O'Manjo's Last Waltz

O'Manjo's Last Waltz

It was another long week, and I was looking forward to the usual summer rituals of mowing lawns and hammering a few nails into any place they seemed to fit. I usually closed the auto parts store at 5:30 and stayed doing paperwork for another hour or so, but not on Fridays. Fridays were the finish line of a usually marathon week of complaining customers and dissatisfied employees. At 5:31, the place would be empty, dark, and eager for an echo.

The old man knew this ritual, and when he came on Fridays, he usually blew in the door around 5:15. He had been coming in every week for about a year. We didn't know Joe's last name, we only knew him as "Old Man Joe." We call him "O'Mango," and he didn't seem to know the difference. His hearing was the least of his problems.

He peppered his weekly visits over different weekdays, but it was always Fridays that he waited until 5:15. He makes the usual remarks every time he sits his old, marshmallow behind down at the counter.

"Well, boy?" He'd ask. "What the hell are you looking at?"

"I'm looking at the ugliest, most disgusting, onriest son-of-a-bitch I've ever seen!" Was my usual reply.

"That's right, and don't forget it!" He would hold his dry, cracked hands in fists and shake them at me.

"Keep it up, boy, and I'll whoop your scrawny little but right here and now."

At some time in O'Mango's life, he was a prizefighter. His nose looked like it had taken more than its share of beatings, so I tended to believe the story. All the talk was, of course, our way of greeting each other. If he did intend to come after me, I'd most likely have him pushed out the door before he could get his oxygen tank over his shoulder.

O'Manjo didn't really need ...

... middle of paper ...

...opened. The neighbors didn't want money for them; they were just trying to sort things through, and knew Joe well enough to guess at our credit arrangement.

They said Joe died peacefully in his sleep, without pain. I wondered if he just laid in bed listening to that tape over and over like it was some kind of drug and he was a junky. This didn't seem wrong to me. At least I'd know that he died happy. I imagined him waking up in heaven wearing his best dance shoes, and bouncing across the ballroom floor.

There will always be another customer to fill Joe's stool and fire remarks at us, but none will replace Joe. When I think about it, I kind of feel guilty that he paid me ten dollars a month to be his friend. It was not a difficult job, but was merely human interaction that somehow becomes precious when it's lost.

I just pray O'Manjo got his money's worth.