HE IS JUST SOME OLD MAN

     As was his habit on most fair-weather days the old man sat in an old wooden rocking chair on his front porch slowly rocking back and forth while looking but only half seeing all that passed before him in the street, in the yards of his neighborhood. Usually, he kept his right hand loosely balanced on top of an old wooden cane, rounded at the crest and the bottom tip resting on the floor with the left hand and forearm placed on the left arm of the chair with fingers idly tapping out some unknown beat that ran in the background of his thoughts. His feet covered in worn slip-on sneakers remained attached to the floor and transferring their energy into keeping the gentle rocking motion going. At times, he appeared as if sleeping with his eyes open. While at other times, he appeared to be staring absently into the scene before him.

     None of his neighbors knew the old man's name. To be quite frank, if they even noticed him, it was to say things like "There's that old man that always sits on his porch" or "That's one creepy old man" as they drove or walked quickly by. On the days when the porch went unoccupied, never a person raised a concern as to his welfare or wellbeing.

     Once a week a van was seen in his driveway with the sign "SOUTHSIDE GROCERS" on the door. The van brought groceries ordered by the old man through his phone. It was a service his daughter had arranged over the internet because she lived two states away. Three years previous, he wasn't sure, he had been forced to give up driving after a stroke had caused his right leg to quit working reliably and he had been involved in two minor accidents. A son lived on the opposite side of the country, and, with his busy family and career, had many excuses but no  time to visit. When doctor appointments came up, the old man called the senior center that offered free transportation to doctors and the Social Security office.

     The old man had lost his wife of sixty-one years four years previous. It was as if someone had cut out his soul, his heart, his will to live. Most of the thoughts running through his head as he sat on the porch were of her. He pictured her in his thoughts the very same way he pictured her up to the moment of her parting; she remained young and the most beautiful and kind-hearted person he had ever known. His memories flooded his mind with pictures of her walking beside him gently holding his hand, listening to his griping always taking his side, fretting over him when he worked too many hours or skipped meals, or all the other wonderful things this selfless woman did that made his world and that of others so much brighter. He missed her, but, through his faith, he knew someday they would be together in spirit.

     Once in awhile his thoughts played reruns of his wartime experiences when he had been called on to save the lives of his fellow soldiers like the time he had faced almost certain death when circumstances had forced him to run across fifty open yards to neutralize an enemy machine-gun nest that was wounding and killing many of his fellow soldiers. He remembered praying while running, "God, you know that I have complete faith and trust in you, but you are scaring me to death!" His good friend, who had exposed himself to the intense enemy fire to bravely help cover him while he ran zig-zagging toward the enemy position, asked him later who that person was running beside him the whole way? The old man remembered how shaken he was upon hearing this. He knew exactly who it was - my Lord - and his buddy never challenged him on this conclusion.

     The old man remembered fondly the time his wife greeted him upon his arrival home from work one day with the usual kiss and how was your day? But on this particular day she also carried an envelope in one hand, an envelope with no writing on it but sealed. When he took it from her, he immediately surmised it to be filled with cash - a great deal of cash. She looked at him with those somebody-needs-our-help eyes saying, "You know our neighbor, Frank Carter, has a new job starting next week, but he has been out of work for some time. Well, after much prodding, Helen told me today if they don't have a house payment in sometime tomorrow the bank is foreclosing, and I peeked in their refrigerator and cabinets when she was in the bathroom - there isn't any food. You know that could be us someday, and God..." He smiled when he recalled cutting her off by chiding her with, "Now, you already had me before you brought God into the mix. Give me that envelope and after dark, I'll sneak over and tape it to their door. Let me write on the envelope 'God hears our prayers'"  

     He and his wife had purchased this current home thirty five years ago when it and the neighborhood was new, pristine with neighbors that talked and helped one another and shouted out greetings or, at the very least, raised their hands to wave when they came upon or drove past one another. Over time, the homes had aged and those neighbors moved or even departed from this world. Naturally, the neighborhood along with its personal relationships began to die, too. The paint on the houses was no longer kept fresh or the lawns mowed regularly. Many homes became rental properties with families moving in or out having stayed only a short time with the opportunity never there nor the effort expended to get to know one another casually, much less personally. Few people had a stake in ownership or pride, and the ones that had ownership showed little pride in themselves and less in their neighborhood.

     In the last month there had been two drive-by shootings and three people killed as further evidence of deterioration. After the last shooting, which happened just one block over, the old man while sitting on the porch had watched a car with several seedy-looking characters fly by at high speed. He talked himself out of calling the police. Today he saw that same car come slowly down the street with the same young men inside peering out with sneers on their faces and cigarettes hanging out the side of their mouths and one tipping a beer between drags. He watched closely and noticed the absence of a car tag. The car cruised slowly by and down the street turning at the next intersection. It was at this moment that he became aware of the two little girls playing in the yard of the house next door.

     The girls playing were maybe five and seven he surmised. He had seen them several times playing always unattended, dirty and unkempt in appearance, but cute as a bug's ear he thought. Their parents often got out of their car with a beer in hand and looking the worse for wear. Frequent visitors at odd hours of the night had raised the hair on the back of his neck when he combined that with images of the conditions the little girls might be living in. He highly suspected drug dealing - it wouldn't be the first time he had witnessed the neighbors of late participating in such nefarious activities.

     It was while he watched the girls running and shouting, laughing that he noticed that same car with the thuggy-looking characters come slithering unhurried down the street.  He came quickly to the conclusion that this was going to be another drive-by-shooting event. At the same time he was sure that it was going to be directed at the house next door, the home of the little girls playing innocently in front of the house.

     The fairly new-to-the-neighborhood people across the street from the old man sat watching television in their front room that contained a large picture window with open curtains. The wife happened to stand up at this time to close the curtains as the evening was darkening quickly. She commented, "I've never seen that old man across the street out of his rocking chair and off the porch before." Her husband just nodded absently.

     The old man stood up to shout to the girls to get in the house, but knew what he really needed to do was run to them, grab them, and take them to safety. That is when the lady across the street saw him come off the porch and begin to race toward the girls. The old man, as was his custom in life or death situations, said a prayer, "God I'm gonna need my right leg to work for a bit here, and I have faith and trust in you to do just that to give me any chance of saving the lives of those little girls." That said, he let go of the cane and took off like a young man of twenty something toward the little girls that had taken absolutely no notice of his actions.

     The lady looking out her front window across the street let out a shriek, "Lynn, that old man is going to abduct those little girls playing in the yard across the street! You've got to stop him while I call the police." That is when she noticed the same car with the thugs the old man was seeing. She also had seen that car in the neighborhood and thought it suspicious and not called the police.

     The old man got to the girls a fraction of a second before the car came even with their yard. In that fraction of a second, he launched his old body into the air as though it had found the fountain of youth and grabbed both girls pulling them to the ground and safely under him all in one smooth and almost effortless motion, an action he had practiced while serving in the army so many years ago, the same action he had saved a comrade in arm's life with back when he was so, so much younger.

     The lady and her husband across the street looked on in horror as they heard several shots fired and add themselves to the barbarity of the act. The old man and the girls were hidden by the car as those shots were fired, but, as the car quickly sped up and flew away, there was no mistaking the real purpose the old man had in mind as he ran toward the girls. The woman's husband flew out the door running toward the scene while his wife finished the call to police and followed his same path.

     The husband reaching the bodies first saw the two girls wiggle their way out from under the old man. Not wasting any time, the man grabbed the girls and shuffled them back to his approaching wife. Next, he cautiously bent down and pulled the old man over. "He's dead - I can't believe it. He was just running over here - now - he's dead. I'm telling you, this old man is a hero. I have never seen anything like it. He didn't even hesitate. He just dove on top of them to protect them. That's real courage. He had to have known that he was dead the moment he took off running." He said all this in a quiet and reverent sort of way as was due the old man.

     His wife stood staring down at the old man with her arms around the girls with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I just thought he was some old grumpy man. I didn't even know his name. Oh, God, I wonder if he has a wife or kids? We know absolutely nothing about him. Bless his heart. How could someone this good be just across the street and we never even so much as say hello?"

     The police cars came streaming in and filling the street while neighbors began to pour like water from the surrounding houses. One neighbor blurted out, "Who is that guy?" Another said, "He's just some old man that lives in that house over there."

     The policeman that was bending over the body covering it with a sheet from one of the neighbors took offense to that identification. "He's not just some old man. He's a a creation of God, a hero. Take a good look everyone of you. You won't see many people like this in your lifetime. Strange, but last night I opened the Bible to study and it opened to John 15:13, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' When you do that, your name is Hero, plain and simple." The policeman finished carefully and lovingly covering the body, then proceeded to stand up, and, with tears rolling off his cheeks onto his shirt collar, saluted the Hero.