A man showed up at the door, little guy. He rapped on it. God help me if he had been out there for too long rapping.

I said “coming!” as if he could hear me. Suppose I was saying this to Agatha, who sat in a chair, like she often did.

I felt’nt the need to play the waiting game. She made lunch, I can at least answer the door. Man has his duties, too.

I said again “I’m coming” in this grumpy tone, like I was some old dad.

I thought I would hear young Emmet yell from his room, perhaps… sprightly child he is. Loves to have people over. Grandma, Grandpa, you name it. Emmet loves running to the door, and hugging whoever needs it. Oh my damn, have you seen the image I took of him hugging Uncle Ship’s leg… He loves the family. But Emmet was dead. So that’s why I didn’t hear him running to the door.

The man at the door was silly looking. He had a brief case. Under his other arm was a laptop. The laptop made me even more curious about what was in the brief case. More so than if he didn’t have the laptop.

He said his name was something. Honestly I forget. But he said he was doing something for the yearbook committee. I wasn’t paying too much attention because I was thinking about Emmet and how I still expect to hear him.

I had the man come on in. I told him come have a drink of something with us at the table.

Agatha was in the kitchen at this point, standing over the counter. Probably preparing hot beverages. God Bless Agatha.

She asked if she should make three. She looked towards us in the doorway. They made eye contact, her and the silly looking man, and she asked if he wanted some. He said yes.

He said that he liked our apartment as he sat at the table. He looked at a picture on the wall of Blink-182. He must have been nearly 90? Somewhere between 80 and 100. Him looking at the poster made me feel embarrassed for some reason.

We sat at the 3-seat table in the kitchen. He put his suitcase on the ground, opened the laptop, put it on the table. He looked around for a charger. I pointed towards the wall, and he leaned over and plugged it in. Seeing somebody this old performing any task requiring any movement is just wow… It’s like seeing a picture of a baby with sunglasses. You just didn’t think it possible.

He had this big tale about this thing he’s been working on for almost six years. This big book of all of these people he had once known. People from school.

He didn’t seem excited about it. But it was objective that he had been working on it for almost six years.

I asked him, “So you mean like a yearbook?” Because it sounded like he was making a yearbook but for only his grade. And he is also 92, I found out, because he knew Grandma way back in the day, I guess. Like they went to elementary, middle, and high school together. But they parted ways after that. College is my guess. But so they hadn’t talked for over seventy years is my point.

He said he’s been making a book of all of the graduating class of whatever year that would have been. 1930 or so when I do the math.

He started on it six years ago, after his only *dear* friend from their class passed away. And after that, he got all of his pics from all of his deadfriend’s family members. And he started making this scrapbook of all of the deadfriend’s pictures from his whole life. And then he decided he wanted to feature his whole class in the book. Even the ones who he hadn’t caught up with in a few years. If they were dead, he would fill the pages with them. If they were alive, I guess he would leave it empty. Not unlike paying for a plot in a cemetery.

Anyway. He heard about Grandma Fenny passing away, probably through the local paper, I presume. And was wanting to know if I had any pictures, photos, USB drives, or any crap like that of hers. He said he got in touch with my dad, who said that there was a chance that I may have some of that stuff. I asked the guy why he thought I would have pictures, and he shrugged his shoulders like I was accusing him of something, which made me feel like a piece of shit in my own home, of all places. But he was the one who was asking me for pictures for whatever reason.

But I guess I was the one who didn’t keep any of the stuff from her old house that was up for grabs when we emptied her 50+ year old home and put her in a new home. But how could I? I wasn’t even there. Anyway there doesn’t have to be a bad guy in this.

“And you drove all this way to get here, what is that, three hours?” That was Agatha saying that, as she sat her wonderful ass in the middle chair between me and the nameless old man. She sat down three steaming mugs. The guy said Yup, and that was kinda that as far as that part of the conversation goes.

He took a sip. He winced and said, “Oooh, coffee” and made a face like the green guy on the poison control sticker. “No thanks.”

I was surprised to find out that Agatha had made coffee. Cause I know she hasn’t had any in like three months. We decided no coffee for awhile, I forget the reason. So I figured it was tea. But by God, it was coffee.

“I’m sorry,” Agatha said. A boy once told me that angels never to apologize. But if he saw my Agatha, he may reconsider that notion.

She asked, “Are you allergic?” Which we all considered for a second if coffee was an allergic thing or not.

He said no, he just didn’t like it.

She asked why, and he said he just didn’t.

I could feel like all three of us felt embarrassed about all different things at the same time.

I told him anyways that I positively did not have any old images or devices containing old images of my dearest Fenny. I told him the best idea would be to message my mom on Facebook. I know there were tagged photos of her at my brother’s wedding 13+ years ago.

He asked if I knew how to get to her page. His words.

I told him I didn’t have facebook anymore. Which feels true, but I definitely still have one. I just did not feel like trying to log in and re-send a new password and all this shit. But I gave him her maiden name at least.

He made a little quip about he was still trying to figure out Facebook. How his kids and grandkids want him on there. The thought of a 92 year old still trying to have to do anything made me choke on something invisible. Yet I refused to let it move me.

He sat in front of the laptop. He fingerbanged the click pad trying to open Chrome. It was the first time I noticed him interacting with the laptop at all. He fingerbanged it good.

I lost focus in what he was doing, and moved on to sharing eye contact with Agatha. Which if you saw that irl you would recognize was our acknowledgement and non-verbal agreement that this quite odd for our household. But having somebody in the house was really nice at the moment. We shared a smile to signify that as well.

I asked him how many people are, or were, or still are, or just in general like how many guys are there in the book.

He said the entire graduating class was 44. And 38 have died. And then he said, “Well, 39, now,” in this way that seemed like if he had a hat he would take it off and put it against his chest as he said it.

I thought about asking what happens if he dies before the other four people who are still alive. Which, of course I was not actually gonna ask. But imagine…? The thought did occur to me though.

I don’t know, I guess, probably nothing. The other guys would never even notice. Me and my beautiful girlfriend here may be the only people alive on this Earth that even knows about this project. If he dies, everyone forgets.

I was talking to myself at this point.

Projects die all the time though. Everyone knows that! People give up on shit all the time. Life moves forward!

Auuughh! Why does he care!!! I hated that he cared so much. There was nearly a quarter of a chance that he would die before he could ever complete his book. And the chance would continue to increase as other folks died. It’s like Paul and Ringo.

I felt a bit pissed knowing how much time he was wasting. I mean, celebrating people already gone beyond a funeral… By that point, he could have figured out how to get onto Facebook and find my Mom. His grandkids could have taught him or something. Instead he was spending his final years making a scrapbook of mostly people he never even knew and never knew shit about.

Again, it was nice to have him over.

I knew that as soon as as he left, I was going to cry bad. As soon as he stepped out of our home, I’d drop to my knees and wrap my arms around Agatha’s firm legs. I’d soak the back of her calf-length socks with my eyes.

Like the time when were walking to our car in the Wal Mart parking lot, and we walked by a man and a woman pushing their sickly strange little child on a stretcher towards the store. It wasn’t a stretcher, more like something she always had to be on. Like a wheelchair wasn’t enough. And the parents seemed so normal…

And we walked by, and kept talking about who gives a shit what about, you know how you walk by somebody when you’re talking with somebody and you try to keep the chat going to not seem awkward. And then we got in the car. And we cried for ten minutes. And that doesn’t even get into Emmet!!!

But life moves forward!!!

He was already signed into Facebook, fortunately enough, but had some trouble spelling her maiden name correctly. I didn’t know how to spell it right, either. I told him it was Japanese-ish. I felt embarrassed.

Agatha took a turn assisting the man in trying to search for my mom in the search bar. Tena Nguang, Tena Gyuang, Tena Gewang. They looked through a bunch of profiles together. She looked back at me and kind of gave me this tone and asked how I don’t know my own mother’s name, but with a little smirk like she was being cute.

The man looked through profile pictures of a woman who was not my mother. Didn’t even look like her.

Our chairs formed a tee-pee behind the man’s. We sat behind him and watched him surf the web.

I gave Agatha a kiss near her ear. I whispered to her that the coffee was sooo good. She put her arm in front of my neck and put her head on my shoulder.

Nguang, Gueng.