by Jan Thorn
acknowledge my presence. He probably couldn’t hear me from this distance especially with the rain falling on his hat and the wind blowing past his ears. “Excuse me.” I stated more loudly, more clearly. Still no response or reaction of any kind, but as I got closer I could see he was in fact holding a pipe in his hand.
“Excuse me, sir,” I tried again. Almost yelling into the wind.
“hello, Miss.” He finally replied without shifting his gaze from the water, “some weather we’re having here,” his voice was almost a whisper, but the wind carried it directly into my ear. I could hear him as clearly as I might face-to-face on a dry, sunny day.
“Yes, it is,” I responded to his comment on the weather, “I apologize for disturbing you. I was hoping to borrow a light.”
“A light?”
“For my cigarette.”
“Oh,” he paused for a moment. “Yes. Of course, a light.” The wind carried the scent of his pipe tobacco directly into my nose and mouth, filling me with a warm feeling that I couldn’t describe.
He started fishing around in his pocket, “How’s yer party?”
“Sir?”
“Yer party – inside?”
“Oh,” I had to think. To me parties are fun events, this was more of a professional obligation. He probably should have asked how my obligation was and he would have gotten a quicker response, I thought to myself. “Fine,” I responded to him, out loud.
“Just fine?” he sucked on his pipe, the smoke billowing from the bowl colliding with the falling rain as he waited for me to respond.
I didn’t respond.
“Where’s yer date?” he asked coldly.
“No date tonight,” I responded too quickly and possibly with regret, although I hoped not.
“Pretty girl like you? I’m surprised.” It almost felt like I was being scolded for not having a date! Where was that light already!?
Deep down I knew I shouldn’t get snarky with him. Here I am disrupting his peace, plus him being my elder and all, but I had to say it, “Sir, you haven’t even looked at me. How would you know if I were or weren’t pretty?”
He paused, sucked on his pipe and blinked a few times before he responded, “I seen ya, I….oh, here we go…” he pulled a box of matches from his pocket, looked at it for a moment and handed them to me, still without looking at me, “you can keep ‘em. They are from a very wonderful place…magical, if you will.” They were already soaked, but I glanced at the cover. They were from the Merry Weather Inn in Townsend, Massachusetts. Obviously there was no point in even trying to light them in their condition and in this weather. I gave them one more glance before I put them in my pocket. “Thank you. Well, you have a nice night.” I turned to leave. He remained exactly as he had been not taking his gaze off of the dark water.
“Yep,” he drew out the response so that small word filled the widening gap between us.
I had already started to walk away but it was going to bother me so I turned back.
“Sir?” He was ignoring me again so I moved closer than before. Instead of just seeing a shadow in a fisherman’s slicker I could see from a closer range that I was looking at a much older gentleman, older than I originally thought. His skin was like leather – very tan and tight -- weathered with age and environment. Thick white whiskers coated his cheeks. His teeth, from what I could see, were very bad, maybe from a life of heavy smoking or drinking or chewing tobacco or all of the above, accompanied by age and poor hygiene, I assumed. It didn’t really matter. I had no intention of kissing this man. “Sir?” I was louder, closer and more deliberate.
“Yes, love,” his voice still only a whisper and as clear as a bell ringing beside my head, “ya don’t have ta shout I can hear ya.”
“Then why don’t you look at me?” My tone almost demanded an answer. I probably sounded like a child but I didn’t care. Our exchange had been so short but I was incredibly frustrated by his combined forwardness and nonchalance toward me under such extreme conditions. Maybe the extreme conditions were both environmental and emotional but he wouldn’t know that – I was angry that he wasn’t more of a gentleman toward me in this rain. I think. I could tell already he was stubborn like a mule and I wasn’t going to let him make me feel this way Not him, a total stranger – in the rain, “ I said, then why don’t you look at me?”
“I don’t have ta. I can speak without lookin’, can’t ya hear without watchin’?”
I thought for a few seconds before answering, “Well. Yes, of course.”
“Feel what yer sayin’. Listen with yer heart and believe in yerself. You won’t have ta spend so much time lookin’ for answers.”
“You said – “
“I know what I said.”
“I just want to know when or where you’ve seen me? I don’t remember you – and I’m sure I would…”
He cut me off again, “Sure ya would.” he kept staring ahead then looked straight up at the black sky right into the streaming rain, “So ya want to know when I seen ya?” his question was almost threatening.
He brought his face back down and resumed his gaze across the water, but it was clear by now that he wasn’t looking at anything in particular. There was nothing to see. With nothing but darkness before him, he was staring into the past.
Without shifting his gaze from the darkness he continued, “I just have. I ain’t new.” He sucked on his pipe again and then he finally turned to face me. I didn’t anticipate what I saw so after all of my initial concern it was me who was startled. He stared right through me with a crystal blue eye on one side of his face and a foggy glass eye poked at me from the other. “and neither are you.” He said this last part very matter-of-factly. “Listen ta me Missy. Life ain’t easy and it ain’t calculated – not by you and me at least. Stop lookin’ for the answer ta every question and the reason fer every occurrence. It ain’t in front of ya or in yer hand, it’s in yer cards and you ain’t holding them neither. Things happen for a reason and it ain’t your reason, but it’s a reason all the same.
So learn ta go with it, feel it. Enjoy it, if there’s joy ta be found in it. An’ if there ain’t, then find the message, the lesson, an’ learn it. ‘Cause one day you may be busy talkin’ when ya should be listenin’ an’ next thing, well next thing is…what it is.” He turned his half stare from me and I knew he was thinking that ‘next thing is…you have a glass eye.’ But that’s not what he said.
“Mother nature – she’s a funny gal. Even she answers to a higher bein’. Unpredictable, strange an’ curious, you pick the words but she means business, so respect her. She speaks an’ the wind blows…if she’s whisperin’ it might be a nice night fer a moonlight stroll but when she’s mad – better hold on ta yer hat. She cries an’ rain falls. Point is, there ain’t no coincidences. When the storm is over the grains of sand, the leaves, heck even the trash receptacles will be where they’re meant ta be. So you, you need ta live more, plan less. Sometimes there are no answers that you need to know.” he took a single step to the right so his back was to me, then he took a long pull on his pipe. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“G’night missy.” With that my mouth snapped shut. Had I just been dismissed?
I turned to walk away then I thought I might try asking him what actually happened to him, to his eye, maybe I was supposed to ask him that. But when I turned back again he wasn’t there. I looked to the end of the pier but couldn’t see him. He definitely had not passed me on the dock so I ran to the spot where he was and looked into the water. It was choppy because of the weather, but I couldn’t see anything and I certainly had not heard anything splash. I stood there for a minute, but even as those 60 seconds or so churned past, I was standing on the pier alone.
By the time I got back inside the restaurant I was SOAKED. I headed straight to the bathroom and tried to dry my hair under the hand drier.
Katie came in, “There you are! Are you all right? I have been looking all over for you.”
She cut me off, I’m sure she was thinking of our earlier conversation about office-party politics, “don’t be silly, you have no worries. You talk to whoever you want.” Her expression changed from concerned mom to eager friend, “Who is he? Is he from H&J? Is he here? Is he cute? Talk to me.”
“Ah. No. I didn’t mean concern like that, I meant because he just, like, disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Like, into the crowd?”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t know who he is, he’s not from H & J. He’s not from the party. I honestly don’t know who the hell he is, just I guy I asked for a light. I’m sorry, Kate, I don’t really want to discuss it.” I don’t know why I didn’t want to discuss it Katie and I discuss everything but I guess it was just beyond bizarre and I still didn’t know what to make of it, of him. AND I still hadn’t gotten to smoke which I really needed even more NOW than I did before.
“Okay. Whatever. Be that way, keep all the cute guys for yourself, “I could tell she was annoyed even though she was trying to pretend she wasn’t. Truth was I really didn’t know how to process what had just happened, I needed time to think.
“I will, thanks,” I gave a wink, hoping she would forget she was annoyed.
“Well, we exchanged Secret Santa’s –I have
