Samuel Samssen was old. He felt and looked old. Whenever he was asked, he’d smile weakly, clear his throat, and whisper, “Age-appropriate, can’t say I feel anything that’s not age-appropriate.”

 

But his smile was always there if you looked for it, as was a twinkle deep within eyes that had yet to cloud over. He never married and lived in the same modest two-bedroom bungalow ever since his down payment more than sixty years ago. The second bedroom was for guests, mostly family, but now most of his family had passed and those who were left were too old to travel. Once a year one or another used to call to wish him a happy birthday, but being he was hard of hearing those calls were short and then not at all.

 

Samuel would joke with the postman or postwoman, as the case might be, that he’d call the library once a year just to make sure the phone still worked. It was a rotary dial on the kitchen counter next to the refrigerator.

 

Between a modest pension and social security, he was able to hire neighborhood kids to help around the house as well as a cleaning person to come in once every two weeks. He’d laugh when he paid them, “You know, you look just like your father did when he cut my lawn,” or “You have the same smile and rosy cheeks as your mother when she shoveled my sidewalk years ago.” He knew his memory wasn’t all that good, and since it was true for some of his helpers, he said it to all, lest they think he was thoughtless. And now he wondered if some of them coming by weren’t from a third generation. He’d chuckle to himself after paying them, “At least I think I’m getting the sex right, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I was wrong.”

 

A summer came when the temperatures were in the 90s for one week and after a few days of cooler temperatures climbed back up again. Samuel took to sitting in the living room in a recliner next to an open window. A large fan blew across the room, pushing cooler air drawn up from the basement out the window. One or another neighbor would send a thermos of iced lemonade or Gatorade over with one of the kids, telling them to remind Mr. Samssen that it was important for him to stay hydrated.

 

Samuel laughed and pointing to his own bottle on the end table, said, “I know, I couldn’t have gotten this far without my bottle.” It was his private joke: until he was 75 his bottle was a bottle of beer. Now he observed that over the decades his favorite beer had gone from bock beers to lagers to ales, finally ending on a high note with strong citrusy pale ales.

 

If the hydration messenger was old enough, he would often jest, “All this irrigation is keeping me young. I’ve got to get up and walk to the bathroom two-dozen times a day. And sometimes I take the long way just for fun.” In truth, there was only one way – the hall leading back from the kitchen to the two bedrooms and bathroom in the rear of the house.

 

The neighbor’s kid would put the thermos alongside Samuel’s and ask how he felt. “Age-appropriate my boy,” or, “Just as I should, my dear girl.” Adding, “Tell them Sam says thank you and sends his best.”

 

The days were getting shorter and the nights cooler. Samuel sighed, told himself it was a long summer, and began sitting out in back under a tree. He had an old Adirondak chair with only a few chips of faded green paint to hint that it was ever painted and three old cushions which may have been patterned when new but now were a nondescript gray. A wobbly orange crate on end served as an end table for a volume of poems by Walter Whitman, Leaves of Grass.

 

Several times he would take the book and place it on his chest, folding his hands across it, willing his fingers to trace the words of one poem or another between the beaten covers. Eventually his fingers would reach down – “To Think of Time . . . To Think Through," and his index finger would tap out:

 

“Have you guessed you yourself would not continue? Have you dreaded those earth-beetles?

Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?”

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And once he woke up laughing, remembering one line in his dream:

           

“He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.”

 

And then his eyes wide open, skipping down to another line:

           

“Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? Have you pleasure from poems?”

 

As September drew to a close, there was one day, a perfect day of Indian summer. Samuel walked out to his chair with Whitman in one hand and a light Afghan draped over his other arm. He turned the chair to face the sun and once comfortable watched as leaves took their final bows from treetops on down. Several slight hollows already wore dappled blankets of leaves. He addressed all those who could hear: “The earth-beetles are surely comforted!”

 

He rested the volume of poems on his chest and closed his eyes. Minute crowded minute forward, all sixty keeping time. Samuel opened one eye and restarted the count, hoping that his fingers would find the end of the poem before the marching minutes grew tired.

 

And then his index fingers framed the last lines:

 

“I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!

That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it,

And all preparation is for it . . and identity is for it . . and life and death are for it.”

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The falling sun gave of its energy to the wind and by nightfall Samuel Samssen was covered by his own dappled blanket of leaves like those he so admired in the hollows.