• The old man that lived across the street had always scared me. There was just something so dark and forbidding about him that I did my best to stay away. I feel bad about it now though. He didn’t deserve to be stuck in a place where the only person that ever went to talk to him went there because she was dared.

    It was the summer before we all went to high school. We were the class that most teachers dreaded. In junior high, we had managed to get three poor teachers to quit and two substitutes to vow never to come back. We were all good kids and everything though. I mean, we got good grades and most of us were the apple of our parents’ eyes. We just liked to dare each other. It was something the class started in fourth grade. Colin putting tacks in Mrs. Higgins’s chair was the first official dare. He did, and the poor old bat had to go to the hospital because she could not sit down. We never told on Colin. That was our pact that we stuck to dutifully. Never tell and never blame.

    My dare was to talk to the old man. Derek, who was every girl’s crush at the time, thought it would be a good idea for the old man to get acquainted with the neighbors he never bothered to talk to. Now that I think back to that day, I guess Derek picked me because he knew I’d do it. He knew I was scared to death of the old man for reasons unfathomable, but I had never chickened out before and wasn’t about to start. I suppose it helped my confidence that I thought I was hot stuff to be picked by the Derek Henderson.

    So one day that summer I took a deep breath, held my head high, and bravely treaded over to the old man’s house across the street and knocked on the door. At first, I didn’t hear anything, so I decided to knock again. A gunshot rang throughout the old rickety house, and I high-tailed it out of there before I even knew I was running. Derek and his followers and I ran all the way down the street and didn’t stop until we reached the safety of the ice cream shop on the corner. After catching his breath, Derek told me I didn’t have to go back to the old coot’s house. He didn’t want to see me dead after all. But my foolish pride got the better of me, and I said I would go back even if it was the last thing I did. Derek gave me a hard once over before he reluctantly agreed. Then he bought me an ice cream.

    The next day came and I walked cautiously across the street and up the creaky old stairs. I tapped on the door and was met with the same silence as yesterday. I knocked again and heard the old man yell something about no-good youngin’s and mindin’ our own business. I was about ready to run away again when I heard a crash and a holler. I don’t really understand why but I had to know if he was alright, so I opened the door and peered inside. At first I didn’t see anything. Walking farther into the house I went for the living room, and low and behold, the old man was on the floor with a shotgun in his hand and a chair overturned. I rushed over and tried rolling him on his back. His face was chalky white as his hair and his eyes were wide. Not wide with anger or fear, but wonder. Then he whispered something. I bent down closer to hear him.

    “Sarah…It’s you…. It’s really you.” And then he let out a final shuddering breath and fell limp to the floor. I was shocked for a minute, but I pulled myself together and mustered the strength to get up and holler for some help. Someone must have called an ambulance, because the paramedics came a little while later and hauled the old man away with a sheet over his ashen face.

    I just stood there for a while, kind of dazed, in the middle of the growing crowd that wanted to know what had happened and who died. An older policeman came up to me and asked me a few questions about whom I was and why I was there and what I saw happen.

    “Who dared you to do this Samantha?” He finally asked me. I looked at him for almost a full minute.

    “Nobody dared me.”

    “Then what were you doin’ buggin’ the old man? Nobody’s been to see him for years and you up and decide to pay him a visit?” I glared at him, finally pulling enough emotion to give him a mouthy answer.

    “Maybe I just wanted to see him. It’s not like anybody else was gonna go talk him so I thought I might do something. I didn’t know he was gonna die.” I finished lamely.

    “He was dead long before you ever went to see him.” He looked back to the house, reminiscing in some lost memory. Then I remembered something.

    “Who’s Sarah?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

    “His wife. She died of cancer a long time ago and he’s been holed up in that house ever since.” He looked at the house a few more moments before returning his gaze to me.

    “You gonna tell me who dared you?”

    “Nobody dared me. I went in there for my own reasons.” I would not be the one to go against our pact, even if it meant lying to the police. It simply wasn’t done.

    “Sure. Now run along home.” I knew a dismissal when I heard one.

    A few weeks later I decided to visit the old man’s grave and make a peace offering. I even bought some pretty white flowers that I thought went with his hair. Walking through the cold cemetery was kind of daunting, but I finally made it to his headstone. It was a simple grave. I sat down and put the flowers next to me. He needed someone to visit him, to let him know that he wasn’t completely alone here. And that’s when I decided to dare myself-I would visit the old man in this cemetery. It was the least I could do for him.


    “So, I’m Samantha. I’m guessin’ you’re gonna see a lot of me from now on.” I looked up to the skies a minute, thinking about what I should tell the old man first.