It Wasn't Him

Earlier this week, I was walking through my grocery store, marveling at the scads of Halloween candy available, when I saw him.

He was standing at the packaged meat case, in a bowling shirt, with hairy arms turning over packages of frozen meatballs. Deceptively skinny legs supported a body shape that "carries a high amount of belly fat." The hair was very light blond, almost white-blond. A thick neck, and surprisingly agile hands.

It was him. It was Mister S. I was flabbergasted.

Rightly flabbergasted, because Mister S. has been dead for more than ten years.

Now, this isn't a ghost story: Mister S. is dead. No chance it was him in that store, hundreds of miles from where he lived his life and met his death. But it's impressive that even knowing that, and having not seen him on This Earth in more than ten years, my brain would still react so powerfully. I stopped to look at the prepackaged gummies just so I could get another glance. He was turned away, and even knowing it wasn't Mister S., I still... felt something.

Remembrances, perhaps, of when we did scouting things. A different friend was in New Mexico at a scout camp this summer, and I always enjoy their pictures because it reminds me of my trip. Of leaving the base camp and hiking into the forests for two weeks. Of tents and dads, water purifiers that fail, cheeze that we squeeze, and the marvels of a good campfire cobbler after hiking six miles up a mountain.

Mister S. was there, in the southwest. He'd taken the train, as we all had. Hiking with his son, just the way I was with my dad. He smiled a lot, thirty years ago. Quick to laugh, his voice playfully musical and instructive. Even though the cartilage in his knees had disintegrated over the years and every step was painful. Even though he was allergic to onions, and I learned that summer that manufacturers put onions or onion powder in EVERYTHING (even the squeeze cheeze). I also had to learn the basics of the epinephrine syringe, and how to administer it if he was no longer conscious. Early teen me was *terrified* of that.

That's how I remember Mister S.

Back in the present, I moved on through the store, continuing down my list. I couldn't believe it, smiling to myself that my pattern matching brain had thought -- even for the micro-est of micro-seconds -- that it might be him. I started rolling the memories over and over in the tumbler of my brain, even as I forgot to buy milk and wandered down the chip aisle twice without touching anything.

At the checkout, I noticed he was ahead of me, in the sort of accident that happens when I stop paying attention and leave myself on autopilot. He spoke to the cashier, friendly, but a voice I didn't recognize. All wrong.

Not wrong for him, the anonymous stranger, of course: his voice is just what it should be for himself, I have no doubt. But it wasn't Mister S. Even though I already knew it wouldn't be. But... well, you know. I can be certain and still have room for an astonishing "really, voice too?!" should it be required.