Roy

Who is Roy?

When Ben and I moved into our apartment back in late February, we didn’t meet many of our neighbors.  The one neighbor we did meet in the beginning – was Roy.

Our first encounter with Roy was an accident. Ben had gone downstairs to do laundry and stumbled upon Monarch, Roy’s beloved feline friend, and met him first. He didn’t say much about him, just that he was an old man that lived in the basement apartment and had a cat. Ben also mentioned that Roy had said some jibberish about Ben “finding him in the dryer someday”, and that he had invited him in for a vodka – Ben had mostly gathered that he was just a crazy old man who drank a lot, and we didn’t hear from Roy for a while.

I first met Roy when the weather started getting nice. I was leaving the apartment one day and there was an old man out front gardening with a big cat nearby, and I figured it was him so I introduced myself. He was very friendly, asked me how my husband was doing and of course invited me for a drink, I of course had to decline since it was early morning and I had to go to the supermarket, but he was very friendly none-the-less.

As time went by we started to see Roy more and more. He always greeted us with an (almost toothless) smile, asked us about anything he can remember about our lives, and never let us out of sight without offering a drink. We would generally politely decline and go about our day – but lately it has been different.

We got a knock on our door not too long ago in the evening after supper. We figured it must be one of the neighbors, because you can’t get into our building without a key so generally we have to let people in. It was Roy – he wanted to know if we had a flashlight he could borrow. When Ben handed him the flashlight, Roy had asked if maybe he could come and help him. Of course Ben did — turns out he had broken a lightbulb while still in the socket and couldn’t stand on the ladder very well to get it out by himself. Roy was very thankful and even gave us some of his homemade meatloaf to show his gratitude the next day. Just recently, he came and knocked again and asked for help because he couldn’t get a tape to play on his stereo.

Its funny, I used to not pay much attention to Roy. Now I find myself worrying about him. Often times we can hear him calling out the window for his cat, Monarch, and I worry how upset he would be if Monarch didn’t come home. I worry he will drink too much and hurt himself. I worry he is lonely or sad, even though he often has visitors who do stop by for a vodka. I worry he might need our help sometime and we won’t be home.

So who is Roy?

Roy is an old man. Roy is an alcoholic and a smoker. Roy is a gardener and a cat lover. Roy is our neighbor. And turns out – Roy is someone I care about.

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