The Last of Reginald
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Wexler Deal had been dead a long time. He died when he was a child, so his spirit-self would always be a child. Despite his apparent youth, he had experienced all the spirit world had to offer. Now he was lonely. Now he wanted a home.

He went back to the city of his birth, thinking that was as good a place as any to look for a home, but nothing looked the same. The hospital where he was born had been torn down and an office building stood in its place. The cemetery where he was buried was overgrown and unkempt, with a new highway built uncomfortably close. In the neighborhood where he had lived before he died, all the houses had been torn down and a shopping center built in their place.

Nothing was the same. There were no streetcars anymore. The little shops along Main Street were all gone. He didn’t see any horses anywhere, but there were lots of trucks. There were also lots of annoying people and much noise. He didn’t like the modern world.

“Just how long have you been dead, anyway?” he asked himself.

He sat in the park on a bench, watching living people go by and thinking how he didn’t belong and how he should find someplace else to go. If he was looking for happiness, he wouldn’t find it here.

He was watching a swan glide toward an island in the center of the lake when two people crossed his field of vision, a woman and a boy. The woman, smartly dressed, had soft-looking hair the color of straw. She was leading the boy by the hand. They stopped at the water fountain. The boy felt the fountain with both hands. She turned it on for him while he drank.

Wexler watched them as long as they were in the park and when they left he followed them.

They went home to a two-story brick house with a spacious yard. Wexler was fascinated by the boy who had to feel the water fountain with hands before he took a drink. He was a smart-looking boy just about Wexler’s age. He would make a good brother. The woman would make a good mother. He was sure of it.

The next day, he went back just as the boy and the woman were emerging from the house. He let them go ahead of him and then followed them.

This time they went to the library. The woman sat at a table and pulled a chair close to her for the boy to sit on. She began looking at newspapers. Whenever she went to the rack to get another newspaper, the boy sat quietly with his hands folded across his stomach and lowered his head. He closed his eyes as though he were asleep.

Wexler sat on the other side of the boy. Of course, the boy didn’t see him and didn’t know he was there. This gave Wexler a chance to look closely at the boy. Wexler saw how far the boy’s eyelashes extended from his eyes. His hair was exactly the same color as Wexler’s and, in fact, they looked enough alike to be brothers. The only difference was that Wexler had been dead for decades, but when he died he was about the same age that the boy was now, so, for all intents and purposes, they were the same age.

When they left the library, they stopped on the way home at a restaurant to eat lunch. They sat at a red-upholstered booth and ate tuna-salad sandwiches and drank malteds. Wexler sat beside the boy and watched him eat, mimicking him and imagining what it would be like to take food into his mouth and swallow it. He hadn’t eaten in decades, but he remembered what it was like.

Soon they were back home again. Instead of turning ar0und and walking away when the woman and the boy went inside, Wexler slipped inside with them. The woman closed the door, blissfully unaware that Wexler was there. Being a spirit certainly has its advantages.

The boy went upstairs, while the woman went into the kitchen. Wexler was going to go along with the boy to get better acquainted with him, but instead he wanted to spend some time exploring the house.

It was a big house. The rooms were splendidly furnished and there were a lot of them. These people must certainly have a lot of money, thought Wexler. I wouldn’t mind living in a place like this.

In a little while the woman went into the front room and laid down on the couch. Wexler watched her as she took off her shoes and made herself comfortable. She didn’t have to fix dinner or do any other work, Wexler was soon to discover, because she had a black maid named Ethel to do everything.

When dinner was ready, Ethel brought the food in from the kitchen and put it on the dining room table. The woman rose from the couch, and the boy came down from upstairs. They sat across from each other at the table. The woman put the food on the boy’s plate, and then on her own, and they began eating. Wexler hovered over the table and watched them as they ate. Finally he sat down beside the boy and listened to their conversation.

“Did you straighten your room?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you hang up your clothes and put your underwear in the wash?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You’re not helpless, you know.”

“I never said I was.”

“Do you like the roast beef?

“Sure.”

After dinner, the boy went to his room and read a book that was little dots on a page. The woman watched TV while Wexler continued to explore the house, including the basement and attic.

At bedtime, the woman and the boy said their good nights, and the boy went into his room and changed into his pajamas. After he got into bed and was settling down to sleep, Wexler sat in a chair beside the bed and whistled an old tune.

“Who’s there?” the boy asked.

Wexler continued to whistle.

“I know there’s somebody there.”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“How long have you been following me?”

“Just for a couple of days.”

“I knew it! I could feel it!”

“Just between you and me.”

“What?”

“Is that woman your mother?”

“Of course not. She’s my guardian.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She abandoned me when I was a baby.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Because I was born blind.”

“That’s terrible!”

“As you can see, I get along all right. Now, you’d better tell me who you are and what you want.”

“If I told you my name, it wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“My name is Wexler Deal.”

“That’s a funny name.”

“What’s yours?”

“Reginald Flinders.”

“I’d shake your hand, but I don’t have a hand.”

“Why not? Have you been in a terrible accident?”

“No, I…That’s a story for another time.”

“Why ‘for another time’?”

“I don’t think you’re ready for the truth about me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Just take my word for it.”

“All right. Now, tell me what you’re doing in my house.”

“I’ve been looking for a brother. When I saw you in the park, I thought you might be him.”

“That sounds suspicious. I think I should tell Grace the whole thing.”

“Who’s Grace?”

“She’s my guardian. She’ll want to know what you’re doing here. She’ll call the police.”

“No need for that.”

“I want to know how you got in without Grace or the maid seeing you.”

“Nobody sees me.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not really there. Or here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been dead for a long time. I’m a spirit.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one!”

“It’s the absolute truth. The reason Grace and the maid didn’t see me is because I’m not really there. Nobody sees me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you.”

They talked for hours. They both realized how good it was to have somebody to talk to. Before the night was over, they both ended up asleep, side by side, in Reginald’s bed. In the morning they woke up and began talking again.

Reginald went to a school for the blind. In the morning some people came and picked him up and kept him at school all day, and in the afternoon they brought him back home again. When he wasn’t at school, he spent almost all his time with Wexler. They spoke on every subject imaginable. Reginald told him how he wondered about colors and what a cow looked like, or a chicken.

“One day you’ll see everything,” Wexler said.

“I don’t think so. I’ve always been this way.”

“I’d help you to see if I knew how.”

Another time, Reginald said, “Tell me what you look like. Describe yourself to me.”

“I don’t look like anything,” Wexler said. “I’m not here.”

“If you were here and I could see you, what would you look like?”

“When I had a body and a face, I looked just the way you look now.”

“I’ve never seen myself.”

“My hair is halfway between brown and blond. My nose is large but not too large.  My eyes are blue and very handsome. My mouth is in the usual place.”

Despite Wexler’s discomfort, he let Reginald “see” him with his hands: head, ears, eyes, forehead, nose, mouth, chin, neck. When he was finished, he put his arms down and said, “So, that’s what I look like!”

“We’re just like twins,” Wexler said with a laugh.

Time went by quickly. The weeks became months, and it was winter again. Still Wexler stayed by Reginald’s side, with Grace, the guardian, and Ethel, the maid, never knowing there was another person in the house.

Wexler began to think that helping Reginald see was the best thing he could do in the world. He wanted Reginald to see everything he himself had seen all over the world. Unforgettable things like an octopus, a tall mountain, a full moon, a tropical rain forest, a desert, a waterfall, a polar ice cap. The list goes on and on.

He knew a doctor, a man named Gottschalk, currently living in New York. Dr. Gottschalk was a ghoul, hundreds of years old. He wasn’t really alive but was kept alive by artificial means. Wexler had met him socially on several occasions and had sat in on some of his lectures at the University of Vienna.

Wexler flew to New York and called Dr. Gottschalk and made an appointment to see him later in the day. Dr. Gottschalk remembered Wexler fondly.

Dr. Gottschalk hadn’t changed a bit. He was still frightening-looking with his white skin, long face and big teeth, but he was receptive and, as always, willing to help.

“Reginald is my best friend,” Wexler said to Dr. Gottschalk. “He’s alive, not a spirit like me. The problem is he can’t see. He was born that way. I want him to see all the wonders in the world that I’ve seen. I want to show him these things, as a friend.”

“I think I have just the thing,” Dr. Gottschalk said.

He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a little bottle and handed it to Wexler.

“This should do the trick,” he said.

“What is it?” Wexler asked.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”

“Okay.”

“Mix this in with a glass of water and have your little friend drink it before bedtime. Right before.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“In the morning, there’ll be a drastic change for the better.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s never failed yet.”

Wexler tried to pay Dr. Gottschalk, but he wouldn’t accept any payment.

“I already have all the money in the world,” Dr. Gottschalk said. “I like helping my friends!”

“I can’t thank you enough!” Wexler said.

Wexler held onto the bottle for a few days. He didn’t want to administer it before the time was right. He waited until late Friday night. It was snowing out.

He waited until Reginald was snugly in bed. “I have something for you,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It’s something that will make you see.”

“What is it?”

“I have a doctor friend. His name is Dr. Gottschalk. He’s a ghoul, but that doesn’t matter.”

“A ghoul? I like it already!”

“It’s a little bottle of liquid. I’ll mix it in some water and then you’ll drink it.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“It’ll make you see everything, but there’s just one bad thing.”

“What could be bad about seeing everything?”

“Your life as Reginald will end.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’ll die and you’ll be a spirit like me.”

“Oh.”

“No more guardians and no more school for the blind.”

“Will you stay with me? I mean, while I die?”

“Sure, I will.”

“Will it hurt?”

“I don’t think so, but if it does, it will only be for a minute.”

Wexler gave Reginald the chance to postpone the drinking of the liquid for a few days—or indefinitely—but Reginald wanted to go ahead with it. More than anything in the world, he wanted to see with his own eyes.

Wexler went into the bathroom and drew a glass of cold water from the faucet. He set the glass on the sink and watched as he poured the bottle of amber liquid into the water. Then he held it up to his eyes to get a better look at it.

When he took the bottle back into the bedroom, Reginald had propped himself up in bed and was ready to drink. When he took the glass from Wexler, his hands were steady and in his eyes were tears of unalloyed joy.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp