The Guy at the Front Door

“Explain the butterfly,” were the first words the thin man in the starched white shirt said to me. His tie was red, white, and blue and very wide. His tie looked like it might have come straight out of Jerry Ford's closet. The man shrugged his shoulders and smiled an easy smile. He seemed to be waiting for a response.

We were standing in my doorway. He had short brown hair and a highly indented hair line. He might have been around the age of twenty or thirty and he might have been around twelve.

“The butterfly?” I said.

“You don't believe in God, is that correct?”

I shook my head yes, and then no, up and down and sideways and thought to myself, why did you answer the door, you old fool? At 63, you might have thought I'd be a little smarter. I'd heard somewhere that if you answer your front door naked when these guys come around they generally leave pretty quickly.

“You think everything can be explained through science?” he asked. Since this was almost a direct quote out of my own head, it was difficult for me to argue. He shrugged his shoulders again and smiled warmly.

“I really don't have the time right now,” I said.

This made the boy/man laugh a good hearty laugh without meanness.

“A fuzzy worm grows colorful wings and flies away” he said. “Can you explain that through Darwin?”

I could not, and I wasn't going to try.

“Now,” he went on, “I can easily see how a thousand years ago a tornado sweeping through your great-great-great-great-great- grandfather's village demanded belief in gods. I will agree, a thousand years ago, what else but an angry god could explain something as frightening as a tornado?”

“Exactly,” I said. I had made this comment many times since Martha had passed away.

“Science later explained the tornado to us, did it not?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But the butterfly?”

“Well,” I said, “You make an interesting point, but I don't--”

“No,” he said. “Now might not be the time for this discussion. I have interrupted you, and I apologize. I know you have better things to do than talk to an old man...”

I knew he could hear “Jeopardy” on my television in the backroom. I would have simply closed the door, but the”old man” part distracted me a bit and I hesitated.

He stuck out his hand for me to shake; which I did. Expecting more, I waited for a brochure to appear out of his back pocket.

He backed up a few steps from my doorway. “Food for thought,” he said.

“The butterfly,” I said, as my right hand began to pulsate.

“The butterfly!” he said and made a movement of wiggling fingers rising in the air.

We looked at each other and he laughed his merry laugh again.

I laughed also. This guy was okay. He kept backing up and I liked him more and more the further he backed away.

“Have a nice day, Mr. Rosenzweig,” he said.

He walked away and I closed the door, and immediately headed into the bathroom to wash my hand which was still pulsating and warm and getting warmer. The butterfly was a long ways from my mind.

What I wanted to know, as I scrubbed my hand with soap and water was, who the hell was that guy and how did he know my name? And with my right hand still pulsating and no answers coming to me, I turned off the boob-tube, and went to bed.

The next morning I put on a pair of old tennis shoes and a faded blue sweatsuit I hadn't worn either in a very long time. I was surprised to see that the ratty old thing still fit. Outside on my door-stoop I reached down to try touching my toes and found the motion delightfully easy.

Sheila Morgan, the young single mother from next door was in her driveway reaching for her morning newspaper. She was a fine looking woman; I wondered how it was I hadn't noticed this before.

“Good morning, Sheila!” I said.

She looked at me in surprise. I guess we hadn't spoken much in the year or so she had lived next door.

“Good morning,” she said and looked at me oddly.

Maybe I was just showing off, but I found myself doing jumping-jacks as Sheila stood there watching me with a quizzical expression on her face. I did five or six jumping-jacks and realized I could have done a hundred more.

“Are you a friend of Mr. Rosenzweig's?” Sheila asked with a straight face.

I laughed at her joke, like, What have you done with my next-door-neighbor? I guess it was pretty strange for me to be out here exercising. After all, I hadn't done anything similar even once in more than thirty years. I felt great. I felt like a new person!

“Explain the butterfly,” I said to Sheila who looked at me blankly.

I gave her a wink and began jogging down the sidewalk. I thought maybe tomorrow I'd ask Sheila to dinner, and with that happy thought I began picking up speed. The joy I felt is hard to expain as I felt the breeze on my face, my legs pumping faster and faster until soon, it felt almost as though I were flying.

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