Dear Life

they’d have had his face covered. He was unconscious however and his skin the gray of cement. He was not being carried out through the doughnut shop, as some had jokingly predicted—that was some sort of dig at the quality of the doughnuts—but through the main door of the building. It was a decent enough brick apartment building five stories high, a Laundromat as well as the doughnut shop on its main floor. The name carved over its main door suggested pride as well as some foolishness in its past.
    Bonnie Dundee.
    A man not in ambulance uniform came out last. He stood there looking with exasperation at the crowd that was now thinking of breaking up. The only thing to wait for now was the grand wail of the ambulance as it found its way onto the street and tore away.
    Jackson was one of those who didn’t bother to walk away. He wouldn’t have said he was curious about any of this, more that he was just waiting for the inevitable turn he hadbeen expecting, to take him back to where he’d come from. The man who had come out of the building walked over and asked if he was in a hurry.
    No. Not specially.
    This man was the owner of the building. The man taken away in the ambulance was the caretaker and superintendent.
    “I’ve got to get to the hospital and see what’s the trouble with him. Right as rain yesterday. Never complained. Nobody close that I can call on, so far as I know. The worst, I can’t find the keys. Not on him and not where he usually keeps them. So I got to go home and get my spares and I just wondered, could you keep a watch on things meanwhile? I got to go home and I got to go to the hospital too. I could ask some of the tenants but I’d just rather not, if you know what I mean. I don’t want them bugging me what’s the matter when I don’t know any better than they do.”
    He asked again if Jackson was sure he would not mind, and Jackson said no, fine.
    “Just keep an eye for anybody going in, out, ask to see their keys. Tell them it’s an emergency, won’t be long.”
    He was leaving, then turned around.
    “You might as well sit down.”
    There was a chair Jackson had not noticed. Folded and pushed out of the way so the ambulance could park. It was just one of those canvas chairs but comfortable enough and sturdy. Jackson set it down with thanks in a spot where it would not interfere with passersby or apartment dwellers. No notice was taken of him. He had been about to mention the hospital and the fact that he himself had to get back there before too long. But the man had been in a hurry, andhe already had enough on his mind, and he had made the point that he would be as quick as he could.
    Jackson realized, once he got sitting down, just how long he’d been on his feet walking here or there.
    The man had told him to get a coffee or something to eat from the doughnut shop if he felt the need.
    “Just tell them my name.”
    But that name Jackson did not even know.
    When the owner came back he apologized for being late. The fact was that the man who had been taken away in the ambulance had died. Arrangements had to be made. A new set of keys had become necessary. Here they were. There’d be some sort of funeral involving those in the building who had been around a long time. Notice in the paper might bring in a few more. A troublesome spell, till this was sorted out.
    It would solve the problem. If Jackson could. Temporarily. It only had to be temporarily.
    Jackson heard himself say, Yes, all right with him.
    If he wanted to take a little time, that could be managed. He heard this man—his new boss—say so. Right after the funeral and some disposal of goods. A few days he could have then, to get his affairs together and do the proper moving-in.
    That would not be necessary, Jackson said. His affairs were together and his possessions were on his back.
    Naturally this roused a little suspicion. Jackson was not surprised a couple of days later to hear that his new employer had made a visit to the police. But all was well, apparently. He had emerged as just one of those loners who may have got themselves in too deep some way or another but have not been guilty of breaking any law.
    It looked as if there was nobody looking for him anyway.
    As a rule, Jackson liked to have older people in the building. And as a rule, single people. Not what you would call zombies. People with interests. You might sometimes say talent. The sort of talent that had been noticed once, made some kind of a