A Bridge of Years

Eighteen


Amos Shank, eighty-one years old, who had come from Pittsburgh to publish his poetry and who had lived for fifteen years amid the stained plaster and peeling wallpaper of this shabby apartment, rose from his bed in the deep of the night, still wrapped in dreams of Zeus and Napoleon, for the purpose of relieving his bladder.

He walked to the bathroom, past his desk, past reams of bond paper, sharpened pencils, leatherbound books, in the stark light of two sixty-watt floor lamps which he kept perpetually lit. The rattle of water in the porcelain bowl sounded hollow and sinister: the clarion call of mortality. Sighing, Amos hitched up his boxer shorts and headed back to his bed, which folded out of the sofa, convolution of night inside day. He paused at the window.

Once he had seen Death in the street outside. A sudden dread possessed him that if he looked he would see that apparition again. He had, in fact, kept vigil for several consecutive nights—ruining his sleep to no good effect. He was torn between temptations: oblivion, vision.

He slatted the blinds open and peered into the street.

Empty street.

Amos Shank pulled his desk chair to the window and nestled his bony rear end into it.

The older he got the more his bones seemed to protrude from his body. Everything uncomfortable. Nowhere to rest. He whistled out a long breath of midnight air and put his head on the windowsill, pillowed on his hands.

Without meaning to, he slept again . . .

And woke, aching and stiff. He moaned and peered into the street where—perhaps—the sound of footsteps had roused him: because here he was again, Death.

No mistaking him.

Amos felt his heart speed up.

Death walked down the empty sidewalk in a dirty gray overcoat; paused and smiled up at Amos.

Smiled through his leathery snout and the hood of his shirt.

Then Death did a remarkable thing: he began to undress.

He shrugged off the overcoat and dropped it in the gutter like a shed skin. Pulled the NYU sweatshirt over his head and threw it away. Stepped out of the pants.

Death was quite golden underneath.

Death shone very brightly under the streetlights.

"I know you!" Amos Shank said. He was only dimly aware that he had said it aloud. "I know you—/"

He had seen the picture. Which old book?

Wars of Antiquity. The Court of the Sun King. Campaigns of Napoleon. Some ancient soldier in bright armor and cheap lithography.

"Agamemnon," Amos Shank breathed.

Agamemnon, Death, the soldier, masked and armored, entered the building, still smiling.

Ashamed, Amos Shank double-checked the lock on the door, extinguished the lights for the first time in a month, and hid under the blankets of his bed.