Isaac is Dead

  We were at our gym working out as I noticed the front clerk, Natalie, had come in haste to fetch several of the trainers who were clustered near us talking. I couldn’t hear what she said, but they reacted with a determination that is hard to miss once you’ve been exposed to emergency situations.  At first I thought they were enlisted to help manage a disagreeable customer at the counter.  Another trainer sensed an issue brewing and began walking briskly to intercept the growing group; Natalie waved him off, so he returned to his student in the far back of the facility.  The sudden activity drew our attention.  Montse took up a ruse to go towards the women’s bathroom in order to over head any conversations, but for naught.  There was no impending commotion; no loud voices during struggling for dominance; soon we lost interest and returned to our routine. 

  Sarah, a woman we have a nodding acquaintance with, walked up to us saying, “Isn’t it terrible about Isaac?”

We both looked at her blankly, as if to say, who is Isaac?  She used clues to orient us; older black fellow, short mustache; drove a red Cadillac; it was the Cadillac that captured my recognition; ah, yes we knew who she was talking about.  We noticed he always seemed to be chewing on something, so we somehow dubbed him Donald Duck. We never heard him called by name, nor did we have reason to talk with him, so our nick name suited the two of us.  Sarah went on to mention he had gone into the hospital for a routine follow up from recent heart surgery he had months before; but he didn’t make it.  She also mentioned he was in his seventies, then, abruptly left us ~ most likely to spread the news.

  I didn’t know the man, as I mentioned, I had to translate physical clues into identifying who it was this Isaac was.  As we continued to do our assigned routines, the small voice in my head kept saying,

   “Isaac is dead, Isaac is dead.” I couldn’t tell you why.

  Montse mentioned after a few minutes that she couldn’t get her mind off of Isaac’s death, that she suddenly connected hearing one of the men called to the front desk exclaiming “No.” She added, it must have been Willie because he and Isaac were always seen deep in conversation throughout our visits. We continued our work out, but the topic wouldn’t leave me alone.  I was reminded of the time while in the Army when I was appointed the task of being a Survey Officer.  It was a task of packing up all of the personal belongings of a soldier who had been killed in an auto accident.  My single purpose was to sanitize what was being sent back to his family, purging out anything that would cast a poor light on the victim; things like pornographic magazines or photos that may very well been treasured by the deceased but would invariable tarnish an affectionate memory of their lost intimate; I thought that wise of the military to have such a policy.  What I had not counted on was how, in that process, I would grow to get a glimpse of the person who owned all that stuff; it was inevitable.  Yes, I felt a bit like a voyeur as I skimmed the personal letters and rifled through his junk drawer of little keepsakes.  Tokens from arcades; plastic characters from fairs or amusement parks; spent movie tickets, the like.  I must admit I never actually met the young man who had perished, yet even after more than twenty years I can recall his name; Andrew Jones.  That, and  when I close my eyes I can see the photo of him smiling at the camera with his arm around his girlfriend ~ she in a formal gown, him in his dress Army uniform with the sky blue background accent to his shiny brass branch insignia of crossed rifles.  He looked proud of his accomplishment; she looked even prouder. I was saddened at the loss of potential back then, as I am even now.  But as for Isaac, he had lived seventy odd years; I did the mental math, and that would have meant he was born near the end of World War II.  A lot of history had happened since then; particularly for the black culture.  I remember he had a weathered quality to him; he had lived hard, to project an almost threatening countenance to look at.  I soon learned nothing could be further from the truth. Many at our gym had spoken to him; held him in high regard; even spoke of him affectionately.  I wouldn’t know, I never spoke to him. In the echo of “Isaac is dead.”

  Montse told me she continued to have the odd feeling of a low level sense of loss; she figured it was because she knew of him, and now he was gone.  I agreed.  It was like seeing a familiar sconce in the hallway of your family home.  Feeling with certainty it had been there your entire growing years; even remember special events like hanging silver tinsel on it during the holidays.  Then, one day, it was gone; and so was the anchor to comfort in knowing the surroundings making up the predictable world of the past; projecting a poorly construed assurance to defeat any change that might somehow challenge the ease of predicting the future. It happened suddenly and without warning; like the loss of Isaac.  What else was about to pounce out of the unknown with fangs to rip apart a well constructed delusion prevailing control over ones personal future?  Maybe that’s the collective ill at ease visitation a death commands; a wakeup call to a perchance towards delusional indulgences.  Does anyone honestly think they know what tomorrow will hold?  Heck how arrogant to not even pay attention in the here-and-now.  I coast, and I’d bet with certainty everyone around me does the same.  We’re posed to react to change that is rude enough to startle us into confrontation.  Most times we’re adept at sidestepping upset; sometimes not so much.  Yet the point of the evidence is that we’re more successful at avoidance, so why modify behavior or strategy of surviving moment to moment; until it’s our turn to get off the tour bus, then it’s far too late.  That’s when each of us gets to face an entirely unmapped adventure.  I pondered on all the housekeeping tasks for Isaac’s remaining kin; selling or giving away his stuff. What to do with the Cadillac now that he doesn’t need it?  I wasn’t all that certain I was going to write about this.  Somehow his change and mine are linked.  The story I tell, is consistently from my point of view; this time it includes Isaac, if only as a footnote to a point I wish to make.  I sometimes anguish to consider the notion that my story will go unsung.  Then too, I often anguish deeper to realize the countless millions of stories that have gone mostly ignored.