the day o’leary left

They day O’Leary …? I’m s’prise you didn’ read it in the paper. It was an ordinry enough day, I s’pose, ‘cept O’Leary comes in an’ jus sets there, right in that chair, not doin no work, mind you, jus settin an’ flippin his pencil an’ starin at the walls like they don’ belong roun’ him no more. Now he practilly built this place with all his hours, so everyone’s askin is he okay, an’ Muehlman hints maybe he should do somethin with his time other than flip that pencil, but O’Leary jus sets there with this far-off grin, even durin’ lunch, so everyone ends up leavin him alone.

An’ then a few hours afore quittin time, suddenly he stan’s up, like so, steps over there to Muehlman’s desk, shakes his han’ an’ says, “Goodbye.” Jus that one word, nothin else. An’ before Muehlman or anybody can say nothin, over to the door he walks an’ out. It was peculiar – but every man’s got his peculiar days, an’ that’s all we figured it was.

So that night Robbie’s here pullin a late shift, an’ he gets a call from O’Leary’s wife – he never showed up home. Now that ain’ so strange, ‘cause O’Leary wasn’ too keen on her – he stayed out at Chadwick’s sometimes, so we were kinda used to her callin – but Robbie looks out an’ there’s O’Leary’s car, still in the lot. So she calls the police, but they don’ take no reports ‘til after twenty-four hours, so the nex’ mornin’ she’s callin us every hour askin did he show, an’ finally she calls to say he jus got home, he walked there – walked the whole of sixty mile!

No one expected he’d show up the res’ of that week, but then the nex’ week come along an’ still nothin. So Muehlman had Susie call over there, but no answer all day, an’ the nex’ day, an’ the nex’ – keep in min’ his car’s still settin out there in the lot the while. So finally Muehlman sends Robbie drivin to their house. He gets there an’ sees their other car, but the mail’s all pile up. The front door’s unlocked, so he goes in an’ finds everythin’ still on – heat, coupla lights, even the radio – but the milk’s gone two weeks bad in the fridge.

An’ that was it. They was gone.

At firs’ the police come here askin did he fight with Muehlman, did he fall behin’ in his work, but none of that was it. So maybe it was a kidnappin, or O’Leary did his wife in an’ then run off, but there wasn’ no signs of that neither, nor no reason. Eventually they decided he jus told Muehlman goodbye an’ meant it. Now imagine that – here he works twenty-eight years, three years pas’ retirement, got a full pension, coupla years left on his mortgage, two cars, savin’s in the bank, an’ the man jus up and leaves it all behin’ – all ‘cept his wife, and that made the leas’ sense of all, the way he’d rag about her, but maybe to O’Leary there’s jus some things you don’ leave behin’.

A lot of us had to work extra to make up for him droppin everythin – he left us in a pickle, no doubt, an’ there was a good bit of grumblin about that, but it cooled off after awhile. They put Jack in O’Leary’s spot, and Jack’s doin fair enough, though he ain’ got the gumption O’Leary had for keepin this place runnin so smooth. But that was years ago, an’ now fellers like you don’ hardly even know the story. Ain’ that a kick in the head.

After O’Leary left, Muehlman figured the leas’ he could do was start payin his pension to the bank, jus in case he ever showed agin. For a coupla months afterwards we was all thinkin that’d be afore too long, but then the bank repo’ed their house, towed off both their cars, an’ that was that. Now we all got our theories on where they took off to. Jack flips between Europe an’ Mexico. Accordin’ to Susie they joined a cult, an’ Robbie jokes that they’re runnin from the IRS. Me, I like to think O’Leary’s a way out in Idaho – he used to talk about the summer he spent there fishin when he was sixteen, an’ I can jus imagine the two of them startin up new with a small bait an’ tackle shop near some wild river out there – but no one really knows. Actually Muehlman’s still payin out that pension, guessin O’Leary jus might up an’ reappear as easy as he done disappear, but I doubt that. A guy don’ up and change that way ‘less it comes from somewhere gut-deep, and then he don’ look back.

Y’know, sometimes I think about leavin this place too, but not like O’Leary done – I’m rooted too far down, though I don’ s’pose I could be any more rooted here than he was. I dunno. I always wanted to live out in some way-off place like Montana or Idaho or Wyomin’, with all that fishin and wilderness. Workin this joint for the last fourteen years wasn’ at all what I had in min’ for myself. I betcha I could get me out to a place like that, one day, if I could set it up jus right. It’d jus take a couple more years.

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copyright © 2004, michael w. hobson