Out of the Blue and Into the Black

Andrew Gellhart
was a photographer that lived in my apartment complex.
The night my girlfriend and I moved in here
he greeted us, boxes in our arms.
"Hey there! Welcome to the neighborhood! Wow, you two are quite the pair.
straight outta the 1950's. Would ya look at that! Hmm."
He said, shaking his head and smiling.
"I'm a photographer, I'd love to shoot you guys sometime."
He gave me his card.
My mother told me he was doing a calendar of women over forty
something for charity, that he did every year.
When a dog we had, gave birth to puppies,
Andrew said he wanted one
but, I forgot to save one for him
and he got upset.
I felt like a real fuckin' jerk.
But I'd see him still
everday
in the office of the apartments or the 'clubhouse'
making lemonade and putting out cookies or cake.
On the way to the mailbox recently,
he began walking along with me
leaning in and speaking low,
"Hey there kid. What ya doing?"
"Just going to check the mail, waiting on word from this publisher."
"Oh yeah? You get a book deal?"
"I think so, just waiting to hear back to know for sure."
"Good kid, that's real good. I hope ya get it. Hey...you wanna hear some jokes?"
"Sure."
"What's the difference between a nigger and a snow tire?"
"I don't know, Andrew..."
"Snow tires don't sing when you put chains on em'."
He didn't even stop to laugh
just kept the racist jokes coming
one after another like that
Mexicans, Asians, Polish, white people even,
everyone got their turn.
I dug that. Fuck everybody. Right?
That was the second to last time I'd see him alive.
A week ago
I was standing outside before work
having a smoke, nose in a book,
and Andrew comes shuffling by
looking an awful lot like Michael Moore with grey hair.
He asks me how the book thing is going
I tell him I got signed with a book company from Michigan
and that I'm gonna be a published author.
He congratulated me and told me about his forty-plus calendar
mentioning my neighbor Rosie,
she's a skinny little lady, with greying, red hair, and glasses.
Every time she passes by me, on the porch, she says the same thing
"Keep that writing going!" with a smile.
Then one night she stopped and we bullshitted a bit
about everything,
life, art, history, music, everything.
Every Sunday & Wednesday
she could be seen walking to church.
With her bible in it's leather case and a water bottle
she walks the half-mile to the little church across the street
the one with the sign that reads, 'SS YOUTH, TUES, 7PM'.
She told me that her husband was an artist,
a painter, and that he'd dropped dead of a heart attack
right there in her apartment across from me
taking his last breaths, at his easel, a brush in his hand.
I could tell by her face that she missed him terribly
but not when she spoke of his death.
She knew that to go out that way,
is a luxury very few of us are afforded,
to die doing what you love.
Andrew said that he was friends with her husband too
and that after he died
Andrew and another lady friend, helped Rosie cope.
helped get her out of her rut.
Got her to take up hiking
had her out and about, active, and doing things.
Helped her find a way to still enjoy life
even without her love.
Andrew was a good friend to her.
Then last night
while I was standing on the porch
typing and smoking
Rosie came running by
her eyes wild, like a lost dog.
I could tell something was wrong.
I don't know how, but I just knew it.
I felt it.
Andrew. Heart attack.
When she walked by again
she didn't even look at me
hell she couldn't even see me
just made a line straight down the pathway
towards Andrew's apartment across the complex
Rosie didn't stop for anything.
She came speed-walking back minutes later
talking  softly to herself.
"Rosie, are you okay?"
"No. No, I'm not. Not at all."
She spoke without look at me, just rushing by.
On her way back out
she stopped
and told me what I'd suspected.
"He's in ICU."
Her little bony hands, just shaking
holding her keys on a Mickey Mouse lanyard.
"It's not looking too good.
She got in her car and left
I haven't seen her since.
Went into the office today
to give our sixty days written notice
that we will not be renewing our lease here.
I handed it to her
signed some other forms
and asked if it was okay for us to pay the rent late.
A week late, to be exact.
"Sure. We're actually doing a charity thing for a local battered
women & children's shelter. Instead of paying late fees, you just
have to donate four pillows."
The maintenance guy spoke up,
"Yeah man, go to Big Lots. They got two pillows for like four bucks."
"Okay, cool. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
I turned to leave and then remembered,
"Say, have either of you heard about what happened to Andrew? The photographer guy..."
The pregnant Mexican girl just shook her head,
"No...he died last night."
"Dead?"
She nodded.
The maintenance guy gave me all the details about the funeral
or rather, 'celebration of life' is what they were calling it.
He said, it was gonna be in the clubhouse, later in the week.
I remember
the last time I saw Andrew, the last thing he ever said,
"Hey, ya know....authors gotta have a little picture in the back, and I am available!"
With that big grin.
"Oh yeah! Ha ha! That's a good idea, I'll give ya a call buddy."
"You got my card?"
"Yup, it's on my refrigerator door."
"Good, good. I'll be seeing ya, kid."
And just like that
into the black.