The 40 something nurse at the reception desk lazily shuffled some papers around to give the appearance of being busy. Not that it mattered on a Sunday, the supervisor won’t be in until the start of the night shift; she was just accustomed to their presence and their incessant micromanaging that the activity originally developed to avoid scrutiny, now it was muscle memory. In the meantime, her mind wandered off on its own in freefall, oblivious to the smiling man standing in front of her.

He wasn’t a scary looking individual, quite the contrary. Shaved head, but not bald. Chocolate-colored skin without blemish, a bit of scruff on his face as if he had spent the last few weeks in the wilderness. He was actually wearing a thick flannel shirt, jeans and a pair of leather work boots. But it was his eyes that gave her a start. Its uncommon for black people in America to have iris’s the color of dessert sand with flecks of ocher and a cinnamon corona. He looked exotic and plain and alien and forgettable all at the same time. He took her breath away and even as she quickly regained her composure he stood unflinching with the same smile, as if he encounters this all the time. She was sure of that.

She looked up at him from her seat and asked “Can I help you with something?” unconsciously twirling a lock of her wig. She immediately stopped her flirting because she remembered this wasn’t her ‘good’ wig, and placed her hands on the desk with her fingers splayed – perhaps to reveal the absence of a wedding ring? She then immediately clasped her hands together as she recalled something her mother said about her “knobby” fingers. She then realized that all of her jittering was recorded by the smiling, handsome man in front of her, who’s smile grew wider with amusement as she realized that he witnessed her every insecurity. She flashed him a sheepish grin and shrugged her shoulder. Ain’t no use hiding now, she thought he’s seen it all!

Taking a step closer to the desk, the man asked in a non-descript, neutral accent, “Hi I’m here to see Walter Freeman,” The receptionist blinked and cocked her head to the side with raised eyebrows as if to say “are you sure?” But her professionalism won that battle and instead she asked, “Are you a relative?”

“Yes,” a pause “I’m his…grandson.”

The receptionist looked him up and down with a practiced eye, knowing instantly that he was no relation. But this man was so intriguing that she wanted to see where it goes. And besides, she witnessed countless elderly patients in hospice grow old and die without a single visitor. During the time in their lives when they need the touch of another human being the most, they are abandoned. She leaned back in her chair, her infatuation now rightfully turning to suspicion. Not that hospice care was a dangerous occupation, but some of her patients were quite wealthy and one would be surprised the lengths that greedy family members can go to get their hands on ‘grandpa’s money’. Then there was Mr. Freeman, who has been in here for almost a year, and in that time there was a scant few visitors. But Freeman is a cranky old man with a long history of bitterness who is on his deathbed, for lack of a better term, with advance stage leukemia.

Clearing his throat the Visitor, responding to the receptionist’s sudden concern, replied in a piercing baritone “I can come back later if it’s a bad time.” His voice seemed to thrum through the floor and up her body. Before she could form answer he turned to leave, revealing a worn knapsack filled to capacity slung across his broad shoulders.

“What’s in the bag sir?”

“Oh these are things- gifts I brought for Walter, you know, to cheer him up.”

“Wow,” she dragged the word out like ‘wooooooooow’ in genuine surprise, “That’s a lot of cheer Mr.…?”

The Visitor chuckled almost as if he was blushing “Thomas,” he replied “Thomas Freeman.”

“Umhm,” the receptionist mumbled now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man was full of shit, but never the less she was intrigued as ever. She heaved herself out from behind the desk to lead the visitor to Mr. Freeman’s room down at the end of the hall, making a quick smoothing of her nurse’s uniform, partly to get the wrinkles out and partly to bring attention to her ample curves. It was her blessing and curse as it simultaneously drew the undesirable men and repelled the good ones, as they felt she was out of their league. But that didn’t stop her from showing the goods every once and awhile just to remind herself that she still ‘got it’. And maybe she might catch a good one, who knows. She sashayed a tiny bit as she walked ahead of the visitor to Mr. Freeman’s room, announcing herself with a knock.

“Mr. Freeman,” she called out through the door before opening, “You have a visitor.”

“What?!?!?!” a raspy but strong voice boomed from inside, “Shelley, have you lost yo’ damn mind?” His speech was filled with an artificial emphasis on the‘s’s and‘t’s, common in elderly people with dentures. “If it ain’t Theresa Graves or Pam Greer tell ‘em to go to hell!” His rant was punctuated by a soft thud against the door. Shelley pushed the door open a few inches and paused for a well-practiced heartbeat in anticipation of the next thud, then fully opened the door. Again as if rehearsed, Shelley bent down and picked up Walter’s slippers and laid them at the side of his bed, all the while fussing over his attitude and the smell in the room. And playing his role like a seasoned thespian on Broadway, Walter responded with equal vigor about the food making him “fart something fierce”.

‘Thomas’ waited patiently and quietly still shouldering his bulging knapsack, absorbing the scene being played out before him like any patron of good theatre, beaming with amusement and relishing in his invisibility. It was his gift and his curse to be able to blend into the background as the world teemed and swirled around him. It gave him a unique perspective on humanity as if he were on the outside looking in. The only drawback is that it can and has been quite lonely. He rested his eyes on Walter and allowed his pack to drop to the floor, adding his own improvised line to the drama. Shelley jumped, forgetting he was in the room, how could I have forgotten about THAT hunk of man, she thought as she chided her infamous patient for not telling her he had “such a fine grandson”, she pronounced ‘fine’ like ‘vaughn’: “faughine” and saw herself out of the room, exit stage right.

Walter just laid there in the bed staring at his Visitor, transfixed. The machines that he was hooked up to were beeping in time with his racing heart, and his breath started to come out in ragged snatches. “Breathe Marine,” the Visitor said with mock hardness in his voice. Walter drew in a startled breath as if in obedience, never taking his eyes of the visitor, never blinking his mouth going slack. Walking towards the bed, still smiling ‘Thomas’ chuckled, “Are you going to salute a superior officer, or are you just going to lay there and slobber on yourself?” Even as Thomas reached the metal rail of the bulky hospital bed, Walter never blinked he just continued his incredulous stare, absentmindedly raising a gnarled hand to his brow in salute.

“H-h-how?” he stammered “Who?” He squeezed his eyes shut so tight you could hear the stretching of the skin and an almost audible pop as he forced them open to stare back into those eyes of fire and sand. He had seen those eyes before, many, many years ago. But that’s impossible! Eyes still locked on Thomas, Walter opened his mouth, took a deep breath and bellowed, “SHELLEYYYYYYYYYY!” Almost instantly before his scream died in his throat, Shelley burst through the door, a look of genuine panic on her face. When she saw Walter staring at Thomas the concern on her face turned to anger, “What did you do to him?” she said through tense, clenched teeth as she began cooing at Walter trying to calm him down. Walter pointed a shaky finger in Thomas’ general direction and spoke very quietly, “Do you see him?”

Shelley blinked and cocked her head again, glanced menacingly at Thomas and replied “Yea Walt, I see him, is he bothering you honey?” Walter gripped Shelley’s arm and turned her to face him. He stared into her eyes as if seeing her for the first time. “You see him, for real?” “Yes honey I do see him, do you know this man? Let me call Mickey off his break.” “No, no, no! That’s ok.” He sighed and tried to smooth the wrinkles he put in her uniform. He apologized for yelling and upsetting the guests and shooed her away. Shelley paused in front of Thomas and glared before slowly walking away, all the sashay in her hips was gone.

“How the hell are you here, Thomas? Last time I saw you was before…we got captured in ‘Nam. Where the hell have you been?” the questions poured out of him in a steady steam, like a river bursting through a dam. Thomas waited patiently until he was out of breath and pulled up a chair next to the bed.

“Remember the promise that I made you back in Hanoi?” he asked. Walter’s eyes glazed over as he search his failing memory for the incident in question. His face changed as he found it, he answered, “That shell hit so close I thought I was pink mist. You just showed up and dragged me into the jungle.” He looked at the familiar scars over his body, “I thought I was going to die in that damned place, you told me that you would never let me die alone.” Tears rimmed his eyes as the memory became more vivid in his mind. “When the gooks got us and put us in that damn bunker, you never left my side. You convinced me to keep on living; you saved my life, twice man.” Thomas placed a hand on Walter’s arm, “That’s why I’m here bruh, I don’t make promises very often, so when I do, I move heaven and earth to keep them.”

“Who told you I was dying?” Walter shot back with renewed vigor, his nostalgia momentarily interrupted. Thomas reached into his pack and pulled out a thick manila folder full of news articles and showed a picture of him entering a hospital on a stretcher. “The article said,” Thomas intoned reading the article “you were terminally ill with cancer. I had to make good on my promise.” He added after a cryptic pause “or offer a solution.”

Thomas began unpacking his burden, one by one. They leafed through the news articles Thomas had compiled over the years. It chronicled almost 30 years of Walter’s prolific life, starting with him challenging the Veterans Administration on the unfair treatment of disabled African Americans that made the Atlanta Journal/Constitution. Followed by an astute photo of Walter receiving his law degree from Columbia.

“You was still lean and mean then bruh!” Thomas chuckled.

“Yea, I still had fire in my gut and a war to fight! Washington was sticking it to us Negroes back then. Misdiagnosis, getting us hooked on drugs instead of actually treating us. The crazy long wait for assessment! I was pissed! I wanted to take the fight to them, hit em where it does the most damage!”

“Oorah,” Thomas replied gently. Walter took a steadying breath and continued to reminisce.

“After I passed the Bar, I started tracking down Marines from our unit. I saw them strung out on heroin or ‘meds’ the VA gave ‘em, missing limbs, homeless and unemployed. I mean what the hell! They drop us in a meat grinder to fight someone else’s war and then stick a dick in our ass once we return! It was rape bruh!” He sighed and loosened his clenched fists. Thomas pulled out a clipping of Walter standing behind a group of veterans, some in wheelchairs, and others on crutches, all looking grizzled and unkempt. Walter gazed at the picture, remembering the moment captured forever. “It took me years to track those guys down, even longer to get them to talk.”

Thomas looked thoughtfully at him. “You launched a class action suit that rocked the nation.” He pulled out several more articles depicting courtroom proceedings, press conferences and media interviews. “’Civil Rights Denied for Black Veterans?’” he read one particular headline, “black lawyer says government ‘should be ashamed’. Look at you, in all your righteous indignation!” Walter’s smiled melted away the years of pain and struggle. “Fire in the gut, remember?”

Thomas began unpacking his burden, one by one. They leafed through the news articles Thomas had compiled over the years. It chronicled almost 30 years of Walter’s prolific life, starting with him challenging the Veterans Administration on the unfair treatment of disabled African Americans that made the Atlanta Journal/Constitution. Followed by an astute photo of Walter receiving his law degree from Columbia.

“You were lean and mean then bruh!” Thomas chuckled.

“Yea, I still had fire in my gut and a war to fight! Washington was sticking it to us Negroes back then. Misdiagnosis, getting us hooked on drugs instead of actually treating us. The crazy long wait for assessment! I was pissed! I wanted to take the fight to them, hit em where it does the most damage!”

“Oorah,” Thomas replied gently. Walter took a steadying breath and continued to reminisce.

“After I passed the Bar, I started tracking down Marines from our unit. I saw them strung out on heroin or ‘meds’ the VA gave ‘em, missing limbs, homeless and unemployed. I mean what the hell! They drop us in a meat grinder to fight someone else’s war and then stick a dick in our ass once we return! It was rape bruh!” He sighed and loosened his clenched fists. Thomas pulled out a clipping of Walter standing behind a group of veterans, some in wheelchairs, and others on crutches, all looking grizzled and unkempt. Walter gazed at the picture, remembering the moment captured forever. “It took me years to track those guys down, even longer to get them to talk.”

Thomas looked thoughtfully at him. “You launched a class action suit that rocked the nation.” He pulled out several more articles depicting courtroom proceedings, press conferences and media interviews. “’Civil Rights Denied for Black Veterans?’” he read one particular headline, “black lawyer says government ‘should be ashamed’. Look at you, in all your righteous indignation!” Walter’s smiled melted away the years of pain and struggle. “Fire in the gut, remember?”