The Butler - Prologue. Prologue

January 5th, 2011, Greenwich, CT

The day I came into the employ of Mr. Montgomery was the best day of my life. How that came about is still a stretch to the imagination. Before then, my life had been a mixture of screw ups, bad luck, financial woes (leading to numerous involvements in shady get-rich-quick schemes), and finally hitting rock bottom by ending up living on the street, selling my body for food and a roof over my head for the night. When he came along, my life changed for the better in so many ways it’s impossible to list them all.

Today ranked as one of the worst.

It was business as usual, at first; I softly knocked on the heavy wooden oak door to Mr. Montgomery’s chambers and went in, going straight for the dark green velvet curtains and opening them to reveal a bright, sunny Connecticut morning. Then I proceeded to lay out his wardrobe for the day, taking a moment to gather a combination suited for activities planned. I ultimately chose loose comfortable, hand tailored, dark gray pants; gray socks, a white shirt, and a cream colored woolen V-neck pullover; I didn’t want him to catch a cold again, even if it promised to be a wonderful day. It was only 54 degrees outside after all and he’d just recovered from a nasty cold not even a month ago; not a lot of fun for an eighty three year old, no matter how much of a vibrant and still very active gentleman he was. Nor was it fun for me; one machine full of handkerchiefs a day because he refused to use them more than once; clean bed linens every day because the sheets became clammy. Gallons of soup, orange juice; the usual we give to our loved ones in need. And I certainly loved him.

A butler’s day, or companion as he preferred to call me, is never done, I’d certainly agree to that; Mr. Montgomery might be old but he was a very demanding person, dots on the I’s, the t’s crossed. But no matter what the request, I did it with the utmost affection. Had it not been for him, I’d probably still be some hustler living from client to client, buying lottery tickets and hoping to win every day but ending up in a bar, wasted, because said hope had been crushed once again. But I digress...

After readying his wardrobe for the day, I finally turned to greet him, not even giving a second thought to the fact he hadn’t called out his own greeting, as he did every morning. I remember staring at him then, coming to a full stop as soon as I saw his still form. His eyes were closed and he seemed very peaceful, happy even. A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. His white wavy hair, by some miraculous reason, was still combed as if it’d been done five minutes ago. And his hands lay by his sides, wrinkled but still strong.

I held my breath until I saw his hands; then I slowly exhaled and approached him, stretching out to the left one.

How I knew he was gone I don’t know; I just knew. From the moment I’d turned, I knew.

I sat down on the bed beside him and took up the hand of this lovely old man and smiled. His large hand was still warm. He couldn’t have died longer than an hour ago, at a guess.

“Off you go, you old brute,” I whispered, gently squeezing his hand. “Have fun up there.”
I’m not a very religious person, even if he was; Mr. Montgomery went to church every Sunday. But he sure knew how to enjoy himself; I’d seen things in the world that definitely had me revising my views on becoming older, to a positive degree.

I touched him one more time with the back of my fingers on his cheek; then I got up, swallowing the big lump that had gathered into my throat and went to his study. I got there on auto-pilot, somehow; I was supposed to do this as soon as he died. He’d sat me down, years ago, to discuss it. The instruction kicked in automatically.

I opened the safe, with the combination he’d given me, a year after my employment with him had begun, which is almost six years to the day now. Before me, he had raced through at least six companions in two years' time, none of which'd had access to this safe; he wanted to be certain I was trustworthy enough with the information and, perhaps, the contents so it had taken that long for him to tell me about it. I took out the documents, a stack held together in a leather bound portfolio. I had to do one thing only; call his sons. Three numbers at the top of the first page, make sure they all got the message, put the portfolio back and wait. I was not supposed to read anything else in there nor do anything further; just wait. His sons would take care of everything.

But when I opened the portfolio, a small yellow post-it greeted me with the words “Christopher. Have a drink. Make it a double and get it from my stash, before Jr. gets hold of it. He won’t share.”

I couldn’t help it; I softly began to laugh. But I did as it directed me, and raised the glass to the ceiling; I was sure he was watching me, somehow.