"The Muffin Man"

 

[According to Wikipedia, there really isn't much to the lyrics of "The Muffin Man."]

When I pulled up in Janelle's driveway, I saw that she was sitting on the step leading up to her front door. She was frowning and had her chin resting on her hands; she was sitting like a little girl who had gone outside to nurse a broken heart. Because she had invited me over for margaritas, this confused me.

"Hey," she said after I had gotten out of the car. "You know the Muffin Man?"

"Yeah, why? What's up?" I really didn't know him any better than Janelle did, but I had seen him walking through the neighborhood enough times, taking on that big, doughy middle of his through daily bouts of exercise, that I knew who she was talking about.

"He died," Janelle told me. "I saw his picture in the obituaries today."

"Oh," I said. I didn't know what else to say after that. I didn't know anything else about him, except that I thought he lived on Drury Lane--I saw him go into a house there once. So I told her that.

She looked at me and nodded. "His name was James Obryzewski. Fifty-three years old, no kids, volunteered twice a week at Prairie Food Bank," she said. "Listen, I think I want to take a walk." She placed her hands on her knees and stood, wearily, no longer looking young with her heart in pieces but older, the age she truly was, with her heart showing all the little cracks that come with living and never fully heal. "You want to come with? Or maybe we can go later, I don't know."

"No, now's good," I said, "margaritas can wait."  Janelle took me by the arm and smiled. It was a simple thing, what I said to her, but I had the feeling that to her, like a child's nursery rhyme, it meant so much more.