GLYNN WASHINGTON, HOST:
OK so I didn't know why my parents were acting so weird - hopping around, hovering. I didn't know why, but they told me that a man - a man's going to be stopping by soon and I was to act normal towards this man. Act normally - I was to open the door, ask him to have a seat, see if he wanted anything to drink. Why wouldn't I act normal? Who's the guy? What's the big deal? Do we owe him money? Does he know a secret? Are we in his will? Why don't they just open the door themselves? But I'll wait and I'll wait and finally, there's a knock on the door. I open it and standing in front of me is a man, a tall man in a gray suit with dark holes where his eyes should have been. And I scream at the top of my 10-year-old lungs and I slam the door hard.
Glynn? Glynn, what'd you do?
My mother rushes out, opens the door. Mr. Gully (ph), I'm so sorry.
I see the man in the gray suit trying to shove sunglasses on his face.
Oh, no, no, no - it's my fault entirely.
I still hear myself screaming and I see the man move his cane back and forth, back and forth, as he enters our home and I shut up.
What had I just done? What was wrong with me? How could I treat somebody like that?
Glynn, will you please get Mr. Gully something to drink and maybe you have something you want to say to him, now?
I place a glass of cold orange juice in front of Mr. Gully.
I'm sorry about that. I thought you were somebody else.
Really? Whom did you think I was?
And I don't have an answer, I don't. I can't tell him that I feel - I feel like I've been waiting for a long time for something from under the bed, from out of the shadow, from inside the mirror. I'd just realized I had been waiting for a very long time for someone and that moment I figured that he was him.
Today on SNAP JUDGMENT from PRX and NPR we proudly present "Mystery Man," amazing stories from real people wrapped in an enigma, sealed with a riddle and hidden inside a conundrum.
My name is Glynn Washington. Pull up your trench coat and wait under the awning because you're listening to SNAP JUDGMENT. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.