how to treat it. That was the lie that the sweet talkin’ doctors told him. Different years, same credentials: ‘I voted for (Roosevelt. Kennedy. Clinton.)’ ‘We only want to make you and your people well. We do. You do. The government does.’

They sure got a good one when they found ol’ Uncle Webby.

A face in the crowd recognized him and came toward him. Webster’s legs fell lax against the bench. His hands folded neatly in front of him. He never had much in life, but even if you were dirt po’, you had your pride. His parents instilled that in him, but he was from a different time. Now was the time of baggy pants clingin’ to exposed boxers. He sucked his teeth in disgust. His joints ground together like poorly shiftin’ gears. His time was done.

He checked his watch.

The air grew ever more stifling’; only the opening of the seldom used mall entrance let fresh air in, like the mall was gasping for breath. He removed his glove to adjust his glasses. His long, gnarled nails were yellow and cracked, like overheated plastic. If he sat still enough, he believed he felt his death multiplying as the doctors’ poison pumped through his veins.

“Uncle Webby?” A voice asked from behind him. “Is that you old-timer?”

“You know me, son?” Webster stared at the approaching janitor. Only the neighborhood kids called him ‘Uncle Webby.’ He took care of the parks, when kids could still play in the parks.

“I’m Ronnie Jenkins.”

“Ronnie Jenkins. You Belinda Jenkins’ boy?” A pained recognition flashed in his eyes. “Been a long time since I seen you. What you doin’ with yourself?”

“I’m still ‘roun’ the way. Got a wife and a couple o’ shorties runnin’ ‘roun’ now. I heard ‘bout Ruthie. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you. I….” Webster hacked into his handkerchief. His eye caught a glimpse of blood in it before he balled it in his hand.

“You better take care o’ that cough, else you’ll be a reg’lar Typhoid Mary up in here.”

Webster released a rich, raspy laugh as he reared his head back. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“All right now, take care o’ yourself Uncle Webby.” Ronnie reached to shake his hand. Webster gripped the hand with a calm resignation. Ronnie waited a polite moment before checking his hand as if he’d been passed an electrical charge.

“Somethin’ the matter?” Webster asked.

“Jus’ feelin’ a little funny.”

“Maybe somethin’s goin’ ‘round.”

Webster inhaled through the stabbing pain, as if someone had wrapped barbed wire around his chest. Ruthie complained about that only hours before the end. The clinic, all they could afford, resisted recommending the hospital. They wanted to treat her. Track the disease was more like it. He heard the whispers. She had a virus, unnatural, ‘transgenic’, that mutated every third generation or so. It would make quite the weapon, especially if it could target specific groups. Not that Webster cared. He spent many a sleepless night at Ruthie’s bedside. In the end stages, she became highly contagious, they told him; it might pass by touch, maybe by air at that point. The doctors wanted him in isolation. He was fixin’ to move off by himself anyway. But after Ruthie, all he had left was his hate. No one noticed him slip from the clinic. He was just an old man. “Everyone had to bear their burden in the heat of the day,” Ruthie used to say, “each one had to do what the Lord gave them to do.”

He checked his watch.

Webster stood with the cramped stoop of arthritic-tinged joints and shuffled off before Death came down to seal his tired eyes.

Perhaps he had time to go sit at the airport.

Just another face in the crowd. Just an old man on a bench.

END

Maurice Broaddus, aka The Sinister Minister, graduated in 1993 from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology (with an undeclared major in English). He works as an environmental toxicologist for a local firm, Commonwealth Biomonitoring. He comes from a family that includes several practicing obeah (think: Jamaican voodoo) people, but is now the facilitator for the church “The Dwelling Place.” Obviously, his areas of interests includes religious studies, folklore, and myths. It should be noted that he only wants to get famous enough to be able to snub people at horror conventions. To that end, he has already started to practice referring to himself in the third person.

Maurice co-wrote the horror novella Orgy of Souls with Wrath James White, published by Apex Publication. Orgy of Souls is available in the Apex Store as a limited-run, signed hardback editor or a more cost-conscious trade paperback.