OLD MAN DELPRETE

Another chunk of the “Brookdale Mythos” or “Brookdale Cycle”, here....this one is more or less a kind of “Prequel” to my novel, HELLO, UGLY, taking place in the '60's. Old Man Delprete is kind of a peripheral “character” in the book in that the teenagers who are the main characters bust into what, according to urban legend, is an old, abandoned “murder house”, wherein they find sheets over a lot of the old furniture and they party, socialize, wear the sheets and run around acting like ghosts....they drink a toast to Old Man Delprete, the historic murderer the urban legends are all based around.

This is Old Man Delprete's story.

In the act of compiling short stories for two collections I've decided to drop this one from the list (so I'm putting it here). Reason one is that whenever I revise HELLO I'm probably dropping the section in the Delprete House...it's excessive and heavy-handed and I don't think it adds anything of substance to the story. So “OMD” ends up with less of a context. I also have my doubts as to how well the story, as a whole, “works”...kind of overwritten, and I'm not too sure the multipart, multivoice structure functions well, particularly the kind of dark folk ballad sections---you could tell I was listening to a lot of Nick Cave at the time. Does it work? You tell me....

Nothing earth-shattering went into the guts of this---a little Faulkner here, a little Bloch there, some Selby frosted over the top----the “cake” of it all is my interest in the case of John List, and if you don't know who he is, you should look him up. It's an interesting case and I'm not gonna say anything else.

Oh---yeah---because you can't take such things for granted these days, the “N” word gets used in this story. Sorry, I'm not taking it out. This character's entire motivation is his fear of all the change and social upheaval around him....that's the way he thinks and that's the word he uses. I'm not in the habit of self-censoring for the Politically Dainty, so rather than engage in mealy-mouthed apologetics

I'm doubling down. The word stays. I don't think I should have to lecture you lot like a goddamned grade school teacher but evidently these days you need to preface everything because everyone's like a goddamn child.

And get offa my lawn.

Anyway, enough ranting. Here's “Old Man Delprete”.

OLD MAN DELPRETE

I

Old Man Delprete sits with his wife and two sons in the basement sitting room he has constructed for them. He leans forward in his easy chair and scowls at the television set. His boy Liston once again failed to beat that uppity, loudmouthed commie nigger who'd claimed he was a Muslim rather than fight for his country. Disgrace, yes, a disgrace. And funny business, as far as he could see. That wasn't any kind of a punch. Dirty Italian Mafia Fixers, no doubt---anyone could see the Mafia were in cahoots with the Commies. They ran everything now----ran the U.S. Mail, ran all the shows in Atlantic City, for sure. Just as well, he figures. If this were the old days he'd have most likely gone down to Sully's and shot his mouth off. Old Man Delprete isn't much for going out these days---more content to stay home with the family and watch it all go to hell from the basement.

Still, it's a disgrace about Clay, or whatever it is he's going to call himself now, and he tells his wife so. No reply. No reply needed. She's smiling and she understands. He loves her so much. And the boys. Perfect young men.

Old Man Delprete sits back and reflects upon the ominous state of the world. Portent, he believes the word is. It's different from the old days. Can't tell who your neighbors are. Crime. Immorality. Widespread acceptance of Communism.

Where are our values going? Old Man Delprete asks himself this a lot.

But a man shouldn't dwell on the negatives, he supposes, but instead look on his fortune and thank the Lord for simple things. Home. Family. The things that have real meaning.

Old Man Delprete thinks this and smiles at his wife. He looks at her, closely. Something's wrong.

II

The obsidian cloud settle over the small town of Brookdale. Visitation of the evil and the madness O woe O day O woe to little Brookdale. The shadows clutch n drown poor little Brookdale.

The grass grow long an a monster keeps his little hell in Brookdale. The secret cloaked in a decayin paint on a quiet little street in Brookdale.

III

Old Man Delprete takes a walk over to his workbench and looks for the needed instruments---oh, he must heal his wife---the larger ones----no, he needs the finer ones.

A few minutes later he returns to the sitting room and heals his wife. Magic. The magic of love. He touches up her face, the perfect shade of red, replenishes her winning smile...

Much better.

IV

Mabel Watson put down her teacup. She thought about the friends she'd known all her life, those she'd grown up and gone to school with, how it seemed that all moved away a long time ago. No jobs in Brookdale. No life in Brookdale. Honey, thjis town just isn't going anywhere. It'll die where it is right now.

Even young Agnes had stopped coming over to play Rummy, like she used to.

Mabel's son and daughter said they wanted to move her into a rest home. They said they'd been worried about her.

Terrible. Locking her in a rest home.

She thought about looking for Irv out in the back yard and calling him in for lunch. Then she remembered that, of course, there was no point to that. Irv had been dead for at least five years.

Maybe ten.

Could you blame a girl for getting lonely? And now all this business with the rest home. Just look at the way all her old friends had moved away, as had her children---so long ago.

Even young Agnes had stopped coming over to play Rummy, like she used to.

V

Enter the Electric Man.

Christ, thinks the Electric Man stalking through tall grass headed round back the house to read the meter, don't these people ever mow the lawn?

Finally he finds the meter next to the window and takes the reading

Job done the Electric Man turns to go one stray bored eye peering casually in the basement window

Storefront display

What the----?

VI

Horror, freezing cold, digs deep into Old Man Delprete. It was there. He's sure, this time. Again. The phantom. The pervert. Peeping.

The face. The face in the window.

God almighty, a man and his family aren't safe in their own home anymore.

Old Man Delprete frowns, grimaces with iron resolve.

--I will not, he screams, will not lie down to the decay the immorality swallowing America---they can't do this to me!

Gun

VII

The Electric Man doubles over and weeps.

VIII

The children in the schoolyard loiter and talk.

--Yeah we went downa the cranberry bog yesterday tryin to catch some frogs. Didn't find any.

--Aw, man, the cranberry bog? Down by Delpretes?

--Yeah, An' what about it? Ain't nobody lives down there.

--I hear Old Man Delprete still lives down there.

--Oh he died years ago.

--You mean 'e's a ghost?

--Naw, I don't mean 'e's a ghost. Grow up, will ya? All I'm sayin' is there ain't no Old Man Delprete an' he's just dead, he ain't no boogeyman in his cave, stewin' kids, is all.

---That house is empty an' has been for years. Ain't no Old Man Delprete, he was just this old fart moved away a long time ago.

---Scary house, though.

--Pshaw!

IX

Old Man Delprete finds the pervert cowering by the side of the house. Grovelling. Drooling.

Aims, fires. Justice is dispensed.

X

The boys gather 'round Sully's after work for a few rounds of beer.

--Well, sighs Levesque, godda go back to the missus before she starts suspectin' . Round of laughter from the boys.

--Ah, Levesque, chuckles Thibodeau, ya Missus is in good hands. Another round of laughter. I gotcher Missus right here.

---Seeya. Hi to the wife. Etc.

More drinking. Talking. Reminiscing. The boys grow a little older and smile. They are the old boys of Brookdale. Pushin' for that pension. Every night work. Every day Sully's. They are comfortable. Waiting to die.

--Ah, says LaPierre, ain't the same. Alla good people, the ole folks, movin' outta town...

--Ain't what it used to be.

--Nope.

--Know what we could use around here? Asks Old Jean.

--Some life, cracks Thibodeau.

--We could use ole Delprete.

--Ah, go on.

--No, no! Hear me out!

--Get outta here. Delprete was a crazy old cuss.

--He was one of the boys! An' lemme tell you he had some life in him...

--All Delprete ever did was go on an' on about this'n'that'n'the world goin' to hell an' such.

--Here, here.

--Delprete was a bore. An' he only got worse after his taxidermy business went under. Went buggy. Good riddance.

--No, no! Says Old Jean. Ain't nobody could replace Delprete...ya may have disagreed with his grumpy ass on the time of day, but you remember every conversation you ever had with him, yeah?

--Can ya believe this?!

--Ain't nobody could replace Delprete, nobody. Look at alla you, ya deadasses, you go from here to there an' back again. Whaddya do, huh? Whaddya do? Delprete, he was a character....

---Ah, go on....

XI

Old Man Delprete manages to weigh down the Electric Man using cinderblocks from the cellar. The cranberry bog sucks him down.

XII

A hole opened up where a life once was, and a name, a tiny world, is blotted out in Brookdale.

Ravens in heir solemn ritual pace dropping roses down 'round Brookdale's shame....

XIII

Legend.

The children for generations will ring their laughing, dancing plague circles round, chant the grisly legend of Old Man Delprete.

The stories vary. The number of victims shift. The misdeeds grow and distort and intensify in Legend.

XIV

Old Man Delprete sits and beams at his fine family. Agnes smiling, starry-eyed. The boys now perfect young men. Steadfast. Tall.

When things get too much, one must fight. There are very few things in this world that are of lasting importance. A man must defend and protect those that matter. Nothing must come between a man and his home, his family.

Sometimes, one has to make the hard decisions. One must sacrifice. Sometimes harsh measures must be followed in order to teach those who might make wrong turns, so that they might eventually pursue the right course. He has no doubt about that now.

Old Man Delprete frowns thoughtfully. He figures he ought to tend to the lawn.

Maybe later. It seems to be one of those things he always puts off. Maybe later.

Thooming raps on the front door upstairs. Damned IRS. Best to just ignore it.

XV

cranes in the cranberry bog. The yellow line. Brookdale opens its eyes and screams at its face takes up the mask nails it to its face in terror, never to remove it again.

Smash the mirror, little Brookdale.

XVI

In the tiny room Old Man Delprete sits frail in the wooden chair and he smiles a nervous smile. A parade of men walk in and out.

It all frightens him a little bit.

He asks when he might be allowed to go back to his family.

XVII

A tiny, hunched and humble man crosses the threshold on a gray horizon and shuffles into myth.

copyright 1992 C.F. Roberts,

2019 Molotov Editions

“Old Man Delprete” was picked up and run by a zine out of Maine called GOTHICA. Don't know what ever became of it----the editor, who's apparently one more person from back then who just dropped off the face of the earth, ran a couple of things of mine---she respected me as a writer although for some bizarre reason we never got along. A lot of it may have been our different approaches to the word “Gothic”, which to her meant Anne Rice----to me it meant The Sisters of Mercy and the Cure, or on a literary angle, Goethe, the Bronte Sisters, et. al. So we didn't necessarily get off on the right foot...she always perceived us, for some inexplicable reason, as being diametrically opposed on some ethical or philosophical level. Even her glowing mention of me in editorials were undercut by bizarre little “digs”. Hey, my ethics and philosophies amounted to this: I'm just some fucking guy who writes stories.

However, the lady was kind enough to publish me in her mag, and she also supported a good many writers I knew who were worthy of the attention. So wherever she may be, hats off to her.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

THE KINKS-Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

FAITH NO MORE-King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime

FAITH NO MORE-Angel Dust