I held the receiver close hoping to bridge the distance of the night and his graveyard shift.

      "I wonder if Harry is all right? I haven't seen him in a while," Gregg said and he was right.

      "You know, I've been wondering about him myself lately. I hope he's o.k. What if he's sick? I haven't seen him at all lately, not out in his Delorean and not on his bike either."

      "Oh really?"

      "Yeah, it's been at least a week, maybe more. I hope he's o.k. Maybe we should go knock on his door and make sure."

      "Maybe."

      "I almost did it yesterday but I feel kind of silly. What if he's just on vacation."

      "I don't think so, where would he go."

      "Oh, I don't know, nowhere I suppose, he doesn't have any relatives around here and I just can't see him leaving the beach. I guess I'll just have to go knock on his door, tomorrow maybe."

      But I haven't yet. The truth is I'm kind of afraid to.

      He told me he was eighty years old, born in 1908 and the next year when I wished him happy birthday he was surprised I had remembered, but how could I forget August 8, 1988, or 8-8-88? He's told me lots of things since I moved in next door and became his neighbor. He said his wife's name was Anna too, just like mine, that she had white skin, just like mine. She died thirty five years ago and she was the boss. He said, "She was always telling me what to do and I couldn't get away with nothin' but she used to say, 'Harry I can say one thing for you, you are a good breadwinner. You always bring home the bacon.'"

      Bob says Harry has peep-holes in the walls of his apartments and he watches his tenants in the adjoining apartments and that's why that one couple moved out. They found the hole. He said he told Harry that if Harry let him move in and rent an apartment he wouldn't cover the holes, he'd let Harry watch. Bob has a big imagination but I almost believe him.

      Harry says that before my apartment was here there used to be a little one story house owned by a drunk couple who let themselves, their house and the yard go. They used to get drunk every night, scream and yell and fight, beat on each other and throw things, chase each other around, and then make-up and make love. He said you didn't need a t.v. back then, that they kept the whole neighborhood entertained. And I can just imagine him sitting by the window every night, watching.

      I've only been in his apartment once, I went upstairs to ask advice about something. His whole place was painted salmon or peach color and I'm not sure because I was only there that once but I swear his ceiling was that same salmon color. He had light green shades, curtains and shag rugs, even his couch was a green and white floral print - an effect my mother used to call "from inside the watermelon". He had two t.v.'s, both on when I arrived, one large console in the living room, and the other smaller one, on the kitchen table, both tuned to the same station so he wouldn't miss anything while he was making dinner. In the corner by the front door was a black statue of the madonna or maybe an obsidian Venus de Milo with three or four crosses around her neck. Harry said he used to make those crosses in his shop and hand them out to the kids on the beach, back in the 60's when there were lots of Jesus freaks hanging out there. Above the statue, at eye-level was a framed newspaper clipping of Harry himself at about seventy, wearing shorts, his chest bare, riding his skateboard. He used to skate to the beach but the cops gave him a ticket for skating down the Third street hill because they said it was too steep and therefore dangerous. He said he did take a dive once, cracked a couple ribs and scraped himself up pretty badly, so now he doesn't skate, he rides his bike.

      He reminds me of my German grandmother, at least outwardly, like a male version of her, same face, same German accent, and he's always busy doing something, going somewhere or working on something, mostly his Delorean. He's aged some since I moved in but he's bought himself a hairpiece and he goes down to Mission Valley to the nightclubs, not to dance but to watch the people dancing. He says that music is too hard to dance to today. Harry doesn't look eighty two. He wears his hairpiece and has rings suspended from the ceiling of his garage and he does pull-ups to stay in shape. He rides his bike to the beach everyday and talks and flirts with the girls; he loves their bikinis. But now he doesn't always hear me when I'm outside gardening or whatever, and I can sneak by without stopping to talk if I'm in a hurry.

      Last time I saw him I was out gardening and he came over and said,

      "Hi Miss Annie, how are you?" He always calls me Miss Annie. I suppose it's a formality left over from his life in Germany.

      "Just fine, Harry." I try to avoid direct eye contact, he has a piercing stare that's not always directed at my eyes.

      "And how's your husband. How's Gregg?" Gregg and I aren't married either and Harry knows it.

      "Just fine."

      "When are you two going to get married and start making babies? Don't you want children?"

      "Well, Harry maybe someday."

      "You have such white skin.", he said. "My wife used to have white skin like yours. We were married thirty five years and after she died I never had another girlfriend but I used to have a callgirl. I saw her for years and years and then about five years ago she moved to San Francisco. And now she's back. She called me a couple of months ago for a date but I said no. I don't want to get any of those diseases and there's no telling what she got living in San Fransisco... That's the only kind of girl that'll touch an old man like me, you know. " He turned his gaze back toward me from the place he had been and said, "Your skin is so white, like a dolls. My wife used to have white skin like yours. But, I can't touch you." and he looked down at his hands. They trembled with age as he turned them over and over, "My hands are dirty." And I looked at his hands and they were dirty; they were really greasy. He'd been working on his car. "They're so dirty," he repeated.