The Knock

I seem to be on a roll here lately.  Today's post was also an Editor's Pick on Open Salon.  Go figure...


We were newlyweds in our early twenties. Brad was a busy teacher and boys' basketball coach in a Milwaukee Public School. I was employed in my first public relations job at A. O. Smith Corporation.

We were still in the playing-house stage of our marriage. After all, our first anniversary was still in the future. We spent our time away from work hanging out at our favorite neighborhood bar, ordering the most scrumptious fried chicken known to man, which was fried in pure lard. We'd take it home to eat with lots of hot sauce and a mountain of homemade fries. In bed. Sometimes we would have already gone to bed for the night, found ourselves sleepless and risen again to go out for a drink.

I was feeling very inadequate when it came to rattling pots and pans in the kitchen. My cooking skills were, well, I didn't have any. Brad had started "suggesting" every Sunday lately that we go eat at his parents' home. The poor guy must have thought he was starving to death.

One night I decided to make an effort. I destroyed the $25 dollar per week food budget that day by stopping at the market for two one-pound lobster tails, cheesecloth for clarifying butter and a gorgeous bunch of bright green broccoli. Wine had not yet come into our youthful consciousness. My idea of a splurge in the beverage department was a carton of Heinecken.

After a very successful dinner, if Ido say so myself, I dashed into the bathroom to prepare for part deux of the evening. One of my naughty girl friends had given me a sheer, red negligee for my wedding shower. I had never worn it. It seemed stupid to me to don something so fancy and useless, really, when it was just going to be tossed overboard in a matter of minutes. This night I put it on, dabbed on my signature Shalimar perfume, fluffed up my hair and posed in the doorway of our tiny bedroom like I had seen Loretta Young do it in a movie.

Much later, we both slept peacefully on our respective sides of the bed. Around 12:30 a.m. I awoke with a start as someone was pounding on our apartment door. I sent Brad stumbling to the door in his tidy whities while I tried to figure out who, what, when, where and why I was.

I heard a woman screeching at Brad, frantically begging for help. I jumped out of bed, looked down at, and through, my nightgown and hesitated, looking around for a robe. But the woman was beyond frantic and I decided to just go see what was going on.



We dashed across the hall to the woman's apartment. There on the bed, which could be easily seen from the hallway, lay sprawled a middle-aged man. As I approached the bed, the first thing I saw were his emerald green eyes. They were the prettiest shade of green I had ever seen, and this was before colored contact lenses. They were also the scariest pair of eyes I had ever seen because they were blankly staring -- at nothing.

This isn't good, I thought. He looks like he's dead, but how would I know what that looked like since I had never seen a dead body before? I leaned over close to his nose and mouth. Nothing. Then I got fancy. I grabbed his wrist, hoping a pulse would make itself apparent, because I had no idea how or where to find it.

Brad called the paramedics or whatever they were called in 1967. I was suddenly clear-headed and thought I would try artificial respiration. I put the heels of my hands in the vicinity of the man's heart and pressed. I was totally unprepared for what happened next. His chest had obviously filled with fluid, so it responded to my compression with a loud and liquid gurgle. The phrase "death rattle" jumped into my head, which I must have read about in a novel or a textbook, because I sure as hell hadn't ever heard one before.

I looked at Brad, who was shaking his head "no." This man was dead. I glanced over at the woman, who was sobbing quietly now. Brad's in his Jockey shorts, I'm practically naked in a gossamer kind of way, and this stranger to us was fully dressed, shoes and all. The dead guy was decidedly NOT dressed. What was wrong with this picture?

Suddenly the studly men of the Milwaukee F.D. charged into the apartment. Just as suddenly, Brad realized that his new bride was displaying all of his wifely treats in front of said studs. "Lezlie, let's go. There's nothing more we can do here."

As we left the room, we heard a strange discussion between the woman and the firemen. There was a hospital less than a mile from our building, but she was insisting that he be taken to a different one way across town.

"Brad," I said as we lie awake, too amped up to fall asleep, "do you think she waited to get help until she got herself re-dressed?"

"Yep. I heard her tell the fireguy that they had been gettin' it on when he suddenly gasped, slumped off her and onto his back without a word."

The next day, Brad came home with the afternoon edition of the Milwaukee Journal. He had folded it neatly, open to the obituary page.

John Q. Public, 53, Managing Partner at the prominent Jantzen Law Firm, died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack in the home of a friend. Mr. Public is survived by his loving wife, Patricia, a son Patrick, 4, and a daughter, Lisa, who is 7. He is also survived by both his parents and a host of family and friends.