So Long, Chief

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The old man was dying, but there was nobody to see him off. In a few more days he’d get the royal farewell, a eulogy by the police chaplain, a cavalcade of motorcycle troops, and a final salute from the fresh young faces to whom he was nothing but a fading legend. He was the last of the old breed who had outlived his friends and his usefulness and he was all alone on his final assignment.

The nurse said, “Not too long, please.”

She was a cute brunette in her twenties, well worth flirting with, but I wasn’t in the mood.

I asked, “Pretty bad?”

Her answer was only slightly evasive: “He’s almost ninety, tires easily. Are you family?”

“No,” I said. “He doesn’t have any family.”

She gave me a little smile and nodded. “I see. Just don’t excite him.”

I could have told her that there wasn’t much that could ever excite him after the life he’d lived.

But I just said my thanks and went into the sterile little hospital room with the green walls and the automated bed that seemed to hold him like a waiter balancing a tray. Hard to believe that once he would have dominated a room of any size like the Colossus of Rhodes. Now he was just a textured form under the sheet.

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