“How about that George Steinbrenner, dying at 80!” the store owner says as he rings up my magazine. “If I knew I was going to die at 80, I’d sell this place and be outta here in no time.”
“Really,” I reply, my ears perking up with the possibility of a story, or at least the chance of yet another look into the convoluted but fascinating human psyche.
“Yeah, 80’s not what it used to be. It’s getting closer every day. I’ll be 70 on Tuesday.”
“Happy birthday,” I tell him, and then, not able to contain myself, I have to ask what seems to be the next logical question, “So why don’t you? What’s keeping you here?”
“It’s my lifestyle,” he answers. “I’m used to living a certain way. Although, truth is, I’d have plenty of money even without the store. Been offered more than a million to sell, and I own my house, free and clear. No, I’ve got plenty of money.”
Now I am really intrigued. The owner of this news/tobacco store, not exactly a bustling business these days, declares he wants to go, has the means to do it, but would only do it if he knew he was going to die at 80. Like George Steinbrenner. It’s hard to wrap my head around.
I think about the beaming 26-year-old boy whose funeral I recently attended and the reeling shock of his death to so many. The 11-year-old Haitian boy buried in the rubble of a fallen school. The two Hungarian teens, here to see the sites, drowned not far from shore.
A beloved husband at 65. A loving mother at 48. We all know someone who went before “their time.”
A bunch of first class denial pros, we humans acknowledge the grim reaper only when we have to. We’ll do anything not to have to look him in the eye. We separate death out from our day to day as if it were an extra-curricular activity that only others go out for. It’s not so much that we think we’ll live forever; it’s just that we so easily forget that we won’t.
“I guess I’m not ready yet,” the shop owner admits with a sigh of resignation. “I sit at my computer most of the day, over there at the back of the store, and I buy toys instead. I just bought a ’57 Thunderbird. Remember them?” he asks.
With that he reaches behind the counter and hands me a picture of a beautiful red convertible. It is a sleek relic from a time when my life stretched far into an imaginary future. A time when there were weeks, months, even years to squander. The future seemed limitless. Time abundant.
“Beautiful,” I say, “Enjoy it.”
“It was a massive heart attack, you know,” he starts up again, back to Steinbrenner’s sudden death. “I guess there are no contracts, are there? Not even for “The Boss.”
“That’s right,” I say as I open the door to leave. “And even if there were, would any of us bother to read the fine print?”
Sixties Chick 