Clement's Resolve

‘John Bayley?’
‘Elegy for Iris’ says the old man.
‘A novel or non-fiction?’
‘It’s a memoir about a woman who died of Alzheimer’s.’
The young man stops his questioning for a few seconds to recall the fact that the old man’s wife is in a nursing home for the same disease.
‘I just hope that if it ever happens to me I’ll have the good sense to blow my brains out,’ continues the old man during the short pause. The young man gives a cute and awkward smirk and the two walk towards the front of the coffee shop.
‘I’m serious,’ comes the old man’s straight conversation closer.
The two break off, the old man complimenting a young lady on having a Macintosh laptop. The young man leaves the shop, gets on his bike and rides home.
‘I didn’t smirk because I thought he was joking, and it wasn’t so much because it was an awkward statement,’ says the young man in his head, ‘It was more because I agree with him and appreciate his honesty.’
The young man knows the old man to be the plain honest type. His favorite novels include Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Andersen and To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. He wants to publish a novel he himself has written called Trotville, Ohio. The young man has the first two chapters in his possession and is reminded to finish the second chapter and return them next time he sees the old man come into the coffee shop. He knows that the old man gets up quite early every morning to get coffee in his travel mug and catch the bus to the nursing home to see his ailing wife, whom he has loved over fifty years. He used to write sports journalism in Dayton, Ohio. He has been a Mac lover since Apple II, one of the first personal computers made by Macintosh back in the early eighties. He wants to blow his brains out if he gets Alzheimer’s. This is the short list of facts the young man has compiled about the old man.

The young man, on the other hand, knows no facts about himself.