THE SHOUT-OUT
At
five o’clock on Friday afternoon, Bill found a misplaced comma
in a pacemaker’s software. He stood up from his workstation,
raised his hands, and cried, “Home, here I come.”
He had searched since Monday morning for the bug that caused irregular heartbeats.
Bill retained the physique of the high school quarterback who had led his team to the state championship fifteen years earlier.
“Rats,” Dave said from the adjoining cubicle.
“What’s happening, dude?” Bill asked.
“I’m supposed to do the client upload tonight. But I promised to take the girls to the new princess movie.”
A software engineer had to send data to the company’s clients every Friday night. The five-hour ordeal reminded Bill of cutting lawns with scissors for a children’s charity.
“No worries. I’ll do it,” Bill said.
“Thanks, pal. Hey, happy birthday,” Dave replied.
“Actually, my birthday is tomorrow.”
“I looked for your Facebook page to send you a birthday message. But I couldn’t find it.”
“I’m not on Facebook. I don’t want to tell the world my deep thoughts as I take out the trash.”
“You’re the only guy I know not on Facebook. How are you going to celebrate?” Dave said.
“I’ll hang around the house and wait for people to call. And do some cooking in case somebody drops by. It’s a family tradition. When I was a kid, people dropped by at all hours on birthdays. My mom cooked up a storm. Twenty people came over.”
***
Bill prepared a pan of lasagna at seven o’clock the following morning. At seven fifteen, his older brother posted to Facebook, “A birthday shout-out to my baby brother.”
Bill put a turkey breast in the oven at seven thirty.
Ten minutes later, “Birthday greetings to my handsome nephew. I hope you enjoy the day,” appeared on his Aunt Carol’s Facebook page. Bill made brownies between ten o’clock and eleven o’clock.
Just as Bill cut the brownie squares, his cousin uploaded a childhood picture of the two of them. The message read, “Happy birthday, Billy boy. Remember when we accidentally mowed Grandma’s flower bed?”
Bill went to the grocery store at three o’clock to buy nonfat yogurt for his brother-in-law, who could not eat the brownies.
At three fifteen, said brother-in-law posted, “Happy birthday to my favorite brother-in-law. You’re my only brother-in-law, but what the heck?”
***
Bill returned home at four o’clock. He checked the answering machine. “No Messages,” flashed on the screen. He shook his head and said, “I guess they’re all too busy.”
He surveyed the feast he had prepared and thought, I bet Jason is almost out of food.
Bill stuffed food into a printer paper box. He lugged the box to the front porch of Jason Bolton, his ninety-five-year-old next-door neighbor, and rang the bell.
“Dinner has arrived,” Bill said when Jason opened the door.
Jason pushed his black bifocals. He ran his hand through buzz cut white hair. He stood as straight as the day in 1945 he received the Silver Star.
“William, how can I repay you?” Jason asked.
“Repay me for what, Jason?”
“For ten years, you take care of me. You bring me food. You take me to the doctor. You shovel the snow.”
Bill shook his head and said, “You signed a blank check when you landed at Normandy.”
“Too bad the electric company and the tax collector don’t agree,” Jason said. “I wish there was something I could do for you.”
“You can let me in so we can eat,” Bill said.
Bill set the table and served Jason. He put the excess food into Jason’s freezer.
“Tell me a story about the farm,” Bill said.
Bill loved Jason’s stories.
Jason grew up on a farm in the Great Depression. He married Jeanette, a Frenchwoman he met during the war. The engineering company he began in his garage built dams and bridges around the world.
Jason and his wife raised three children, “The big shot colonel, the legal eagle, and the lady doctor.”
The woman that Jason loved for sixty years had died five years earlier. Bill drove him to her grave once a month.
Jason never talked about the war.
“When I was eleven years old, I led a plow horse to the barn. It was a ninety-five-degree day in July. My parents were watching my brother play in the grass with a wooden truck the hired man had whittled for him. My brother was three years old.”
Jason crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair.
“Both the horse and I smelled dinner and were dying of thirst. We hurried as fast as we could. Neither one of us saw my brother. We walked over him.”
Jason spread his arms.
“The horse’s hoof hung an inch above my brother’s head.”
Jason lowered the palm of his hand to the table’s surface.
“My mother screamed, ‘My baby. Stop.’”
Bill leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
Jason took a sip of water.
“The horse looked down. He shook his head at me, lifted his hoof, and strolled into the barn.”
Bill leaned back, clasped his hands, and asked, “What happened to your brother?”
“He pioneered computers in the 1950s. He’s a professor in the Midwest.”
As Bill walked out the door, Jason slapped him on the back and said, “Happy birthday. My wife had a list of important people’s birthdays taped to the refrigerator. You are one of them.”
“I miss the chocolate pies she made me,” Bill replied.
***
On Monday morning, Dave said from his cubicle, “Come and look at my computer.”
“Is something wrong?” Bill asked.
“When I was looking for your Facebook page, I found your brother’s. I’m going to the break room. Somebody brought brownies. Feel free to post something.”
Bill saw seven pages of birthday posts on Dave’s computer.
So that’s what they were doing all day, he thought.
Bill posted, “Thanks for the birthday greetings. I didn’t see your posts until now, but I had a great birthday. I visited my ninety-five-year-old neighbor, a D-Day veteran. Remember when we used to drop by, call each other, and have real family get-togethers?”
Bill’s brother commented, “Great post. Words to think about.”
Aunt Carol commented on the brother’s comment, “I totally agree. I miss those parties.”
Bill’s family, his family’s friends, and the friends’ friends commented on Bill’s post, and commented on the comments for a week.
Then somebody put up a birthday message. Dozens of people posted shout-out after shout-out after shout-out.
Copyright © 2017 by Franklin Black
I am a writer and software engineer. My short stories have appeared in Foster Focus, Ancient Paths, and Fresh! Literary Magazine. SOL: English Writing in Mexico printed “The Big Prize,” a personal essay. My screenplay, Sage Green, won Honorable Mention at the 2014 Bare Bones Film Festival and reached the semi-finals of the 2013 New Hampshire Film Festival. I have master’s degrees from Georgetown University and the University of Massachusetts.