Arlie. . .

I'm sitting in the back of the pizza shop that I close on Friday nights. It was after midnight; we close at eleven. I was sipping a beer as the dishes bobbed in the sink. I don't always wait for my shift to end before I open a beer, but I did tonight. Before long my afterwork beer had turned into an afterwork few beers and I sat basking in the glow of being off my feet.
I heard a key being fitted in to the lock of the heavy steel door that I had closed before I counted the till. I was startled, like I always am when he comes in on me, as an aged figure walked in through the door. Arlie is the cleaning service for the pizza place I close on Fridays. He must be at least 75, and his years hang on him making him slump forward as he shuffles past me towards his chair. I wonder if he pissed himself today, but I don't smell the damp, acrid smell that sometimes follows Arlie when he walks past. Does he see me? Is he ignoring me, hoping I'll leave without speaking? "Hi Arlie," I say. He looks at me from behind his glasses and smiles. "Ohhhh, Hello."
And without another word he shuffles past me and sighs as he drops into his chair. Arlie is acting his normal, slow-moving way, but I know something happened that he hasn't come to grips with. His wife died a few days ago.
Marnay was not a nice lady. She treated Arlie like shit. She was the pillar that held his universe together. He would show up during the day when the owner was there, mumbling about how the social security check just didn't make ends meet this week. "And yoooou know, Marnaaaay neeeeeds her cigarettes..." Marnay didn't smoke. Her piece of shit son did though. A deadbeat piece of shit that leached off his unsuspecting mother, who in turn, made Arlie beg for money to pay for his cigs. He's not even Arlie's son. But he didn't care. As long as Marnay was happy, his universe remained stable.
He sat there with me that night and pulled out of his coat two applesauce cups, a yogurt, and a can of spaghettie O's that he ate cold straight out of the can. He didn't want the money he earned from cleaning the dirty floor in the pizza shop I close on Fridays. But he does it for Marnay. And as I sit here across from him, blowing smoke rings as I watch him eat, I wonder if he still comes here for her.
"How things going for you Arlie? Holding up OK?" My buzz is kicking in and I want to know more about this poor old man who cleans a dirty restaurant and only eats things that come in a cup. He looked up at me and his lip shook like he was going to say something. He drew a breath and stopped. "Whaaat's the difference between the Yooou-nion Pacific and the Pony Express? Just a little bit more horsing around..."
I took his hint and dropped the subject, drawing attention to the crap that was blathering on the TV. Maybe my barometer of human feeling is a little bit more skewed than I thought. Maybe I don't know people as well as I think I do...
Arlie finished his meal and moved towards his broom. His hands gripped it and he swept the floor around him. He stopped every so often to lean on the broom and catch his breath. How long would it take him to finish? Would he be here all night?
"Well, goodnight Arlie," I said as I pushed the heavy steel door into the cold night air of late March, "I'll lock the door behind me."
"What did the octopus say to the ball-point pen..." I heard him saying as I slammed the door shut and fit the lock into place. I didn't know if he was talking to me or some thing else altogether. His wife died, the centerpiece of his life. The reason he swept a dirty floor every night even though his back hunched badly over the broom and his orthopedic shoes made every step an awkward fight to keep his balance. He came in the back door every night because he had a reason: to please Marnay and keep his pillar stable. What was his reason now? How long would he keep his balance with no pillar?