A quick visit took me back to 1979

The doorbell rang.

He was still young, in his mid-20s now, and taller and heavier than I. She was about the same age, maybe a year or two younger, with wavy blond hair and a million-dollar smile.

I hadn’t seen him in a year. Or was it two? I couldn’t remember. I’d never met her, but I’d read about her in his letters.

They came inside. I offered a prayer to whatever impulse had gotten me out of bed at 8 that morning to clean the house – the laundry was done, the garbage emptied, the dishes washed, the windows cleaned … and that horror of a barbecue grill I hadn’t taken out of the box in four years – the box that was peeling like old paint – was put together and sitting on the patio as if it had always been like that.

Since this was their first visit to my townhouse, I gave them the cook’s tour. There’s the patio – yes, it looks out on the pool. Yes, I have a pair of binoculars. He liked my telephone. He recognized his sister’s writing desk in my office; I’d paid her $150 for it.

We went through my bedroom, and he spotted the tennis racket-clock he and the other kids on my tennis team had given me. What year was that? 1979? Eleven years ago, he observed with an amazed sigh. Where has the time gone? We’re all getting older.

We trooped downstairs and sat around the dining room table. He was drinking beer. He made a comment about her drinking beer and I poured her one, unaware that he was joking. It’s just as well; there was a dead bug in her mug. I drank a Diet Coke.

They’d driven from Illinois, gotten into town last Friday, gone to a wedding Saturday, and apparently shopped for an engagement ring Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. He said they were getting married, but he hadn’t gotten around to asking her yet. She poked him in the arm and smiled. He said he wanted new rims for his BMW but couldn’t afford them now because of her; she punched him in the arm and smiled sweetly. One more errant comment, I thought, and she’ll go for the throat.

He’s a second lieutenant in the Air Force. She manages a clothing store and does some modeling. They were concerned about debts, whether to buy a house or a condo, and if he’d get his master’s and go to work in the private sector.

I told him all this responsibility would be good for him. I told her she’d have to straighten him out. I wasn’t the first to warn her about that, she said apprehensively, and he was astonished anybody would think that he, as an Air Force officer, couldn’t handle responsibility.

He has lots of responsibility, but I couldn’t forget when he was a kid, and I taught him to drive a stick shift, or took him to the county fair, or helped him with that book report on Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle.” I remember his youth, when all he could do was look forward to getting married.

They couldn’t stay. They had a last-minute date with the beach, and then they were heading back to Illinois. I liked her sunglasses.

Eleven years. Had it really been 11 years?

This column was originally published in the Nov. 16, 1990 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .