How close to the
edge will you come, to know something you really want to know…?
The leaves that were still attached to the park trees
rattled like old bones clacking together as the marauding autumn breeze hunted
for a few more to add to the mottle now littering the ground. Hardly noticing, Sadie
walked idly along the sidewalk which accentuated the curves of a small lake the
park sported. Her face was lifted toward the sun, its scorching qualities now
tempered by the seasonal change. What heat remained felt soft on her skin. Her
hands, clasped behind her back, hung onto a small brown paper bag, which thumped
against her bum with each step. To escape the wearying noise and endless drama of
the corporate scene where she worked, she often lunched alone in this park. She
favored one bench located beneath a clump of crepe myrtle trees close to the
water’s edge. The spot felt like a natural shelter, the soft lap of the water,
the refuge of the trees. Shelter was something Sadie sought in many forms at
this tumultuous period in her life.
As she rounded the last curve at the far end of the
lake, she stopped, dismayed. Someone was sitting on her bench. She stood still
for a moment fretting. She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted the comfort
of her special spot. She studied the man who now occupied one end of the bench.
He was sitting almost statue-like. A few pigeons had come up to see if he had
any tidbits for them. He stared down at them and appeared to say something she
was too far away to hear. His hands were folded in his lap, his legs stretched
out in front of him. The pigeons enjoyed his presence for even without food,
they pecked around his shoes and stopped to rest in his shade. That helped
Sadie with her decision. If the pigeons thought he was safe, perhaps he was,
and she could share the bench with him.
As she got closer, she could see he looked a tad
tattered. Street person, she thought.
Hope he’s not schizophrenic or drugged up.
She grimaced a moment as she noticed how much she’d changed. Years back she’d
never have had that thought, and it wasn't just changing times that brought up her
uneasiness. She could feel how impervious she’d become to the problems of
others, how pinched off from concern. For
christ’s sake, she thought, you’re
not the only 45 year-old whose husband ran off with a younger woman. But no
matter how rational she tried to be, whenever her mind began to rummage through
that heart-rending year, the pain of betrayal owned her before her next breath.
Still eyeing the man on the bench, she wondered, who
he was? She huffed her breath out her nose as she realized what she’d just
thought, Was; rather than is? It explained why she often
referenced herself in the past tense these days.
She had been approaching slowly, but something about
that last thought brought a touch of daring. Not wanting to scatter the
pigeons, she walked behind the bench to the far end and looked at the man as
she asked haltingly, “Mind if I share the bench with you? I like this end of
the lake best.”
He said nothing, nor did he look at her. She squirmed
inwardly at this seeming rebuff. About to excuse herself, she said, “I’m
sorry…” Still staring straight ahead, he
raised his hand slightly. Then he patted the bench seat. Trapped by her moment
of bravado, she lowered herself onto the far end of the bench tentatively as if
squeezing into limited space. She offered him a quick little bob of her head
and said softly, “Thank you.”
She followed his lead, stretched her trousered legs
out in front of her and leaned back. She laid her lunch bag in her lap and
began to quiet herself; that tiny hint of rejection having found her ragged
self-esteem an easy mark. The pigeons didn't come under her legs. She guessed
she didn't feel very sheltering to them.
What a basket case I am. If I think this behavior is so stupid, why can’t I
stop it? she wondered yet again.
She pulled herself together like a gathered string
purse as she watched the mallards glide this way and that just off shore. “It
will pass,” he said. The kindness in his voice hit an emotional trigger. She
stiffened further as her eyes became watery. “Don’t hold your tears in. Let
them wash you clean.”
Her emotions were so conflicted now; she sat rigid
with indecision. She studied him out of the corner of her eye as the first tear
got loose and trickled down her cheek. Frozen in place, she let it run. He had
several days’ growth of beard, reminiscent of the young lions’ in her corporate scene, in their attempts to create an image they never quite achieved with their smooth
skin and insulated lives. Underneath the ashy pallor of this man there sat
someone who felt solid. His fingernails were dirty and chipped, his clothing
worn and a bit dingy, his hair wild from too few cuts and too many mornings
uncombed, but still he appeared unapologetic and sane. More than that. He
appeared to feel comfortable with himself. She wondered how that could be. How did he get to that place of abandon from
where he was?
She unrolled her lunch bag to the cheese sandwich,
baby carrots and apple she’d thrown together this morning when she decided to
eat at the lake. Absorbed in unrolling the bag’s open edge, he startled her
when he said, “Are you comfortable now?” The bag tipped off her lap as she flinched
at his unexpected response. She made three quick swipes to reclaim it before it
hit the ground but with no luck. She scooped it off the grass imagining how
silly she must have looked. “Apparently not,” she replied.
He smiled deeply, nodding his head slowly, the way
people often react to the easy comfort honesty brings to any moment. By then
she had the bag open, the plastic off the sandwich and was offering half to
him. He took it not like a man who was hungry but a man who was touched.
He bit into the sandwich and asked, “Did you run out
of imagination this morning?”
She snorted as she chuckled. “It is pretty dull isn’t
it. I decided at the last moment to eat here, and this, she held the remainder
of her half sandwich, was the product of that lack of planning.”
“Are you sure it was a problem with planning?”
That simple question caught her unaware. Vignettes of
a year she was trying hard to forget flooded her mind. She sighed deeply. There
was something in the way he spoke to her that, even as fragile as this year had
left her, she didn't feel the desire to run or hide. Rather, she began
confessing as if she were Catholic and a priest sat beside her.
“I’ve spent so much time trying to forget, I don’t
care much about things like meals, a neat house, makeup, dressing smartly. I
don’t care much about anything…actually. It just feels like I’m trying to get
through to some other side, if there even is one. Forgetting is the only plan
I've come up with.”
“Forgetting isn't the answer, he returned, looking at
the lake. “We never truly forget. We deny those memories, override them,
attempt to accommodate them, justify, lie about, and stuff them…but we never
forget.”
“Oh god,” she whispered. She dropped her few bites of
remaining sandwich in her lap, gave the apple to her new friend and chewed on
the baby carrots as if they were gum, anything to reduce the tension.
Sadie shifted marginally in her seat, enough to make
it possible to look toward the man sitting next to her. Her well-honed sense of
propriety now stripped away, she asked, “What happens from here? Is yours the
only answer?” For the first time since her marriage ended, she had allowed
herself to see how close she was to crumbling, losing everything.
He chuckled quietly. “My route is not the only answer.
There is also alcohol, drugs and wanton sexual encounters.” She closed her eyes
briefly, then glanced at him, alarmed. He paused, his smile deeply kind.
“You’ll have to pardon me. I was thinking back in my life to this moment you
find yourself in. There is always a choice point, and I’m still occasionally
surprised with the direction I chose. But for what it’s worth, becoming a
street guy was perfect. I doubt that I will stay in this format for the rest of
my life, but right now it serves me well.”
That response brought Sadie not a shred of relief. “If
I’m not being too intrusive, tell me how that could be possible before this
fear that is coming up around me drowns me in its hopelessness. I am so afraid
of the future. I am so hurt by the past. It doesn't feel like there is any
place for me anywhere. But, in all honesty, the thought of being seen sitting
on a park bench looking like a bag lady, for some weird reason, frightens me
even more.”
With this, he couldn't contain himself. He bent
forward and belly-laughed so hard the pigeons jumped up and flew off. Between
guffaws he said, “Please know I’m not laughing at you.” When he caught his
breath, he continued, “I’m remembering when my very lucrative business went
under, my wife left me, my kids informed me they didn't love me, just the money
I provided, and everyone treated me like a pariah except my dog. What made me
laugh was when I realized, even while all that was happening around me, that wasn't the sum total of my fears.
Sitting like a bum here on this park bench was. I knew there was one level
lower I could experience, disease or addiction, something that results in
complete incapacitation. That can take you to ground zero. I didn't want to go
that low. But I couldn’t tolerate any more games; no more lies. I was penniless
and without friends, and the closest life choice I saw integral with that was
living on the street. You see, you don’t forget, you start where you are and
build a new–but from truth this time.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“No, I’m not. You’re scaring yourself with your
have’s, must’s, and should’s. Do you sense it, how heavy and overbearing life
suddenly feels when those rules and demands, from who knows where, start to
organize your life again?”
She sat quietly. She looked at him directly,
concentrating. She realized that not once in their conversation did his
appearance lessen him in her eyes. There was something about him that nothing
of this world could take away, something he knew she too wanted to know.
Finally, she said, “What is the most significant thing you've come to know living
on the street?”
He looked at her, his eyes bemused. “As long as you
don’t stink, most strangers show more concern for you than your friends or
family ever did.”
The irony had them both burst out laughing. Even with
the racket they were creating, the pigeons came back and rustled around their
feet. When they finally caught their breaths, he said, “And for the record,
next time make it roast beef on rye.”
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