For J.D

It was one of those real hot sticky bastards outside the day after my birthday and I remember feeling real happy to not be jammed into some tiny wooden desk with rock hard gum stuck underneath, and to not be surrounded by a gang of coughing, wheezing, and sweating schmucks writing down Latin conjugations. I hadn’t done anything all that day besides waking up and deciding it was too hot to be productive or anything like that, so I was just sitting around on my ass eating whatever nonsense I could find in the pantry. Around noon my mom got on my case…or maybe it was around two...Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Point is, Ma got on my case about how my dad asked me the night before to mow the lawn or some nonsense, and so I told her I’d get right on it even though I knew full well I wasn’t going to. I wanted to get away from her nagging and the heat for awhile, so I went up into my room and looked through some old comic books with weird names like Strange Love and Detective Comics. I was enjoying myself until she started in on me again about mowing the damn lawn so I started in on her and we got in a tiff and I took off to the park to cool my head. I went to the park because I figured no one would be there to bother me and because I could walk there and not have to go to my crabapple of a mother and give in to her demands just for a ride to the movies or Danny’s or some nonsense like that just for her to say no. The park wasn’t that long of a walk but remember it’s disgustingly hot outside and I’m dripping sweat and feeling like a human puddle, so the walk might as well have taken forever. About halfway there I started to feel bad about yelling at my ma like that and not having mowed the lawn like my dad asked. I mean, it’s not like they are bad parents or anything like that, it’s just that sometimes I want to be left alone, ya know? But anyway, I’m walking to the park and it’s really hot and I’m feeling really down and out and I want to turn around but I feel like I can’t, just out of principle. And I mean hell; I was already halfway there so why turn around?

So I get to the park and it’s like something out of one of those campy little New England summertime brochures with birds chirping and the sun shining. There was a group of kids playing in the shade of some big old oak trees. One of them was eating a vanilla cone and I felt a powerful craving for ice cream and I set my mind on getting a Popsicle or something from one of those pushcarts they wheel around the park for people to buy water and ice cream. I saw one off in the distance and started walking towards it, but then I remembered that I was flat broke and couldn’t afford to even look in the cart. I was feeling pretty down by this point so I decide to find some place in the shade to mope around and think but the only bench I can find is taken up by some old man with big, drooping ears and a heavy tweed jacket. A tweed jacket of all things. Hell, those things were as hot as blue blazes in the winter, and in the summer...A tweed jacket for God’s sakes. He was like some kind of Buddha or something, sitting there all by himself in some heavy, itchy tweed, looking straight ahead. I didn’t really want to sit next to the old guy, but it was either that or roast so I kinda gathered myself up in some respectable way and marched on over. I looked him in the eye, dead square in the eye, and asked him if the spot next to him was taken. He shook his head, so I plopped myself down and started thinking about my life and all my troubles. Only problem was I couldn’t concentrate with the old timer on my right just staring ahead like Buddha. It was damn distracting him being all quiet like that. I kept trying to think but my eyes kept wandering back over to him in all his tweedish glory. He just sat there, starring and starring, and I sat next to him, starring and starring. I looked towards where he was looking but there wasn’t anything in particular, just some pretty green grass. I wondered if maybe he was dead, but every once in awhile he would blink and I’d feel a bit better. He reminded me of one of those military statues they have in the big cities. You know, the one’s on the horses just staring at something only they can see. Anyway, I was looking at this old guy really closely now, and I was trying to notice the little details like a private eye would. I like to think I’m pretty observant and I felt real proud when I noticed that he didn’t have a wedding ring. I started thinking about this, about how he might not have anyone to go home to and no one to talk to. I figured he must come here often and just sit around and stare off at something he missed in his life.

I sat there for a bit longer with the old guy, at least until some clouds came out and the temperature dropped. Then I got up and walked home and mowed the lawn like my dad had wanted me too. Oh, I apologized to my Ma too.

You know, that happened awhile back and I still think about that old man in the park sometimes when I’m alone or about to fall asleep. Sometimes, if I try real hard, I think I can almost see what that man was looking at in the park, and sometimes, if I try real hard, I can almost keep myself from crying.