So now that the mornings are getting lighter and my urge to run has returned, I’ve been heading out in the early AM to run the streets and hills of my neighborhood. I leave pretty much at the same time each day and return plus or minus five minutes, noting the variables that send my pace one way or another. Weird maybe, but after several months off from running I’m recalibrating.
Most mornings I arrive back a few minutes after 7. And most mornings as I approach the door to my apartment building an old man who lives in the building is just leaving. He’s tall and about 80 and only wears shades of brown, from what I can tell so far. We’ve only exchanged a few sentences, but I’m charmed. He smiles. He holds the door. I’m glad he lives in my building, a polite old man with a wobbly walk living among artists and immigrants in a neighborhood known for its grit. I hope to get to know him.
I seem to have some sort of radar for old people, old men in particular. It’s more soft spot than radar, actually. There’s something about frail old men that scares me, that gives me the same feeling I get if I’m peering over a cliff. I think I see my father in them, or I see what my dad will be like when he is that age, and so I force myself not to turn away from old men and instead turn right toward them. Empathy, respect, love/fear, preparation - it's a complicated mix I've got going.
Anyway, this is all to say that seeing my new old man neighbor reminded me that a few year ago I sat down and wrote about another old man neighbor of mine, a neighbor back from my days in Boston. I thought I’d post it here.
...
I see the old man every Tuesday, around 6:30pm, when he walks his single bag of trash down to the sidewalk and sets it on the grass, gently, as though it were breakable. I have been watching this man take out his trash for two years, since shortly after my move from Boston to its suburbs, and I still remember the first time I caught sight of him. He was hobbling up the street, a plastic CVS bag hanging like a weight from his left hand, the one not wrapped around the handle of his cane. His steps were impossibly slow, the effort monumental. I held my breath, and watched until he turned the corner. I felt sad for him, and somehow also sad for myself.
It was a year before I realized he lived right across the street. I saw him one day watering his lawn with a watering can, taking slow trips inside and out again to drop a few cups of water on grass that was already brown. Watching that made me go silent. But it turned out that the window in my living room looks out onto his driveway. I often find myself standing at that window, fingertips on glass, hoping to catch sight of him. I do this with a patience I don’t normally possess. There are few things I think I can do forever. Watching out for the old man is one of them.
He’s very tall, I’d say over six feet, and very lanky; his pants hug narrow hips but then just sort of cascade downward, hitting against nothing; his legs must be thin as pencils. He has big feet, long feet, and they are always encased in a pair of sort of super-flat converse sneakers. Navy blue, gum soles. Cheap, I think. He often wears a raincoat and nearly always a hat, of the type that Gilligan wore while stranded on his island, only the old man’s is not white but faded denim. Beneath the hat is a fringe of white hair. The skin on his face has loosened with the years; it hangs down, pulled as much by age as by gravity. I had never seen his face up close but I remember thinking that if I did, it might shock me.
His walk is peculiar, like that of a tall marsh bird. His feet never bend, they hit flat, and when they touch down they do so at obtuse angles, heels in, toes pointed outward. He lifts the right foot high before taking a step. The left one mostly just shuffles. Watching him walk from the house to the street, the world slips into slow motion, everything just a steady, careful lift and shuffle. He stops often, not to rest but to bend down, also in slow motion, to pick up bits of trash - gum wrappers and little scraps of paper that have somehow landed in his driveway. When he spots one, he puts down the bag, rests his cane on the grass then wades over to it, delicately, looking like a kid on his first pair of skates. No piece of trash is too small. He will stop for anything.
His hands are large but wrinkled – even from across the street I can see their age spots. But they are quick and nimble. When he reaches down for things, long, strong fingers snatch them with the deftness of a man a third his age, which I place at about 90. They flick out at objects, and are strong enough for him to twirl the trash bag when he is done collecting, and agile enough for him to twist tie it closed. They are evidence of the man he used to be before he got old. When he sets the bag down for good and turns back toward the house, I always feel a sense of loss, even finality. I watch his slow march up the driveway until he reaches the top, and turns toward the house. I watch him until I can’t see him anymore.
A few weeks ago, I met him. I was driving home from work, turning into my driveway. He was walking across the driveway entrance, his back turned toward me, on his way back home from his walk to CVS. He had two bags in his hand, and they were giving him trouble. He set them down on the ground and tried to get a better grip, which took some doing. I sat there in my car, like a hunter in the woods, breathing quietly while I waited for him to start moving. When he did I pulled slowly into the driveway, and pushed into park. I told myself to go say hello to him, to introduce myself as his neighbor.
He’d only gotten about ten feet from the driveway when I approached him. I was tentative – he was focused on his walking, and I didn’t want to jar him. I said excuse me and he turned his head slowly, and gazed right at me. He face looked softer than I thought it would, his eyes a cloudy light blue behind thick glasses. I said I see you walking by here all the time and I thought I’d just say hello. At this he pointed backward with his cane, toward the car of one of my housemates, which was blocking the sidewalk, and said, a bit breathlessly, I don’t know if that’s your car but I don’t approve of the way it’s parked. I’ve had to walk in the street the last two days. His eyes looked ahead, toward the rest of his route, and not toward me. A far-off stare. I was surprised at his comment, surprised by the fire of it. But I was also pleased by his orneriness. It made me less sad for him, less sad about his frailty. I asked if he wanted some help with his bags and he said, No, I’ve got them. I'm almost home.
