A Kiss Before Dying

 

 

 



“You’re bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning,” he said peering at me through coke bottle glasses.

        “Behave yourself Claude,” I answered. “You’re ninety-five years old but you still have an eye for the ladies, don’t you?”

        He threw his head back and guffawed. “That will never die.”

         Due to severe arthritis, Claude needed to use a walker. His wife had recently died and he had no one to care for him at home. He came to live at the Assisted Living Facility where I worked. Although physically deteriorated, mentally he had the alertness of a teenager, with the same likes and dislikes too. It seemed at times all he had on his mind was sex.

        For some reason, he singled me out for his special affections, although he liked all women and wouldn’t say no to anyone else he fancied. Every time he looked at me, I could see a twinkle in his eye through his thick lenses, like a lantern in a lighthouse.

        He greeted me each day with “Give me a kiss good morning.”

        I’d jokingly snap back “Not now Claude, I’m busy.”

         He usually answered “I’ll wait.”

        Claude stood over six feet tall and weighed more than two hundred pounds. He loved good food, good humor and all women good and bad, not always in that order. His shock of full and unruly white hair gave him a boyish quality.

            He liked to sit at my nurses’ station and talk about his wife. He got wistful and misty eyed.

        “I had the best wife in the world.” 

        “I think you must have been a good husband to get such a good wife,” I told him.

        “She was so wonderful to me; I had to be as good to her.”

        “How did she like you flirting with other women?” I asked

        “I only joked around. I never cheated. I wouldn’t risk hurting her.” He spoke seriously. “She knew I was faithful”

        Months later, his failing health necessitated transfer to the adjacent skilled nursing facility. I made it a point to visit him often. The only other visitor, his daughter, was past seventy.

        When Claude turned one hundred, the staff gave him a big birthday party. The local newspaper sent a photographer and reporter. Everyone wished him a Happy Birthday and gave him a birthday kiss.

        He asked me. “Are you finally going to give me a kiss? It’s my birthday.”

        “All right.” I bent to kiss his cheek and with speed of a man half his age, he whipped his face around and planted one right on my mouth. I bolted up as if shot. Claude roared with merriment.

        “Gotcha,” he laughed.

         Eleven months later, Claude’s stamina gave out. I visited him the day before he died. His body had weakened but not his mind. When he saw me, he smiled, too weak to raise his head.

        “Give me a kiss,” he whispered. 

        And I did.