The Ostrich Next Door

Life on the sunny side of the street.

Our next-door neighbors are septuagenarian siblings. There’s sister Margaret, an agoraphobe, brother Dave, a legally blind chain-smoker, and brother Gordon, the most capable of the lot, a gregarious Santa doppelganger who roams the neighborhood with his dog Mia, a multi-hued, teat-studded pit bull.

Yesterday Margaret came to my door and asked if I could check on Gordon. He was lying on the floor and couldn’t get up.

I found Gordon on his back on the grimy linoleum kitchen floor, eyes open but unseeing. I thought for a terrible moment he was dead, then saw that his chest was moving. I called 911.

Paramedics came. Gordon was taken to the hospital. One of the EMTs pulled me aside and told me he’d checked and there was no working refrigerator or food in the house.

I ran home and grabbed some bread and a block of cheese. A can of vegetable soup. Apples. Graham crackers. Margaret and Dave thanked me, but I left feeling like I’d seen gangrene and gave them a Band-aid.

I went back the next morning, prepared for the worst, but sitting on the floor in the cluttered hallway was Gordon. Apparently his blood sugar dropped, causing him to pass out. They kept him overnight at the hospital just to be safe before sticking him in a taxi and sending him home. He asked if I could pick up some groceries, since he wasn’t supposed to drive. Sure, I said. How are you feeling?

I’m okay, he said, and because Gordon is a walking silver lining, he told me about the wonderful people he met at the hospital. Yesterday as novelty, not crisis.

I could have said something here about contacting social services, making a list of emergency contacts, but I told him how happy I am that’s he’s home. I know the situation is unsustainable, but I figure, what’s one more sunny day?