The Luckiest Man Alive (completed)

It was a really cold winter. Not only was the temperature consistently below zero but there was also a biting wind that penetrated even the woolliest of sweaters and the four pairs of socks that I had developed the habit of wearing. It was around Christmas when I was working late one night at the bar and Geoffrey Mann walked in. I know it was around Christmas because I remember thinking about how Donna kept nagging me to put the lights up on the roof of the house. Doesn’t she know that it involves a good level of physical labor? I work all night just to put food on the table and she won’t even give me a few hours of peace at home to relax and reflect upon my day like a normal guy! No, she wants me up and about constantly doing chores for her, as if I don’t need any down time. I’m not in my thirties (or even my forties) anymore and I don’t really appreciate her treating me like her very own personal Mephistopheles, I should have realized she’d sold her soul to the Devil long before I married her.
Anyway, I was working late at the bar one night when the wind blew this odd fellow in. It must have been a weeknight because business was slow and the tips were under par. Geoff was real tall and mysterious, like one of those characters from those old movies my mom used to watch when I was a kid. He took off his black fedora hat and brushed off a fine sprinkling of snow before sitting down on one of the dilapidated bar stools, the one all the way on the end to the left where the Doctor usually self-medicates after a long day looking down throats and bandaging broken bones. At any rate, he sat down on the stool and I says to him, “Hey buddy what can I get for you?”
He was all weird and silent, pensive-like, before ordering a glass of milk. Now I found this mighty curious, who orders a glass of milk at a bar on a weeknight? Now normally I would’ve just gone into the kitchen and served the guy his milk, but I was really bewildered by this guy. Don’t get me wrong, business is business, so I still got the damned milk but I couldn’t resist the tantalizing temptation of mystery, so I asked him, straight-up, what he was all about.

“Now what kind of a guy orders milk at a bar on a weeknight?”

“I’m experiencing my second childhood,” he replied.

“Oh really, would you like me to warm that glass up and sing you a lullaby too?”

“No, it’s fine cold. I have an ulcer, that’s what the milk’s for, it helps settle it down.”

“An ulcer? What stresses you out so much that you’ve got ulcers? Does your wife keep after you to put a sparkly rendition of Rudolf and his eight reindeer buddies up on the roof?”

“No, I’m the luckiest man alive.”

“Ha, you’re funny! The luckiest man alive is probably sitting fat and happy in a retirement home somewhere in Florida soaking in the sun and pretty girls in bikinis.”

Geoff just looks me straight in the eyes and takes a deep swig of his milk before replying, “I can prove it. What are you doing Saturday?”

I shook my head, I was free all weekend, my daughter Maryellen was taking over the bar shifts. She always got better tips than me on the weekends anyway; the younger crowd that filled the bar on Friday and Saturday nights was a sucker for big tits and a pretty smile. He continued, “Why don’t you come over to my house for dinner? I live over in Chester a few miles west of here.” I agreed, intrigued by this man. I spent the rest of the week musing over what could possibly make this man the luckiest man alive. Bets were placed at the bar, the front-running idea was that he was an ex-lottery winner and would show me his framed winning ticket and the runner-up was that he was married to Pamela Anderson.
Chester was a small sleepy town nestled in the mountains. It received only the occasional visitor or lost tourist because it was so difficult to get to and the people that lived there never really had a reason to leave. It took me a little extra time to get to Chester on Saturday evening because the roads were icy and Donna had kept me hostage in the driveway for a good twenty minutes lecturing me to be careful driving and to call if I was going to be later than midnight. I promised her that I would even though I never had any intention of doing so. I knew that Donna would be asleep in front of the TV by ten thirty, knocked out by the combination of a long day working as an elementary school secretary and an extra-dry nightcap, where she would remain until my return when I would rouse her to go to bed. In our younger days I would have carried her but after our three kids, that was no longer an option.
Geoffrey Mann almost lived in the middle of nowhere. There was a good ten-mile radius between his house and any of his neighbors. At almost drove straight past the weed-covered “Mann Estate” sign that pointed to the long paved driveway leading up to his home. The first thing I noticed as I reached the front of the portentous stone mansion was a skinny old horse standing in the front yard. It perked its gray ears forward and whinnied as I approached in my rusty blue Toyota Corolla but turned away when I got closer and it recognized me as a stranger. The horse resumed standing dejectedly under the substandard shelter of a massive snow-covered oak tree, the only indicators of life were the occasional flick of its stringy tail and the rise and fall of its visible ribcage. After I parked my car, I walked up the freshly shoveled front steps and rang the doorbell, I could hear the echo of its enthusiastic chime reverberate within the tremendous house. I was still musing over the downtrodden hag when the door opened and a rather plump butler greeted me.

“Good evening sir, I take it you are Mr. Shepherd?”

“Yeah, that would be me.” As the butler ushered me indoors I inquired about the melancholy steed, “Say, what’s the deal with that horse?”

“Sunny? Oh don’t mind him, he’s just waiting for Mrs. Mann to return, he’s been like that ever since she left.”

“Oh, when was that?”

“Seventeen years ago.”

Boy that’s loyalty. I secretly vowed to give my dog Sammy more table scraps just in case I keel over before he does, I want there to be at least someone left who mourns my absence. Donna would just gloat that she could use the money from my life insurance to finally get the new extension on the house. I followed the butler through the foyer and down a dimly lit hallway. There were portraits of men long dead as well as family photographs from more recent years. In one picture a young boy with an astonishing likeness to Geoffrey Mann stood alongside a beautiful blond woman with smiling eyes and a much more juvenile looking Sunny. There were also photos of the same woman holding a tiny baby and in a wedding dress standing next to Mann.
The butler led me to the kitchen at the end of the hall where I was surprised to see Geoffrey Mann standing by the granite countertop grating cheese. It caught me off guard to find that a mansion dwelling man with a live in butler would not have a personal chef. Now, I’m extremely loyal to my wife Donna but if given the chance to replace her excessively salty food with the fare of a personal chef, I would agree hands down any day, unless it was lasagna night. Mann cut off a hunk of cheddar and dropped it into the anticipating mouth of a small tabby cat. The scraggly cat turned around and scampered out of the room, giving me a glimpse of its missing half an ear and absence of a left eye.
“Shep! I’m happy you made it in this weather! I was just finishing up preparing the feast for us tonight, I hope you like pasta carbonara?” I do. “Come, while it’s in the oven let us go to the den for some pre-dinner drinks.” He beckoned for me to follow him into another room where a mini bar was already set up. He went behind the counter and pulled out some Scotch, “I hope you’re okay with this, it’s pretty much all I keep around. It feels weird serving drinks to a bartender.” I nodded that Scotch was fine, I’m not much of a drinker anyway. After a few rounds and some small talk, I’d come to the conclusion that Geoffrey Mann is quite an amusing fellow. I glanced around the room and noticed a hound dog fast asleep in front of the fireplace.

“Is that your hunting dog?” I inquired, pointing to the snoring beast.

Geoff laughed, “Tripod? Heaven’s no, the poor old chap isn’t good for much; he’s only got three legs.”

“What’s the deal with all these gimpy animals, you got a fetish for them? I noticed that your cat only had one eye as well.”

“To tell you the truth Shep, I like having them around because they remind me of myself. They’re survivors like I am.” Geoff motioned to a collection of framed newspaper articles on the wall above the fireplace, “See, I wasn’t lying when I told you I was the luckiest man alive.”

The headlines had titles like “FISHERMAN LANDS LUCKIEST CATCH OF THE DAY” and “YACHT ACCIDENT SURVIVOR DISCOVERED AFTER 8 DAYS” Geoffrey Mann had been a prominent figure in the newspapers twenty years ago for being the lone survivor of a freak yacht sinking. He had managed to stay afloat on a lifeboat for more than a week until a fisherman discovered him and brought him back to shore where he was received as a local hero. There had been only two other people on the yacht, a famous hotel tycoon and the ship captain, the bodies of which had never been found. I nodded in acquiescence and lifted my near empty glass in a silent toast, “That my friend, is pretty darn lucky.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” At my perplexed look, he rose from his chair, “I’ll tell you the rest over dinner, let’s eat!”

The pasta was surprisingly delicious; it was better than anything Donna had ever cooked for me, which I found both interesting and disturbing at the same time. Tripod even managed to rouse himself and hobble through to the dining room for some free samples of his master’s cooking. The table was very long, made to entertain large groups of people, a remnant of the days when the Mann Estate had a greater influx of guests. It seemed weird to me to use only two of the twelve place settings, but the conversation and food were both satisfactory so I really had no qualms. After the hefty butler cleared the dishes away, I’m sure had been sampling his fare share of leftovers behind the kitchen doors, Mann told me to stay put as he went into another room. He returned and placed a small black box on the table, about the size of a toaster. I asked him what it was.

“I don’t normally tell people this Shep but there’s something I like about you Shep, so I’m going to tell it to you straight. It’s the satellite radio from the Florentina, the yacht that sunk.”

I mused over that information for a while. How could he have the radio from a yacht that was anchored on the ocean floor? I looked back at Geoffrey Mann and wondered just how lucky he really was. Mann didn’t seem worried by my hesitation and continued speaking, absentmindedly turning the radio over and over in his hands.

“Honestly Shep, this radio was never on the ship the night it sunk. I’d had it removed the day before and a dummy one put in its place. You see, I couldn’t have Harry George or his captain wiring in for help when the boat started to go down. What’s lucky isn’t that I survived and the fisherman rescued me; the lucky part was that I got away with it.” Mann deliberately folded his napkin and placed it on the table before rising from his chair and pouring himself a glass of red wine from a bottle on the table. He angled it towards me in offering that I politely refused. When he placed the bottle back on the table I could see the label that read “Chester Vineyard” and displayed a picture of the same woman I had seen gracing many of the photos in Mann’s home.

Mann saw my glance and beckoned to her picture, “I did it all for her too. The truth is, I’d dug myself into a pretty deep gambling bet and owed George a helluva lot of money and I was going to lose my house and all my worldly belongings if I ever paid up. It wouldn’t have been so bad except I didn’t think my wife would stand by me if she weren’t kept in the manner in which she had become accustomed. So I made sure George would never be able to collect on his debt. It didn’t work though, I felt so bad about the whole thing Shep! I was treated like a hero in this worthless town! I couldn’t have people look at me with awe knowing what I’d really done! After three years, I absolutely had to tell somebody, so I told the person closest to me, my wife. When she found out, however, the ungrateful bitch took my son and left to St. Kits. I haven’t seen either of them since.”

I swallowed hard and looked at my watch, it was ten thirty. I was all jumpy and nervous, knowing I was alone in a house with a murderer and I got startled when the cat with one eye jumped up on the table. It commenced to purr and rub against my host, arching its back approvingly at Mann’s touch. I thought of Donna asleep at home in front of a never-ending stream of infomercials and had a sudden intense desire to be back there with her, away from this twisted and lonely fellow, “Wow man, that really sucks.” It was all I could say, what else could I possibly utter to a man who’d just confessed murder to me over pasta carbonara? All I knew was that I needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Eh,” Mann shrugged, “She was a slut anyway and I got used to being alone after a while. Besides, I have the animals and Rusty, my butler to keep me company. And now I have you, my new friend.”
Uncomfortable under his gaze I stood up, “Yeah well, dinner was swell but I better be going… My wife’s waiting up for me.”
“Nonsense, Shep!” Mann exclaimed as he motioned out the window, where a fresh coating of snow blanketed the ground and a flurry was continuing to come down heavily, “There’s no way you could drive home in weather like this! I’d be happy to put you up for the night, no worries, I have plenty of room.” I really didn’t have a choice, I was at the mercy of my murderous host who excitedly motioned for me to get up, “Let’s go back into the den and play some cards.”
I followed him reluctantly, wishing I could close my eyes and be back at the bar grumbling about Donna and chatting with the Doc, never having met Geoffrey Mann, “Won’t the luckiest man alive automatically win?”

“Shep, my dear friend, men make there own luck.”