I used to see him every day, somewhere between one and two, on my lunch break, when I walked to the corner deli for a sandwich or soup, or whatever I happened to be in the mood for. He sat on a bench, the one in front of the big fountain filled with green tinted water and dull pennies, maybe a few dimes and nickels. I never actually walked passed him (the bench is about a half block past the deli in the direction of North Main Street and I was always coming up from the south side), but even so, I couldn’t help but notice him. Or I should say, once I noticed him for the first time I couldn’t help but notice him every day.
Who knows how long he had been there before. I’m sure the first time I saw him wasn’t the first day he had sat there. No, that’d be too much of a coincidence and personally I find coincidences to be a crock of shit. He could have been there a week, a month, a year, but it really doesn’t matter. All I know is that from the first time I saw him, I continued to see him every day and anything that came before is unimportant, because for all I know he didn’t exist before I came along.
But I came along and saw him and in seeing him created him. It will have been a year ago this June, that first time, sometime mid-month when the heat starts kicking in and the forms start piling up on my desk. I took a late lunch that day and as I walked up Main Street toward the deli I saw him. He wasn’t doing anything spectacular, just sitting with his arms wrapped round his body, gently rocking back and forth. At first I thought he was listening to music and the rhythm to which he moved was so strange and inconsistent that I couldn’t help but wonder what it was he was listening to. As I got closer I noticed that he wasn’t wearing any head phones. Not even those tiny ear buds that all the interns at the office try to get away with using.
He looked vaguely familiar, although I’m not sure why. Maybe he looked like most guys his age, with shaggy brown hair and fake vintage tee-shirt. But even so, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d seen him before, some place, some time ago. He was thin as hell and by the time I reached the deli door I could see the sweat glistening off his skin, running down his skeletal arms. I saw that he was shaking. My first reaction was to write him off as another neighborhood junkie. Some dumb-ass college kid who rolls into the city and thinks he’s gunna be the next great painter or director and soon finds himself hooked on one thing or another, roaming the streets like a goddamn sewer rat. One of those great American fuck-ups that plagues this city with their presence.
This is what I thought at first, but deep down I knew he was different. There was a feeling of recognition, a feeling that was solidified when on leaving the deli (with a low fat chicken on rye) I turned once more toward him. At that same moment he looked toward me and our eyes met. We stared at each other for no longer than three seconds, but in those three seconds I saw that there was something more to him, something special. He turned away and I walked back to work, trying like hell to put a name to the face.
The next week I had figured it out. There had been an old friend of the family, a guy named Jim, who would come over on the weekends and drink with my dad. He had had a son, Greg, who was born around the time I was starting high school. There was no doubt in my mind that this was Greg, here in the city, sitting on this bench. I know that this sounds like a coincidence, but it’s not. Jim had these very distinct features, a long hooked nose and hair that never seemed to stay down. He had a defined yet short jaw and almond eyes that were both exotic and familiar. He looked exactly like this kid. Too exact for it to be anything else, not even a coincidence. It would make sense too. The town I grew up in is only a few miles from here and it would not be strange for Greg to have moved out this way, either for school or for work.
He had the same gestures of his dad as well. The way he couldn’t sit still and how his head always seemed to be nodding. I remember this one time when his dad was babysitting me, how we stayed up all night playing games. I don’t exactly remember what we played, but I remember his hands. He had long thin fingers with bony knuckles and his palms were always damp and soft. Greg had the same hands. I would see them crossed on his lap or tightly holding his rib cage. My eyes always seemed to be drawn to his hands, his fingers, the same ones as his father’s. He’d sit there and count the coins in the fountain, his body moving back and forth to the rhythm of his eyes, as he waited to catch the two o’clock bus.
Greg worked the early shift at one of the local coffee shops. He’d get there at six or so to open and get ready for the early morning commuters. The pay was shit, but he liked the job. Like most things in his life, he took it seriously. He knew he could do better and there were a few times when I considered offering him a job with me, but office work wasn’t for him. At the coffee shop he could wear what he wanted, could let his untamable hair do whatever it wanted, and could drink all the coffee he wanted. But even more than this, the coffee shop was a place where he could meet all the girls he wanted, and like his father, girls were what he wanted most.
He had had plenty of them, though he never found the one that he was looking for. They were all too boring and experienced. He wanted a girl he could shape and teach things to. A girl who would excite him, like a rough slab of marble excites the sculptor. That’s why he always sat alone, counting the pennies, rewishing on each one. He wished for over a year. I say over a year, because who knows how long he had been wishing before I had seen him. Maybe he had been doing it his whole life, but it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that he found her. It was last month, and the smell of spring was still hanging in the air, holding on for as long as it could before submitting to summer. I saw Greg, like I had every day for the last eleven months, only something was different. He was sitting there as always, but he was talking to someone on a cell phone. He rocked quicker than usual, his lips moving fast. He was excited. Excited because he was talking to her.
I wish that she had been there so that I could have seen her, but I have no doubt as to what she is like. First of all, she is young. Greg likes the younger ones. He finds them special and different than all the girls he knew growing up. There is something to be gained in finding someone to act as a bridge between oneself and the next generation. I remember his father had told me something like this once and I couldn’t help but to agree. To remember. She was pretty and she giggled a lot. I could tell that she was giggling by how annoyed he looked, but he would put an end to that. Maybe not just yet, but soon enough.
I have often wondered if she was the reason he left the coffee shop, why he no longer sits in front of the fountain, counting pennies and waiting for the bus. Perhaps he found a better job, or maybe they’ve gone on vacation together. Whatever the reason, I know it’s not the last time I’ll see him. There will come a time when he finds me, when he’ll rediscover me like I rediscovered him. It’ll be late at night, one hot summer’s night and he’ll have followed me home. He’ll crawl in through my window and slide into my bed, wake me with his father’s hands. I’ll look at him, half awake, half in dream and smile. As he runs his hands down the smooth part of my back, he’ll see that I am soft, like wet clay.
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