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Some Men Need To Be Owned

Daniel Gallik

    Hank said, “What the fa?” And drove down to Columbus to check out the scene. Hank was out of it. Old. Fat and fate had put a beer-belly attitude onto his personality. He was just in it to be in it. Knew nothing great would ever happen to him again. “I myself am an ill wind. Tomorrow’s death. I had my truly good time back in 66 when I went to college, U of A, to be exact, and met the woman of my dreams and she never wanted to date me.” It had become a roving joke in all the yrs. Hank had told it to everyone. One of the ladies that worked in the Chuckery said hi to the kid. And he fell in love. The lady was less than five feet tall, Sicilian, and hotter than July when it hasn’t rained. Hank asked this fifty seven yr. old out. And she slapped him. Right in front of the entire crowd there in Akron’s favorite food hangout. Hank never cried. And he never opened his mouth again to any woman. Even his mom. Hank said, “Women are deterrents.”
    All this is what brought on this jaunt to Columbus. Hank heard this lady named Gert was passing on. She was ninety seven and living out her last in Jark’s Senior Resort on the southside of the city. Hank got it in his mind he wanted to make love to her before she attacked the pearly gates. Of course, the boy, himself, was feeling the pangs of aging. One leg was wobbly. His eyesight had gone tri-focal. He was on three different pills. One was for water retention in both his ankles. And he was starting to stutter as the yrs blindly and methodically added themselves to his psyche.
    Hank made it to Ohio’s largest city. Luckily. He went straight to Jark’s, asked around, and there Gert was, napping in the huge vestibule with all the other ladies. And I mean all the other LADIES. Hank decided to watch his manners. Stole a rose from one of the bouquets left by a departed and deserate family, walked up to Gert, quietly said, hi, I still do love you. Gert awoke, kick the hoot in the shin, and said, where the hell have you been all these damn yrs? Hank said nothing. Gert added, “Well, why don’t you take my clothes off and give me a blast from the past this very moment? I need a little gasm afore I pass.” Hank quietly agreed and became a slave for the next hr. to the lady. Gert then passed right at her orgasm’s zenith. With a bit of a smile on her face. And a melody in her caveat emptor.
    Hank got in his car. Sat there. For hrs. The night gave way to the morning. Hank was grinning for a world record twenty two hrs.
    No one saw him do any of the above.
    A yr later in the Akron Beacon Journal a small news article appeared. A few paragraphs about a man found dead. So dead. That only his bones were left. In a 2002 Ford Taurus. In a parking lot in Columbus. With a smile showing up on his scull. And music playing at the local used car dealership. The story ended with a question, “Anyone knowing the identity of the skeleton and his happy misdemeanor should contact local authorities. To answer all the questions. Which all start with the word ‘why’.”

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