on and off the airplane

He’s bald and old, but lively, and his shirt is sort of Whitman-like, collarless and open at the neck. He sat behind me on the long delayed flight home, and we exchanged a few words through the crack between the seats. Then, when we all stand up and cram into the aisle, eager for exit, he says, “Are you in school? I saw you have a lot of electronics.”

“No, that’s all for work.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Go on,” he prods me, as if to say, that’s never the end of the story, I’m too old to let that one lie.

I point to my bag, to the electronics. “Work is advertising. But I write fiction too.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Me, I write with a quill,” he announces.

“You’re a writer too?”

“No, I’m a retired dentist.”

“Oh,” I say. It’s late, and I can’t find a following question.

He shakes his head. “Not really. Don’t believe a word I say.” We walk down the steps of the plane onto the tarmac and head for the waiting bus. Suddenly his old age shows, he’s nervous, the world has become too big, baffling. “Where are they taking us?”

“Back to Lexington,” I tell him, and instantly regret it. “No, not really. To the terminal.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

“Not about that,” I promise him, and we get on board.

Something rings.. “Is that me?” He starts patting down his pockets and pulls out a phone. He looks at it until the ringing stops. He shakes it at me. “This?” he says. “This is like something you would have.”

on the avenue

An old man is shuffling slowly along, his wrist leashed to an equally slow dog. He’s going slow because he’s old, certainly. But also he’s reading a magazine, clutching it with two hands, the way a small child would hold a book. He’s not very tall, I can see over his shoulder. It’s porn.

in the cafe

It’s the kind of place where you order at the counter and seat yourself. The old man in front of me is wide and round and leans heavily on his cane. He has a kind, soft face, the sort that smiles even when no one is looking. His body is failing but still, the face holds traces of his younger self. They put a flat bowl of soup on the counter in front of him, a thing that can’t be managed with his weight on the cane. I offer to carry it to his table. He tells me that would be very nice, and points to one. Before he sits down, he lays aside the cane and clasps my hand between his. “Can I tell you something?” he asks. “Don’t get any older than you are right now.”

in the projects

The warm day has given over to a slight chill. It’s Saturday night. People are milling around, winding up to things that come later. There’s a butter-colored Cadillac parked out front. The door sits open and the song on the radio drifts out into the air. There’s a man sitting in the car with his feet on the curb. He’s wearing one of those old man caps, and seems old enough to have earned it. He sings past the volume of the radio, his voice fluid, with just a little gravel in it. I smile at him, and he tips his hat. “That’s right, baby,” he says and meets up with the song again on a high, trailing note.

on the street

He was a bear of a man, in a cheap suit, panama hat, a thug grown older and stouter. His hands were covered in rings, thick gold with stones like Christmas lights. Maybe he thought they spoke to his success, the dollars he had been able to part with. Or maybe he saw a bare truth: gaudy brass knuckles on a man with violent hands.

on the subway

I’ve seen them before. They are old and weathered and small. He has the permanent grin of a village idiot, even his eyes smile. She is stern, stares back at me, officiously rearranges the contents of her purse.

near the waterfront

In Greenpoint, inside a fenced lot, a weathered man in a stained jacket sat on an overturned milkcrate. His hands kept pace with his voice as he talked intently, in Polish, to a single mesermized pigeon.

on the corner

Today I wore striped tights. All the men in the projects I cut through had things to say about that.

All but this one. He was on the corner behind the drugstore with a pile of paper in his hand. He looked at his shoes. He looked at the sky. His face was ruddy and creased with time. As I got closer, he looked away and sang out softly, “Boycott Walgreen’s.” I stopped and asked what was going on. He handed me a sheet of paper. He whispered, always looking away, “They’re not fair.”

May 1

In the hallway by the elevators in my office, I saw a man who was short and wide and crooked and hunched. His face was soft and pained, he carried his difficulties in his eyes.