![]() ‘Roger that,’ he says, and we surge forward violently. ‘But that,’ he says, pointing at a rubbish bin on the footpath. ‘Nothing there.’ I gesture to the clear road ahead. He squints at the road and squeezes the steering wheel with his knotty, mottled fingers. ‘Walter?’ The needle is dropping-40 … 30 kilometres per hour. Today he’s just slowing down for everything, for shadows and gusts of wind. His driving is rebellious, single-minded, subversive-almost a political act. The Corona shines like God’s golden sun in Heaven as Walter pitches it down the road. He drives a yellow 1984 Toyota Corona, in mint condition. Last week they removed a piece, just a snippet. This business with my tongue isn’t getting any better. I tuck the ticket into the top pocket of his shirt and fasten the button. ‘Right you are,’ he says and falls asleep. The Lotto draw is over and, just as the music starts, Walter wakes up. ‘Twenty-five? Easy.’ She said she would call to confirm on the day before. Can you be twenty-five? Makes it a bit fun. ‘It’s his twenty-fifth anniversary in the rest home. The chap makes it all sound straightforward and then-by the way … ‘Ninety-one.’ I was throwing Old Walter a bone, shaving a couple of years off. ‘He’s old,’ I’d said to her on the phone. That’s why I was asking him about whether he’d had a stiffy, whether he’d had a hot log any time in the last, say, couple of decades. For his 25-year anniversary, I’m getting him a 25-year-old. Walter’s 25-year anniversary in the home is coming up in a few months. Walter’s got his ticket half-crumpled in his right fist. We sit around gripping our tickets like they’ve got wings and are desperate for freedom. It’s the Lotto draw, Saturday night in the rest home. He holds up his left index finger and then checkmates me.Īnother week slopes by, all sloppy and damp. He stares at the board for maybe a week or two. ‘How long since you had a stiffy to write home about?’ I straighten my right arm, place my left hand on my inner elbow, and bring my right fist up and say ‘boing’. ‘How long since you had an erection worth a damn?’ It bounces off his bony shoulder and rolls under the chair. ‘Try it on someone else,’ I say, but he’s turned his hearing aid off. He’s 93, but I’m not far behind, lurching through my 76th year, bung knees, no teeth, and strandy hair with iffy threads. He means that I’m an old bugger too, and one day I won’t be paying attention and bam-he’ll nail me in those four moves. He points a finger at me, holds it there, and looks back down to the board. I tap my ear, and Walter reaches to his hip and flicks the switch. He’s trying to checkmate me in four moves-the Scholar’s Mate. Says you don’t get ahead by starting second.
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