Robert Sharp

 

 

Early afternoon and there is a man standing in front of our house waiting for the people that used to live across the street. He doesn’t know that they have moved away, so he stands in front of my house waiting in its shadow, waiting and watching for my neighbour.

It’s late afternoon. I’m home from school and some kids have joined hands and are dancing in a ring around him. They dance and sing and stamp their feet. He looks at them and laughs, but he doesn’t budge from his spot. Soon the children will go home for supper like I have. I wonder; will the man have something to eat? I watch from my window.

It’s early evening. The sun’s going down. The man is just finishing off some Kentucky Fried Chicken a delivery boy brought him. Still eating, he carries the empty cardboard carton up our laneway to put it in the garbage pail. Dad says that in a moment the man will be coming up the front steps and ringing our doorbell so he can use the john. Dad’s not too keen on the idea, but he will let the man in; I can tell by the way Mom is looking at him. “How does the man sleep?” I wonder.

It’s early morning. I’ve just awakened and gone downstairs to the living room window to look out. The man is standing outside not moving. His head has fallen forward. His shoulders droop. I watch him till it’s time to go to school. As I’m going out the door he comes to life. He lifts his head. He gives his shoulders a shake and he stamps first one foot, then the other.

“Poor dear,” my mother says. “I wonder if he’d like a cup of coffee?” His body looks like a shadow against the morning sun.

I’m home from school now and I’ve been watching him for hours. This morning, he walked across the street to get out of the sun, Mother says. Then, in the early afternoon, he moved back to his original spot. Some children have joined hands and are dancing around him and chanting, “Gone away. Gone away. Your lifelong friend has gone away.” He laughs at them a little. In a few minutes, when the kids are gone, he will come up on our verandah and ring the doorbell. Mother will let him in.

It’s the middle of the night and the man is still standing out front. His head has slumped forward so his chin is on his chest. His shoulders droop. His arms hang loosely by his sides. I’m very tired and yawn. They expect rain tomorrow. Will my parents give him an umbrella? I don’t know. If he gets soaked to the skin he might go home. I press my nose against the window.

It’s morning and it’s raining. Mother says that Mr. Schultz, on his way to open his store uptown, sold the man an umbrella. And now, there’s policeman standing under the umbrella talking with the man. Mother has gone out with two cups of tea and a towel. A few minutes later, she comes in soaking wet and the policeman goes away. “What about his feet?” I ask. “Won’t his feet get wet?”

It’s after school. The little red-haired girl from down the street is talking to the man. She can barely toddle and shouldn’t talk to strangers. The neighbours are angry and Dad has agreed to speak with him. I can listen through the screen window. Dad tells him he doesn’t think the people across the street are coming back. The man asks in a low voice if he can stay a while longer to make sure. Dad tells him he’s on public property and it’s a free country. He offers the man a cup of tea. I want a cup of tea. Mother gives me one. I don’t like it and I pour it down the sink.

It’s the middle of winter. Snow is piled everywhere around. I take the metal doorknob in my hand. My hand freezes there and I have to wait till the handle warms up before I can open the door and go inside. The man in front of our house is wearing a coat that’s way too big for him. He also wears a wool hat that falls over his eyes; fleece-lined boots he forgot to zipper; mittens, plus a scarf that is wound around his neck three times. He huddles sometimes, and sometimes he swings his arms to keep warm. The house across the street has been vacant for several months. Still he watches. The little red-haired girl has strung Christmas tree lights across his shoulders. He merely shrugs them off into a snow bank when he wants to come inside.

Mother wants him to move into the spare room at the back of the house. Father says it’s a big step bringing someone into the house. “But I’m sure I don’t mind, my dear, if that’s what you want to do.” Mother mentions it to the man when he uses our phone to order Kentucky Fried Chicken. “I don’t mind waiting out there, if it’s all the same to you,” he says. “My friends might come back anytime, and I wouldn’t want to miss them.” The red haired girl is glad. She likes him.

It’s spring. The house across the street is coming down. The workmen are there. The man watches the house disappear brick by brick. He’s wearing rubber boots to protect his feet from the slush. He doesn’t look very well. Toward the end of winter, he looked worse. We brought him warm drinks; vitamin pills; cough mixture; we even offered to call a doctor at our own expense. He refused. He improved as the weather got better. Today he is watching the house vanish. The little red haired girl has brought him cake and cookies and orangeade, but for the first time, he ignores her.

The house is gone. The man is going through a crisis today. He spent the morning staring at the vacant lot across the street. This afternoon, he is pacing up and down, waving his arms around and from time to time gesticulating. He’s repeating bits and pieces from Hamlet. “To be or not to be…” he mumbles.”Word, words, words,” he mutters. “A rogue and peasant slave!” he shouts. Towards the end of day, his pacing slows to a shuffle and his shuffle stows to a standstill. “There is a providence in the fall of a sparrow,” he recites, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. “What will you do?” my mother asks, for she is now standing beside him. “We are what we are what we are…” he answers staring wistfully at the vacant lot.

The man has been standing there for seventeen years. Time has flown. He’s been a part of my life from my early days at elementary school, through high school to college where I flunked out. I watched my parents age. I moved away. I married the red haired girl and became a parent myself. I remember once, as a child, I fell off my bicycle in front of him. He helped me up, brushed me off and sent me inside to my parents.

Of course, it hasn’t been good for him standing outside all these years. He aged more rapidly than anyone else in the neighbourhood. We worry about him a *great deal. We wonder what goes on in his head when he stares at the vacant lot across the street.

We have all suggested that he go somewhere else, that he go into a home or something. My wife tied to reason with him, to coax him, and in exasperation to threaten him. My father even offered to take his place on the sidewalk. But none of it worked.

“I’m a part of here,” he told me once. “I’m settled. This is my home. I want to end my days here.” There was a slight dribble of rain and he opened up the umbrella my wife had given him. “All my friends are here,” he added while looking across the street.

This morning, the postman gave him his first pension cheque. He endorsed it and asked me to cash it for him. I said I would. I wonder what would happen if after all these years his friends did show up. I wonder what he’d do.

 

 

 

 

ROBERT SHARP is retired and lives in Toronto. This story originally appeared in print in Who Torched Ranch Diablo.