STRANGERS ON A BENCH

 

 

New York has about a month’s worth of perfect days in any given year. Today was not one of them; high humidity, temperatures hovering in the upper eighties/low nineties, a hazy sky. My refrigerator was looking more and more like Old Mother Hubbbard’s. I was coming to the conclusion there was little time left between me and starvation. That had me having to face leaving the comfort of my air-conditioned home to make the eight block walk up Frederick Douglass in Harlem to our LIDL grocery store. I knew the walk to the store wasn’t going to kill me but the walk back with a bag full of staples like apples and water, things that weigh more than you remember until it’s too late, was going to create a sweaty mess. I’d already sweat stained one of my favorite vests the day before and I wasn’t in the mood to create a new pair of underarm amebic circles of discoloration to another vintage vest. Heat or no heat I dress to over compensate for my physical insecurities. I’m well aware of all the summer rules for how to dress in the heat: no dark clothes, breathable fabrics and nothing tight. Most people would forgo the added element of a vest on a day like this but it’s my signature and nothing much gets in my way of stylishness. It didn’t take me more than walking out the front door of our apartment building and being assaulted by a heat wave to smack me into deciding one block of heat induced torture was about all I was going to be able to handle. There was a bus stop one block away that would cut my food trek down from eight to seven blocks. Even a one block walk in this heat was enough to produce a waterfall of tiny beads of salty sweat to slide from my receding hair line to the catchall of my eyebrows. I was fast becoming heat blind.

The bus shelter had an etched plexiglass roof that shielded the brightness of the sun but did little more. These shelters were better equipped to protect from a burst of rain or snowfall in winter but that was about it. I had brought a book with me, a bit of light reading about a multi-generational saga of two families wrapped up in the life of running a supper club in the north of Minnesota. It flipped back and forth through time and characters, making it best read in one sitting. I was constantly having to remind myself of who exactly was related to who. My heart wasn’t really in it but I’m a focused task reader. No matter how confused or awful I find a book I’ll stick it out until the end hoping the author will change my mind. When I got to the bus shelter and sat on the wooden bench, I was more trying to fend off thinking about the heat while waiting for the M10 to show up than I was enthusiastically trying to find out if Florence had developed a new Old Fashion cocktail recipe.

I was, for the moment, the only one at the stop and maybe four pages further into the supper club saga when I noticed this guy starting to cross Frederick Douglass with a trajectory that seemed aimed at the bus shelter. He was a wisp of a black man not subscribing to any of the hot summer clothing rules. He had on dark pants, the darkness coming mostly from being stained and probably never having been washed. His shoes were none the better, black with the laces missing. He wore a long sleeve t-shirt with purple and green lettering on a field of muted gray saying “NEVER SURRENDER”.

He held a small white paper bag he’d torn open balancing several pieces of what looked like scavenge dinner rolls in one hand. With the other hand he was taking bits of the crumbled rolls and stuffing them into has mouth. Crumbs clung to the straggly beard that surround a set of crocked yellow teeth. There was an undecipherable smile on his face that could have been saying anything from crazy to harmless.

I did my best to avoid eye contact hoping he’d walk by. The backless wooden bench in the shelter was divided with butt divots making room for three people to sit. I had taken the middle seat. He didn’t walk by. He sat down next to me, close enough that our knees could touch. My first instinct was to get up and move but my second was to speed calculate my options before I reacted. There were several options that few through my consciousness, most of them offensive. I could slide over to the further seat. I could get up and stand. I could decide that those remaining seven blocks weren’t really that far to walk or I could stay where I was and continue to bury my face in my book. I did the last option hoping we wasn’t going to engage, start screaming hateful slurs or the most feared of pulling out a knife.

He was oblivious to my trepidation as he started off with, “beautiful day” or at least that’s what I thought he said his mouth still trying to masticate a doughy piece of dinner roll. I kept focus on my book but snatched a side glimpse to catch a smile behind the crumbs.

I countered with “It’s a hot day” hoping this would end the conversation.

“Oh, could be worse” all this said either muffled with food or the result of a neighborhood dialect or possibly the inarticulate pronouncement induced by drugs.

Then he did something I hadn’t expected. He offered me a piece of dinner roll. That’s when I made a decision. Here was someone that no one probably talked to, an invisible human. He was only looking for someone to recognize him. I closed my book.

“No thanks, I just had lunch” Not really true but it was the best I could think to say to not diminish him or have to take a piece of his dinner roll.

He saw an opening and countered with “Mmm, ya know the trashcan is my pantry” It made me laugh and he laughed with me.

“I like the way you look. Them are some fine shoes. You musta been a handsome man when you were young” Flattery will engage me even a backhanded one.

Having noticed my side-eye he followed it up with, “Oh, you still a very nice looking man.” Then he laughed again and it was contagious.

Then we talked about his favorite color: purple, we talked about God and how I had a hard time with organized religion. We talked about happiness. He pulled something out of his pocket. It could have been grass, it could have been crack. I couldn’t tell you what it was for sure but I demurred. He wasn’t offended. He put it back in his pocket and said “Ain’t this a great day?”

He never asked for money. My bus finally came. I would have shook his hand but it was still holding his trashcan pantry find.

Everyday now when I go past that bus shelter right around the corner I look to see if maybe he’d be sitting there. If some day I see he’s there I’ll be the one going to sit down beside him and we can discuss trashcan pantries or the definition of joy.