Albert snatched the rake up from the back yard, laying against a cord of firewood next to the leaf blower. That damned leaf blower, the engine wouldn’t start up even with a hundred cranks. And if it did, it wasn’t strong enough to blow leaves off the grass. Sure, it could get leaves off the driveway, but the grass, totally incapable.
Like that quack dermatologist who didn’t find the misshapen mole in the middle of Albert’s back. But he’d fight it, been fighting it, and knew he’d be fighting it awhile.
He walked up to the front yard. Boy, did it feel good to get outside after all those months cooped up in the house, wearing grooves in the rug from the bed to the bathroom toilet. He could smell the crispy leaves of fall, feel the cool air rush down from the branches onto the grass, hear the rustling of the branches in the fading wind. Ah, fall – how he’d missed it.
Thirteen years since he’d had a real fall. San Francisco didn’t really have a fall, just a dreary winter and a chilly summer. But those cool fall days, walks on city sidewalks hearing the crunching of leaves under penny loafers – those were not for California or Florida. They were for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and even Georgia – yes, Atlanta had crunchy leaves, too.
Albert began raking and started to feel the cardio work-out take its effect. But something was different this time. He felt a squeezing whoosh in his esophagus, a grasping tightness in his chest. Albert began to wheeze and then cough. Covering his mouth, he felt something liquid and salty come out with a cough and, looking down, saw the crimson red of his own blood.
Albert sat on the porch steps, put his head down, and cried.
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