The Old Man at My Door

By Rodney Ross

A winter storm warning blanketed the local news stations before the blizzard itself. This blustery Saturday was going to be sweatpants, banana bread, and a Golden Girls binge for Renata Todd. But at her farmhouse door, already flocked with fresh snow, comes an unexpected knock: Albin Lawrence, an old man who grew up in the house in the 40s and 50s.

Renata’s caution yields to common sense as she welcomes him in for a tour. What danger could a shaky man over eighty, who has only one arm, represent?

Albin’s reluctant to leave and eager to talk. As Renata welcomes him into the kitchen to, he takes a barstool to tell his story ... his stern parents’ suspicions of his homosexuality; the day he fled with his parents' savings, never to return; navigating the decades of secret bars, marginal jobs, free love, questionable choices, and AIDS; and a relationship truncated by social pressure and tragedy.

As the episodes turn darker, Renata begins to uneasily suspect something more is afoot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685500498

Rodney Ross

Author Rodney Ross lives, writes and sweats in Southern California. His new novel, 'Diversionary Fires', debuted mid-Summer 2021 from Amazon KDP Select. 'The Cool Part Of His Pillow', his debut novel, was the 1st Place Winner in the GLBT Fiction category from both the Indie Excellence Awards and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards; Silver Medalist in the 2013 Global EBook Awards; and Honorable Mention in the 2012 Rainbow Book Awards. In 2020, it was re-issued in a 2nd edition by JMS Books. Other works include the forthcoming novella 'Smoking With Didi,' from JMS Books in the Fall of 2021; 'Signing Off' in the short story collection' Impact', from Other World Ink; 'Otis,' a short fiction about a Christmas Eve where lessons are taught and learned; 'Bended Knee', a short, bittersweet contemplation of same-sex marriage; and a non-fiction contribution to the 'The Other Man: Twenty-One Top Writers Speak Candidly About Sex, Love, Infidelity, Heartbreak and Moving On'. A trio of essays from this book are being adapted into a play by Chicago playwright Bernard Rice. Rodney's work is one of the three. Past achievements include an optioned screenplay and play, both currently unproduced. Other screenplays earned Honorable Mentions or runners-up citations in the Monterey County Film Commission, FADE-IN and the LGBT One-In-Ten Screenwriting Competitions. Ross was also cited as 'Most Creative' in the Key West Mystery Fest Writing Competition. Follow him @rodtross on Twitter; access his website at www.rodneytross.com

Book preview

The Old Man at My Door

By Rodney Ross

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2022 Rodney Ross

ISBN 9781685500498

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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For the man with whom I am happily growing old, GWC

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The Old Man at My Door

By Rodney Ross

Prologue: Yesterday’s Eyes

I had no intention of opening the front door on that Saturday morning.

It was a tentative pound, five times, done with a gloved hand. It did not have the rawness of the UPS man’s bare knuckles, plus it was way too early.

Answering it would violate my own rule of never letting anyone see the smeared eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara I had neglected to remove before dropping into bed. My friend Trina called those yesterday’s eyes, the lazy equivalent of a walk of shame.

It was a housecoat kind of day. That’s what my grandmother, who’d sit for hours in her Barcalounger completing her order from the new Blair catalog, would have called it. Maybe I should own a chartreuse housecoat, one with a zippered front or, better, one with Day-Glo buttons as large as saucers.

For now, I’d settled for the XXL flannel shirt Matt had left behind, and baggy sweatpants even baggier at the knee. They’d both become inhabitants of the hook on the back of the bedroom door.

A timid knock like this usually meant a child had been dropped off to peddle overpriced candy bars to benefit a school-something.

Or it could have been that a car had stalled, and its owner wanted to borrow a shovel or ask for a push. Where we live is not handy to a gasoline station.

Except it’s not a we who lives here, not anymore.

I need to tell you about our house.

It’s a main character in what came after the knock.

That’s what he called it, and I will honor that.

But, to tell it properly, accuracy is important.

There. I did it again. It’s not our house. It’s just mine now, the iconic farmhouse on the left, the one with the red barn and an unused grain silo that’s an affectation. Depression-era farmhouses eschewed any showiness and were of modest proportion. Even the halls were like the roads that surrounded the Wisconsin countryside: narrow, no-passing zones. Farmers had no time or energy to entertain. They slept, ate, worked. I am not so different. I barely know the people at the address nearest me; I am not especially neighborly. I’ve never even had a trick or treater. Their parents probably told their kids all the ‘oddball lady’ would put in their bag was a business card. The house was the recent subject of a flattering feature in the Baldwin Journal’s Sunday Home section, which was probably more due to the purchase of a separate, sixteen-page, full-color insert of the furniture store franchise I oversee. You scratch my back, etc.

A McMansion it’s not, yet houses have to evolve to suit the specific needs of the owner. A purist would probably be disdainful of the rooftop’s solar panels, but technology can coexist with integrity. Matt taught me that. I thought we’d ultimately become the cool version of American Gothic.

How incorrect that was.

The week had, as usual, been long, walking sales floors with disinterested managers, and my energy level still wasn’t what it was before chemotherapy and radiation. I had every intention of a leisurely but fruitful Saturday, or even weekend, if the snow accumulated and drifted as forecast. The Dust Bunnies—a borderline-offensive name I have suggested the cleaning team change—had been to the house on Friday.

I was considering baking; organizing the many recipes I’d torn from Bon Appetit; clearing the pantry of plastic bags, some from a grocery that no longer existed; doing my nails, which were a wreck; or mocking Hallmark movies through unexpected tears. Maybe I’d return to bed, where I’d finally re-mastered the art of sleeping alone. (Tip: less pillows, not more.) There, I could stream Golden Girls episodes all day.

Not only had I not had coffee, I hadn’t yet made coffee. But first, I wanted a fire in the two-sided fireplace, so I could watch the winter storm escalate in intensity from the kitchen. Christmas had not been white, and January had been endless gray days of temperatures too cold for accumulating snow. This one, the Milwaukee weather report promised, would be at first heavy and wet then, as the winds picked up, would drift into swirling commas. I especially liked what snow did to the farmhouse’s exterior, how it clung like fresh white mortar around each brick…how little pillows formed on the cedar split-rail fencing…how it outlined the celestial weathervane Matt had found on eBay, which I promised myself I would trudge out to look at.

When the second wave of knocks came, they were more insistent, confident someone was home and that they would respond.

Which I did.

An old man was at my door.

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Chapter 1: Simple Request

His bow seemed to be in deference, so deep that he had to right the earmuffs that dropped on to his forehead. His enunciation was loud, but the KN95 mask still muffled his greeting.

Ms. Renata Todd?

That’s me. How can I help, sir?

I could see the knockouts in the snow behind him, his imperfect path from whoever dropped him there. There was one large