Especially since she doesn’t get out here to visit me very often. “I understand why my daughter did this,” Walt said. Walt sat at the other and slipped his flip-flops off. “My job is to come by three days a week and hang out with you.” Spence stared at the room and its furnishings with wonder and envy. Framed posters of old movies hung on the walls. Models of World War II aircraft lined shelves and were encased in glass boxes. A television, the biggest Spence had seen outside of an electronics store, was mounted on the wall. Stacks of magazines were on the desk in the far corner next to the computer. It was wood paneled, furnished with a large sectional sofa and recliners. “So, what do you do?” Walt led the young man into the living room. “One less thing I got to worry with, I suppose.” “Your daughter has made all the arrangements, she’s taken care of everything.” “Do I pay you now or what?” Walt closed the door to the June heat. The house was spotless, devoid of clutter, everything in its proper place with a hint of potpourri in the air complimented by the freshness of Walt’s cologne. This wasn’t the stereotypical abode of the universal bachelor. Many homes of the solitary male had some amount of clutter, untidiness, but not Walt’s home. “That thing my daughter signed me up for.” He moved with fluid motions in his flip-flops. He was of medium height, meat on his bones which gathered at his belly to tighten his blue t-shirt and politely overlap the waist of his green running shorts. The older man was partially bald, what buzzed hair remained was gunmetal grey.
It was a mere moment before the door opened and Walt Gintry stood staring at him. The air was so fresh it felt cool in his nose, crisp in his lungs. The birds chirped with the faint hum of the central unit and pool from the rear of the house. Spence bathed in the quiet of the surroundings before he rang the doorbell. Fear soon gave way to a whistle of surprise when he saw the destination: an immaculate two-story house nestled among a forest of fragrant pines with a pool in the back, no less. He followed the turn-by-turn directions and was afraid he was lost when he turned onto a dead end road in the middle of nowhere. Spence put the address in his GPS: 3232 Oakdale Pines. According to the daughter, her dad said it might be nice to have someone to play cards with once in a while.” “His daughter said he initially didn’t want us, but relented when he saw how much it meant to her. “He’s not an asshole, is he?” Spence asked. “He sits at home, alone, all the time” his daughter, Margott, wrote in the paperwork, “I’d like to get a friend for Daddy.” His daughter signed him up so someone would stop by and spend a couple of hours with her dad three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).
Spence read over the file: Walt Gintry, 70, widower for twenty years, former engineer, lived alone. The contracts had already been signed, the times scheduled. A Friend Indeed mostly provided someone to talk to, someone to listen. People needed a little help around the house sometimes, someone to run errands. Most of their clients lived alone, some were older couples, and almost all of them were contracted by concerned family members. They were not a “home health service,” they were a companion service, a rent-a-friend, for the elderly. Getting new clients acclimated to A Friend Indeed wasn’t too difficult. “Yeah, I’ll take it, help get it all set up.” “What do you think?” Gretchen, his boss, asked. Spence had worked for A Friend Indeed for nearly three years and, as he was now the employee with the most seniority, he was offered the new clients first.