Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
People You Can’t Forget: Mr. Dillard
Mr. Dillard always wore a dress shirt buttoned up to the neck but no tie along with pleated dress pants, I remember khakis but maybe they were just plain black pants, and nice shoes. He was always handsomely put together with a cardigan or light jacket over his shirt. He was a man who thought about what to wear.
I remember his brown hands and his long fingers, the perfectly manicured ovals of his nails. Everything about him was finely trimmed. And his demeanor matched. Circumspect, quiet, every utterance a complete sentence. He was, as they used to say, very particular.
I knew Mr. Dillard from picking up and taking him home from a regular meeting that we shared. Our conversations were sparse and I remember only one with any clarity.
We pulled up to a stoplight next to another car.
“Chartreuse,” he said. “You don’t see very many chartreuse cars.”
“No, you don’t. Unusual color for a car.”
“I once knew a woman named Chartreuse,” he said, his sentence hanging in the air like letters strung on a string across the windshield. It was all he said but the sentence seemed heavy and thick like Chartreuse had left a mark on him.
Mr. Dillard passed away many years ago but I think of him too often for the slight encounters we had, driving to and from a monthly meeting. It’s because of Chartreuse, the woman that Mr. Dillard once knew; the color, a mixture of yellow and green that is so rare to see on a car these days.
___________________
Originally published in 2018
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Your Mr. Dillard reminded me of Mr. Woodward, my music teacher in year 7/8. What a huge crush, and he was gay. Thank you for the unexpected trip back in time.