The Old Man

I watched an old man sitting there on a bench in the park. He was across the way a fair distance. He was just sitting. I do not think he saw me there, watching.

His trousers seemed to be too large for his frail body. Once, perhaps, he had filled them out. His shirt appeared to have seen better days; but I thought it had once been of good quality. I wondered if he had picked them up at a thrift shop; of just maybe once upon a time he had worn them new.

He wore a hat, a floppy one that hung down over his brow and his ears. A big moustache adorned his upper lip. It was thick and unkempt. It seemed he hadn’t shaved in days. I tried to envision him younger with a well-kept beard or goatee. One never really knows a person’s history unless one has been privy to it.

It is, however, interesting to watch people. I have always enjoyed that. Not staring; but observing. Not judging but wondering. Imagining what their life has been. What their story is.

He just sat there. A statue of intrigue in my mind. Occasionally he would lift an arm and scratch an ear casually. Some time later he would swat away a pestering insect – not impatiently but as a horse does with its tail – naturally, spontaneously, unthinking.

He was not a stereotypical street person or derelict. He wasn’t muttering or ranting. He wasn’t agitated. He just sat there calm and silent – one might say serene.

I wanted to talk to him; but I didn’t. He didn’t appear to be engaged with his surroundings. People walked by. He didn’t glance at them. They did not seem to be aware of him.

His face was sunken but not heavily wrinkled. It was not easy to guess at his age. He was old, that’s all one can say. Was he 70 or 90? It is anybody’s guess. Once the face would have been more fulsome. He was probably quite handsome. Sitting there like that, it was hard to tell how tall he might have been.

He wasn’t exactly slouched, but he had surely seen better days. He didn’t have a cane; so I’d figured he was still relatively mobile. He must have walked here from somewhere after all.

I wondered where he lived. Did he live alone or with others? He must have lived somewhere close by I presumed. Although his appearance was somewhat tattered, he did appear to be clean. He was thin, but he did not look malnourished.

What would he be thinking about – just sitting there. Not looking around. Peaceful in the filtered light of an afternoon under the ancient chestnuts.

When I went to leave, I had made a point of walking past him. I said “Good day”. He didn’t look up. But he said “Yes”.

I had only been visiting the town for a few days. Business. I had been there a couple of times before but had not come to the town centre. This time my hotel was only a short distance from this lovely park, something one finds only in the centre of older towns and cities.

When I got back to the hotel, I had asked the concierge, a young fellow, if he ever went to the park. He said he had but only to walk through as he went somewhere else. When I’d asked him if her ever noticed an old man sitting alone on a park bench; he’d laughed. He said there were all kinds of old guys who sat on park benches and some even slept there too. I guess it had been a foolish question; but I was fairly certain that my old man was not a vagrant.

That evening I did not eat at the hotel. I had been told about this rather unique little restaurant on a back alley just a couple of blocks away. It was still light outside as I walked there. The town was quiet. The air still.

On my way I passed this retirement residence. It was an old building; but it seemed to be smart enough. I had wondered if the old man on the bench might live there. It was certainly close enough to the park. Or perhaps he might live in one of the many flats in the neighbourhood.

I didn’t know why this old man intrigued me so much. I wanted to know more about him. So the next afternoon I went back to the park. But there were two young lovebirds nestled on his bench. I did not see him.

I sat there for a while. Then I heard this commotion on the far side of the park. I saw flashing lights. I got up and ran closer. An ambulance was driving away; but I did not hear a siren.

By the time I reached the place, there was a small crowd dispersing and a police cruiser parked at the curb. I asked the first person I caught up to what had happened. She shrugged and said she thought one of the old street people had been found dead in the bushes. She didn’t seem interested in engaging further with me.

A police officer was standing by the cruiser writing in a notebook. I asked him what had happened; but he got a call on his car radio at that moment and went to deal with it. I waited, but he just drove away after a few minutes.

I realized if it had been a suspected murder, that there would have been yellow tapes stretched here and there and much more commotion. But there was none of that. The park returned to tranquility. However, I had this terrible feeling that my old man was dead. I had to know his story.

*

It was several weeks before I was able to come back to this town. One day, I had decided, I would like to live there. When I retire. Of course on always has to convince one’s spouse of such things. It’s a lovely place. Small, but it has all the conveniences of a large city. It’s old, but clean and it has a stately atmosphere. It was relatively quiet. I liked that about the place. Lots of trees. Majestic. And parks of course, several of them scattered about – the way well-planned cities and towns used to be. The way they should be.

I don’t know why I was so curious about this particular old man. I didn’t know his name. His story I had invented. Maybe he had just looked like all old men. But there was something about him. Something familiar. And something I could not put my finger on. I had to know.

I don’t know why I had not done this before. Why I hadn’t looked in the papers to see if there had been a write up about the person who had died in the park that day. So, I found the library. 

This was a lovely old building, mid-19^th century probably. It sat across a square from the historic town hall. I climbed the steps to the large, imposing front doors. Inside the hall was very grand – a vaulted ceiling with large windows. Lots of wood. Lots of light. The smell of musty old paper. The silence echoed.

An older woman stood behind the desk. He hair pinned tightly. She was well dressed – perhaps one could say well put together. I approached her. She looked up and smiled inquisitively. In a clear but hushed tone she asked me what I was looking for. I replied in a too loud voice and she put her finger to her lips. I whispered awkwardly that I was looking for copies of some more recent local papers for the days following the incident.

She asked me to follow her and we walked into a side room – smaller than the main hall with a lower ceiling and only one window. There were several long oak tables and very old ceiling lights hanging from long cords. One wall contained a number of wooden file cabinets… the others stacks of shelving. There were stacks of old newsprint. She said these would eventually be microfiched. This was, after all, before the advent of scanners, computers and the internet.

I found nothing. That seemed odd to me. A death of someone in a park and nothing. I realized this was not a murder, that had been made apparent to me at the time; yet there ought to have been something – a name, an age, something.

The more I failed in my investigation, the more of an obsession it became. Who was he?

The next day I looked in the local phone book for funeral homes in the area. There were three listed. As soon as breakfast was over, and before I went off to work, I had called each one. The people I spoke with were pleasant enough in a funereal sort of way. I explained the situation and what information I was looking for. They would give my name and contact information to one of the directors when they became available. None were at the time of my calls. One was out of the office, another was conducting a service and the third was seeing a family in the office.

When I got back to the hotel later that day there were three messages waiting for me. No one had any record of handling a cadaver of an older man who had died at the time I had indicated. One of the directors suggested that perhaps the family had taken the body to another location for burial. Another suggested that I check at the city morgue. The body may still have been there awaiting identification. I hadn’t thought about that possibility.

The following morning I had called the morgue first thing. There were no unidentified bodies on ice at the present time. Indeed, there had been none for quite some time. A friendly fellow there suggested I speak with the police about the incident. Now, why had I not thought about that before! So sensible. I was annoyed with myself for that oversight.

I went immediately to the police station and inquired at the desk about whether I could speak with the officer who had attended at the scene that afternoon. They had to check their files to see who was on duty that day. They asked for contact information. Someone would get back to me in a day or two. They were very busy at the present time.

I was going to be back home the next day so I gave them both my home telephone and work telephone numbers. A couple of days later, I did get a call from a Sargeant Laliberte. He said yes he had been on duty that day and had responded to a call about a death in the park. Suicide he said. Drug overdose. Why did I want to know? Did I know her?

I said “her?” You mean it wasn’t an older man? He said “No”; then “why would you think it was an old man?” I stammered. I said I had met this nice old guy in the park one day and never seen him again. The officer asked me his name. I told him I didn’t know – that we had just spoken with each other. I said that I thought I would see him again. Then when I discovered someone had died in the park I was concerned it was him. I didn’t think he had any family.

The officer looked at me somewhat suspiciously – or at least I thought he did. He said sorry he couldn’t help me and started to write something down in a notebook. He closed his book, gave me another look and turned to go.

He stopped abruptly and turned again towards me saying “Wait a moment”. He disappeared into the office behind the desk. In several very long and uncomfortable minutes, he returned with this other officer… tall and gruff. After a few questions, this fellow told me about an incident about a week later than the one I was inquiring about. He said it was probably suicide too. They couldn’t be sure but it seemed likely that it had been. He was an old man. He had lived in a rooming house not too far from the park.

His landlady had reported him missing. His walker had been found abandoned near the canal. No body had been found. The officer said that this was odd because the canal was not that deep and the current was not strong. She had told them that he had kept to himself mostly. A nice fellow though. He had been no problem at all.

His landlady said he had been used to taking walks, well shuffle along really, with his walker. Apparently he had been reasonably well off once; but she said that he was outliving his money. Maybe he’d decided it just wasn’t worth going on.

For some reason I didn’t think this sounded like my old man. He didn’t seem suicidal, but then I supposed many who commit suicide don’t. But I had not seen any walker with him that day.

Years passed. I never did find out what happened to my mystery man. And years later I would still think about that day in the park.

*

Fifteen years later, I did move to that town after I had retired. My wife had died almost five years earlier. I had rented a wonderful flat near the centre of town, close to that park. It was an old building, but it was well maintained. It had large windows overlooking the street. There was a small balcony where I used to sit with my morning coffee. From there I had watched the town come alive.

I don’t know many people other than to nod at them as I pass by or to raise my cap and say good day. Most people smile; but there are those who always seem to be in a rush or to be cautious of old men who shuffle along, or sit for hours in the park. What if I actually wanted to talk with them. That scares them.

Anyway, they are busy. They don’t have time to talk to someone like me, who has all the time in the world, at least what is left of it.

I am not as spry as I once was. After that first stroke, I couldn’t cope on my own. I moved into a retirement home – the one near the park that I’d walked past years ago. Like most of the buildings, it’s an old place; but it looks good enough on the outside. Inside was a different story.

I had to share a room with some old guy who moaned all the time. We never even spoke to one another. I had tried. I had to take my meals at a table with three others who drooled. It was enough to turn my stomach. I couldn’t eat. And all those pills they wanted me to take. I had never taken pills before. I didn’t even know what half of them were supposed to be for. And then there was that nurse who always preached at me, even though I said I was an atheist.

They didn’t like it that I wanted to go outside once I got some of my strength back. I wanted to walk to the park. I was determined to do so. They said I might get lost, or fall, That wouldn’t look good on them. They tried to keep me in, but they couldn’t. They said  I was a danger to myself, that I had better smarten up.

All hell broke loose when they discovered I wasn’t taking my pills. Even when the nurse – or someone who looked like a nurse anyway – was standing next to me and handing me the pills, I’d fooled them. I got a good laugh out of that. I wasn’t the fool they thought I was.

They had tried to force them on me. But I still had enough strength to fight back. I gave one of them a good smack, sent her flying. That really started a commotion. She’d hit me back – the religious one. None of that turning the other cheek stuff.

I was black and blue. They tried to restrain me. They said I was uncontrollable. I was sent for an assessment. But when the ambulance came to get me, I was gone. Flown the coup. Gone A-wall. Unlike some old folk, I still had a nest egg – my own money and my own control over it.

I’d had that stroke, but it hadn’t set me back too far – not far enough that I couldn’t get back up to speed – well not the same speed, but in time good enough to get around on my own. Slow but steady.

I found myself a room in a lodging house. It was still quite close to the town centre and the park. I got there most afternoons. It’s my redemption. I just sit there and watch and listen to the sounds. Sometimes I have a book to read but not often. I just like to sit there quietly.

The old woman who owns the lodging house, well she’s not nearly as old as me, she looks after me pretty well. Anyway, as best she can. In fact, after my heart attack a year ago , she looked after my finances until I got better. She paid my bills, not that I have many of those anymore – just the room, meals and so on. But it was a relief that she looked after even those. She probably looks after other people in the house like that too.

I know she looked after dear Jesse in the room next to mine. She wasn’t much older than me when she died. I miss her. We’d become good friends. We used to have coffee and cake together at the bakery down the road. We’d been there the morning of the day she died. She seemed fine to me. But then I didn’t know she had run out of funds and was going to have to move to one of those dreadful subsidized places. They say she took her own life. She didn’t seem that sort somehow.

Old age isn’t for the faint of heart. My grandmother used to say that. She said a lot of things that made sense. And she was right. I just take it a day at a time.

*

I like sitting on that bench. Sometimes I go there and there’s someone sitting on one end. The other day there were two of them: young love birds. I just sit down on the other end. I don’t say anything. I just sit. After some time you can tell they get uneasy and move off. So usually I am just here by myself.

I could sit there for hours and most often do – like today. I just sat and watched this young fellow across the way. He was pretending that he wasn’t staring at me. I pretended I wasn’t even seeing him. He sat there for quite a while. I wondered what he was doing there. I thought maybe he was unemployed. Too young to be retired. He was well-dressed. He had smart trousers and an expensive looking shirt. I’m not yet too blind to tell that.

After some time, He got up from his bench and came my way. He was trying to look casual. I kept watching, pretending I wasn’t under my hat. Then as he passed by he said “Good day” and nodded. After he’d gone a few paces, I said “Yes” even though it wasn’t.

My landlady told me this morning that I had to move as I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent anymore. She couldn’t afford to let me stay as much as she liked me. I couldn’t believe it. I came to the park to think. After that fellow left, I sat for a while longer. Then I got up. I picked up my walker from behind the bench. I had folded it up and leaned it against the back like I usually do. It must have fallen down…

It was then that it dawned on me. I knew what had happened to my old man of years ago. But I will not confront my landlady. I will go to the police.