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  Wine With Charlie

  A romantic short story

  by Brandon Zenner

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to events or persons, living, dead, or fictitious are purely coincidental. No parts of this work may be reproduced without written consent of the author.

  Copyright © 2014 Brandon Zenner

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design: James, gowriteon.com

  Wine With Charlie

  Being a loner was something Charlie prided himself on. Men his age, he thought, should thrive being alone, should look forward to quiet nights and mornings spent sleeping in.

  Lately, however, Charlie’s solemnity was taking an unexpected turn.

  It started three days ago, when he was walking home from the corner store—despite his daughter’s constant protests over him walking alone.

  Charlie felt that if the law declared he could no longer drive, that his eyesight—even with his glasses—wasn’t what it used to be, he would never give in to having someone cart him around in a taxicab. He was fine walking to the store. Fine indeed. And he didn’t need that daughter of his telling him any different.

  When was it, exactly, that she started telling me what to do? When did that girl decide she was older than me?

  It wasn’t that long ago that he was changing her diapers, and walking her to school. At least to him it seemed like only yesterday.

  The nerve of her!

  Three days ago, when Charlie was leaving the corner store with his small bag of groceries in one hand and his mahogany cane in the other, some kid—some punk with a thin lipped grin—started yapping his lips at him.

  “Hey, Charles, my man!”

  Who the hell . . .

  The kid put his hand out to shake; only his arm was wide, so it was more of a hand slap than a proper shake . . . something Charlie did not appreciate.

  “Yes?” Charlie asked. “What do you want?”

  “Hey look,” the kid shouted to a group of delinquents standing around the corner of the store. “It’s Charles, guys. Take a look.” A young girl with blonde hair, skinny as a rail, came to the boy’s side. “Hi, Charlie!” she shouted, over pronouncing each word, as if he were senile.

  I’m not deaf.

  The kids, all about sixteen years old and hiding around the corner of the store to smoke cigarettes, looked his way.

  “Charles!” they said, in happy tones.

  Punks.

  “My name is Charlie, not Charles. Now, if you would please excuse me!”

  “No doubt, Charlie. No doubt.” The boy was smiling, like . . . admiration, maybe? Or something else. Charlie wasn’t interested to find out. Maybe they knew his granddaughter, Madeline, although she was maybe ten years older than them.

  Charlie moved on, albeit slowly, feeling the uneven pavement with his cane. He’d noticed the boy’s pants were wide and long, and draped down over his feet. The cuffs of his jeans were torn and muddy from where the boy had been stepping on them. Charlie didn’t agree with the way most men dressed these days, let alone young boys. He believed that men—real men—should dress the way men were supposed to dress, and not succumb to silly tee-shirts and torn jeans. There was nothing wrong with a button down shirt, creased pants, and clean shoes—not sneakers. Shoes. That’s the way real men dressed. They should have some class, some dignity. That’s the way Charlie was raised, and his father before him. But he knew his generation was growing smaller by the day, and his way of life was becoming a minority.

  Charlie shook his head. Stupid kids, he thought. How the hell did they know my name?

  The same thing happened the next day, when he was out for his afternoon walk, only it was a different set of kids this time. They were maybe twenty years old, maybe older. He soured his face at them, angry that they tore him away from listening to the birds.

  “Ha!” one kid said, not seeming to be take him seriously. “You’re cool as shit, old man.”

  How about I wallop you with this cane? How cool would that be?

  “How do you know me?” Charlie demanded, pointing his cane at the kids.

  “You’re famous, man, a local celebrity!”

  “What’s that?”

  The kids shook their heads, walking away. “Nothing, man,” they said.

  And now, today, on his way home from the grocery store, the same kid with the torn jeans was loafing about, smoking again. The boy waved and smiled.

  “It’s Charles, guys!”

  Charlie didn’t reply.

  Just ignore them, Charlie, ignore them. These kids think it’s funny to play jokes on old folks . . . the nerve!

  Charlie was walking up the steps of his porch as he heard his phone ringing inside. There was no way he would get there in time. Madeline bought him a cell phone once, but when Charlie found out that the stupid thing was made for the elderly, with extra large buttons and no features whatsoever, Charlie put it in a drawer and never looked at it again.

  Madeline asked him a week later, “Poppa, where’s the phone I bought you? I’ve been calling you all day.”

  “I lost it, Maddie. And what’s wrong with the phone I’ve got?”

  She wasn’t about to argue with him, or explain that she’d signed a contract for the phone. Her poppa liked things the way they were, and he wasn’t about to change his ways now. She would just have to continue calling his landline—the same landline, the same number, he’d had since before she was born.

  The walk home had warmed Charlie up, and when he got inside he loosened the buttons of his shirt and dropped his suspenders to sway at his knees. He listened to the message Maddie had just left for him.

  “Hi, Poppa! Just calling to check in.” Her voice sounded tense. “Just wondering what’s new. Anything new?” Prodding, even.

  He’d call her back, later.

  His shirt was nearly off when he looked at the clock and saw it was almost three in the afternoon.

  I’m late!

  Quickly, he buttoned his shirt back up, and slid the suspenders over his shoulders. He grabbed the bottle of wine he had just bought at the store, and made his way to the back porch.

  Outside, he yawned and stretched, making audible groans. He sat in the chair closest to the neighbor’s fence, where Vera had just come outside to tend to her rose bushes and tomato plants.

  She looked up at him, her eyes hazy with sweat. “Hi Charlie,” she said, waving her gloved hand.

  Charlie feigned surprise. “Vera! Tending to the garden I see.” Vera tended to her garden at two o’clock, every day. And Charlie joined her a half hour later, every day. Except those days when it rained. Those days were the worst. He would look out the blinds from time to time, checking to see if the sky was going to brake, or if Vera had decided to brave the rain and go outside—which she never did, and he was probably better off that she didn’t, because Charlie would follow her outside, rain or shine, and could easily get sick.

  Vera gave him a knowing smile. “What kind of wine did you bring today?”

  “Oh this?” He pretended to read the label, adjusting his glasses. The lettering was far to small for him to see. “Just a little something I picked up. You have a glass with you?”

  Vera nodded. She’d brought a water glass for that very reason, her late afternoon glass of wine with Charlie. Slowly, she stood on unsteady legs, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Age and years were taking their toll. After a moment she got her glass, dumped the water, and walked over to the low fence that divided their properties. Charlie met her, and poured the wine.

  It was the highlight of his day—every day; the small amount of time he spent talking to Vera, his neighbor for almost five years. She lived alone, only moving into the small house after
her husband passed away. Her husband, Charlie reminded himself, would have been about his own age. He tried not to dwell on that thought.

  “How was your day, Charlie?” Vera was wearing an old silver necklace, with a brooch.

  He smiled, and told her about his walk into town, which was about the only thing he had to offer in recent events. It was fine, however, because Vera liked listening to him, and if the sound of the birds was the only thing they had to talk about, then it was all the conversation they would ever need.

  But they talked about so much more than just birds: they talked about music, about Beethoven and Franz Schubert, food and wine, traveling, their children; they talked about the world.

  On this particular day, Charlie decided to tell her about his recent uncalled for fame.

  “It’s strange, Vera. These kids know my name. They called me Charles, like they’ve known me my entire life.”

  “It’s because of the video, Charlie.” She smiled, then instantly frowned, wishing she could take back her words.

  “What video?”

  She gulped.

  He hasn’t seen it. Oh, Vera, what have you done? Oh course he doesn’t know about the video, he doesn’t have a computer. Christ, he doesn’t even have a cell phone.

  It was Vera’s son who had shown her the video. She did own a computer, but going online wasn’t something she often did. At least, she wasn’t on the sites that her son showed her: video-something-or-other.com.

  “Charlie . . . it’s nothing, really.” She sipped her glass of wine and felt her cheeks turn red.

  “A video? What video?”

  “It’s . . .” She took another