A Strange, Strange Man

This story takes me back to 2016. It was an innocuous day in the summer wherein I made my almost daily visit to 7/11. This time I visited the one in midland park. On this particular day there was an old gentleman with a crutch asking people for a ride home. He really looked desperate and for some reason I decided “today is the day I’m gonna do something good.” Punch a hole in my good deed punchcard and all that jazz. So, I helped him into my 1990 Lexus LS 400, and we went to get something to eat first. There was a burger king down the street, so he offered to buy me lunch. I ordered a whopper jr. and he ordered the same thing. Once I helped him to his seat, I brought back napkins to which he hit me with a riddle: “Something is missing... I have this (a knife), and this (a straw), but I’m missing something else....” It took two wrong guesses of a spoon and more napkins before I figured he was talking about a fork. He congratulated me on my correct answer the only way a WWII vet could: “See, I knew you were a smart kid.” Anyway, after that pit stop, we headed back to his house, and he invited me upstairs. I asked him about his leg, and he said he got part of his calf shot off during the war. He mentioned killing someone else isn’t easy but when you’re in that environment it’s “him or me.” He then showed me a pile of books which his daughter illustrated. He had three daughters in fact, one of which was supposed to pick him up today, but she couldn’t because something had come up. Hence where I came in. He gave me a copy of the book and also offered me his lunch which was delivered daily. I declined the lunch but thanked him anyway. As I was heading to the door he asked, “can you come back tomorrow?” “Tomorrow??” I thought before answering “sure I’ll come back tomorrow.” Tomorrow, I go back bright and early and the one task he wants to get done is see his attorney a few blocks away. As I’m helping him down the steps of his apartment I ask: “did you sleep well?” to which he replies, “you mean sleep?” I thought that’s what I said but he points out I said “schleep” not “sleep.” After a few minutes of vocal training, I finally get it right and he said, “you’ll need to be able to speak right to get anywhere in this world.” We headed out to his attorney’s office. Apparently, he had some money owed to him that he never got. Once we get there and are in the attorney’s office he asks “...and who’s this?” to which he says “Oh this is my friend... His name is uhh” and he whispers over to me asking my name again. “Darren his name is Darren.” They go through the process and the attorney explains that he never filed the proper paperwork and other legal jargon. So, we leave the office unproductively and head back to his apartment. I helped him up the stairs and then bid him a farewell. I would’ve totally forgotten about this occurrence, but I found the book he gave me those years ago while packing up my stuff when my family were moving to a new apartment back in June.