Uncle Jern

Uncle Jern is said to be a gentleman. I remember seeing him as a kid myself, once in a blue moon, he used to come down to my mother's house where I lived, and spend a few constrained hours with us. You will never catch him doing anything out of standard, or wearing anything but his crisp white collared shirt, with sleeves neatly folded up to his elbows.

How exactly is he related to me; I do not know. But he was a person I quite liked, maybe due to his hefty attitude, or simply because he was a class himself. But after I started high school, I rarely saw him. He stopped coming by to our house, and even my grandmother stopped talking about him, which was strange, because my grandmother never stopped talking about anyone.
After one of my board exams, I was returning back from school, when I quickly caught a glimpse of uncle Jern- in a police jeep!

He was tightly locked up, and hushed between two hefty looking officers. He looked up at me, and gave me a weak smile, which I didn't return. Tightly clasped though he was, his toothbrush moustache was as trimmed as ever, and his white shirt didn't have a single stain.
As I stared, the police jeep roared into life, and zoomed down the road, and a group of locals who had gathered around to watch the scene, slowly started to disperse. I walked over to an old man, who was observing the scene intently.

"Who was that man, uncle?" I asked innocently.

"He is a murderer," he whispered. I felt my jaw drop.

Uncle Jern, a murderer? No way.

"What did he do?" I pushed on.

"He poisoned his wife last day. He poisoned a witness the next."

"What, how-"

"Poisoning is not that hard to master, my friend," the old man chuckled. "A teeny bit of rat poison in the morning tea, and boom."




My grandmother did not want to hear a word about him.

"What a worthless fellow," she spat, when I narrated the scene at home. Apparently, both my mother and my grandmother were already well versed in uncle Jern's deeds.

"Why did he do that, though?" I asked, still not fully recovering from the day's events.

"He is a bad man." Said my mother, with an awful note of finality. "Go to bed, now!"

Time flew by.

These events were now a laugh of yester years. I had finished college, and was focusing on designing. I had rented a house in Mumbai, and was leaning back on a rocking chair, listening to some good music on a rainy evening, when I heard knocking at my door.

Out, drenched in the rain, stood a man, surely in his sixties, wearing a dripping white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It didn't take long to figure who it was.

"Uncle Jern,"

"Hello, my boy,"

"Are you out of jail?" I asked.

"Just out. They gave me a list of relatives living around the area, and you were the closest. Give uncle Jern a seat, will you?"

He looked exhausted and worn out. I made way for him at the door, allowing him to squeeze past me and sit down on the sofa, causing water to ooze down from his dripping shirt.

I took a closer look at him. His moustache had turned completely white, but it was well trimmed in the toothbrush style. His shirt of course, did good justice to the rain, and his smile, seemed quite genuine.

"Mind if I make you some tea, son?"

"Don't mind it, uncle, I'll get you the te-" I began, getting up, but uncle Jern cut me off.

"I make good tea, my boy," Uncle Jern got up.

He left a trail of water as he stumbled over to the kitchen. It was few minutes of pots and pans clashes later, that I figured what uncle Jern must be up to. I smiled at myself. Men really can be foolish. Maybe he thought I didn't know his background or whatever, but it occurred to me really quick that uncle Jern must have some rat poison left over in his back pocket.

I did have some money in the locker, and the gold bracelet I was wearing was quite expensive, so you cannot blame uncle Jern for considering to poison me. I was mind counting how much my bracelet would be worth, when uncle Jern toppled into the scene, carrying a tray with two cups of boiling tea. I allowed him to place the tray on the tea table, not wanting to be rude. But I quickly scanned the two cups, to make out even a slight bit of discoloring, but it was well hidden, or it seemed to be.

I was beginning to feel guilty for doubting the man, but suddenly, I saw a sharp purple color surface one of the tea cups, but, as though out of instinct, uncle Jern stirred it out, and sure enough, showed me that half of the tray, out of which that very cup protruded out invitingly.

The rain was pelting down on the tress roofs, and the feeling of being target of murder seemed to bring me back to my senses. I grasped the side of they tray, and smartly turned it all the way round, so that it now faced Uncle Jern. Uncle Jern looked up at me. Not a spot of guilt was to be spotted on his face. He smiled at me. I smiled back. I was certain he would confess the crime. But, before I could put together my thoughts, my tea partner shrugged, and without a moment's hesitation, gulped down the tea, and placed the empty cup on the tray. I, with my mouth half open, stared at him, as he closed his eyes and leant back on his chair, his dripping shirt making a river on the wooden tiles.

Within a few minutes, he had gotten up and gone to bed, muttering something about not feeling good. They next day, his situation had gone from bad to worse, and he was vomiting back and forth. I called for an ambulance, and a doctor, confirmed shortly after, that Uncle Jern had been badly poisoned. He asked me to pack whatever uncle Jern had brought, and place it in the ambulance. As I took his tattered old bag which he had brought into the ambulance, uncle Jern, half unconscious, was carried away on a mobile stretcher. I didn't forget to quickly open his bag, only to find layer after layer of crisp white shirts, a toothbrush and a hair trimmer.

The rain had stopped. I handed his bag over to the driver, and peered through the window to find uncle Jern lying on the stretcher, looking weak and miserable. I felt like I had to ask him something.

"Uncle Jern?"

"Hmm.." he whispered back. His voice was weak.

"Why did you do it?"

"Well, it seemed the right thing to do."

His moustache was trimmed to perfection. His crisp white shirt was cleanly folded up to his elbows, even as he lay motionless and weak.

Murderer or not, uncle Jern was sure a gentleman, and one of great standards.