1330 Perry Street, Des Plaines, Illinois

All About Arnold
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read
Arnold’s last known place of residence. 1330 Perry Street, Des Plaines, Illinois.

It’s nice to have caring neighbors. Individuals who will pick up your mail or water your plants while you’re on vacation; sign for a parcel; lend you a cup of sugar or a Phillips-head screwdriver; or call the local police to request a wellness check when they haven’t seen you for a while and a disagreeable smell begins to emerge from your apartment.

I’ll never know exactly who called the Des Plaines Police Department that day (or if it was a Friday or Saturday), but I can take creative liberties in imagining it may have been an elderly widow or the confirmed bachelor who has worked as a claims adjuster for the same suburban insurance for the past 20 years; or the Polish housewife who had been taking loads of dirty clothes to the laundry room when she noticed the stench wafting through the corridor.

And who were the officers that made their way into the condo? A couple of seasoned veterans who would likely be unfazed by discovering a decomposing corpse? Were they men? Women? Young? Old? How did they enter the apartment? Was it the building manager or a custodian who had a spare key or did the police officers require locksmith’s tools to gain entry? (They really only break down the door on TV, don’t they?).

And how did they come upon the deceased? In bed, lying peacefully with a blanket partially covering his face? Or was he sprawled out on the kitchen floor lying in the dried residue of blood or urine or the non-dairy creamer he had just removed from the fridge to add to the cup of coffee he had just made, the one that sits cold on the kitchen counter that will never be drunk.

Perhaps he was sat in an armchair with a book in his lap or the television on. Or face down at the dining room table, some leftovers and a now moldy piece of some unidentifiable fruit pie on a simple white china plate.

I suppose I’ll never know the answer to any of these questions, but will live the rest of my days orchestrating the hundreds — maybe thousands — of scenarios my imagination will concoct.

    All About Arnold

    Reflections of a man I never knew; a father who never was; and a lifetime of mysteries that would never be solved. By American writer R.M. Usatinsky.

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