She slipped me something, something small, like a pill bottle.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Put it in your applesauce tonight and see what happens. I’ll be back in a week”

She straightened up, smiled, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I smiled back- My body wanted to get a raging hard-on, but there was something in the back of my brain that said it wouldn't be a good idea. Because if I let myself fall for a gal like her all over again, It’d mean going back to the life of a hood. A life spent running from capes all over again, waking up every morning wondering if I was going to be in a jail cell by nightfall.

But then I thought about my little room. Nice, and painted a happy, light orange color. But it still might as well have been a jail cell in its own way, nuh? I wasn’t going anywhere, not on my own. That was why any money my investments made these days went straight here. To the people who were paid to take care of me.

I stole a glance at what Jane had given me. It was a small glass vial. The kind my pills used to come in. It was half-full of a sparkly blue powder.

“What’s this?” I whispered back with a semi-chuckle. “Something to make Mr. Happy wake up?”

“Better than that,” she said. “A little magic. Mixed with a little homespun hoodoo from a local and his version of the old Mr. Science chemistry set we all had as kids, and a little something from far, far away. Try it, and you’ll see.”

I picked it up and looked at it. “Is this why you look so young, Jane?”

She smiled, stood, and put her black hat back on. Dear God, I tried hard not to look at her bust. I really did. “I’ll be back in a week,” she said. “I’ll know if you took it, Russ. And if’n you got the balls now you did when we was a bunch of stupid kids hiding out in a train station? We’re gonna be busier’n a lizard on a hot rock, and so rich we’ll have more than Solomon hisself could say grace over.”

She leaned down and kissed my cheek again. Oh, boys, I got so hot to trot after that! You could’ve fried an egg on my face, I got so.

Before I could answer she whisked out the glass door, fluttering her fingers at me and giving a wink.

Well, damn, but this ended up being a good morning! I took the vial and put it in my pocket. Carefully, because my gnarled hands were a little worse-than-useless these days. And if I dropped that little bottle, or let little Ricky see it? Gone. Either swept up or just grabbed from me.

Luckily it had just gotten into my pocket when Rick came by. He was in a better mood than he had been before Jane had come. Maybe he’d asked darling little Megan to the movies, and she’d said yes. I’d thought he was a little sweet on her…

“Heyyyyy, Mr. Conlan!” Rick said suddenly from behind me. Damn, that was close!

Maybe Rick wouldn’t have grabbed it. Who knows. Young ones are tempted most by sex and buddies, middles aged by greed and anger, and old folks by grumbling and paranoia.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But why?

The young…well, horniess is coded into their DNA. Middle-aged folks see retirement coming. But folks like me and Jane? We’re tempted by grumbling. Assuming Jane is Jane, and not her daughter or something, part of a long-con? Why grumbling? Well, some of us, anyway. I looked at Julie and Ed when I could. Julie always seemed happy, knowing down to the minute when the next visit from her grandkids was gonna be. And Ed…well, Ed passed the point of verbal c’herence a long time ago, but of all the slurred mumblings that came out of his mouth, none of them had the volume or sharp quality of a man who hated what life had given him, and I’d known my share of those, believe me.

What made them that way? What put them in the non-grumbler category?

It hit me when I woke up at 2am that morning from a fitful doze: Neither Ed nor Julie grumbled because they had done what they wanted in life.

Ed’s wife said he’d had a dad who was a drunk, and they’d moved around a lot as he tried to find a job that would keep a man who had to miss as many days as he did from hangovers. When Ed hit the world, he started at some factory right out of high school, some saw and knife outfit, and worked there five days out of seven for over forty years. It didn’t close down until a few years after he’d retired, so he’d been safe. Every day, every hour, he’d known what was gonna happen, and he’d seen other folks come and go. Raised his kids, put them through school, and watched them leave him in the dust but he still was on good terms with most of them.

Julie? I didn’t know much about her life before, but I knew about it now. Her daughter didn’t seem all that thrilled to be around her, if you watched her. But her grandkids just loved her.

Julie had always wanted kids around her.

Ed wanted stability.

Julie wanted kids.

They’d both gotten it.

What did I want?

A family wasn’t the biggest thing for me. I don’t think I would’ve made a very good dad.

But tinkering? Tinkering, making new things, things that moved when I told them, stopped when I said so, making things that worked, that was the biggest thrill I ever got anywhere.

And that was it, I realized. I wasn’t unhappy, really. Three square and some folks to talk to now and again.

But this wasn’t how I wanted to go out. Slowly, watching daytime TV.

I wanted to get out there again, to make things that worked, and have the thrill of seeing it work. I wanted-

There was a collective ‘Ooo!’ from the TV room. I knew what that meant. It meant that one of the heroes, the new breed of young ones, was on the screen doing their thing again. This time, it was the one who knew how to use gadgets- The Pulse, I think he called himself. I chuckled- there were so many of these clowns out there nowadays, they actually took copyrights out on their names. Can you believe that? Not the worst idea, I guess. Jane had made a nice living licensing her old persona out as an action doll, or figure, or something like that. And she looked great these days to boot- she looked like she wasn’t a day over forty, and kept her figure besides.

My hand went to the blue vial. Would this do that for me? Would it make it so I could walk without a walker, without having to go to PT (and, yes, everyone calls it Pain and Torture instead of Physical Therapy whenever they can) for an hour a day?

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TO BE CONTINUED...