Bodies in Motion
Now why am I, my good sir, relating this trivial incident to you? For many reasons. Among them is this phenomenon of bodies growing ever larger the further they move from our sight.
Emile Habiby, The Secret Life of Saeed, the Ill-fated Pessoptimist
The old man looked out the window of his house to see the trees surrounding his house. They were just beginning to show their spring leaves. He was an early riser so the sun was just beginning to lighten the horizon. He went to the kitchen to cook his breakfast. He wondered how his cholesterol was so low considering all the eggs and sausages he ate, not to mention all the other fatty meat he loved so much. When the eggs were done, he slid them onto the plate with the sausages, poured himself some coffee and sat at the end of his dining room table, the table that was too long for one person but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. When he was a child the end seat of the dining room table was reserved for the eldest male family member in attendance. For many years that was his grandfather. After his grandfather passed away, they didn’t have many large family gatherings.
He tried to make plans for the day. It was going to be sunny and warm this early spring day. He tried to take a walk around the neighborhood daily. Sometimes the weather wouldn’t co-operate but today should be glorious. He couldn’t stop himself from drawing out the word in his mind with an exaggerated British accent. He chuckled to himself. Sometimes you had to create your own entertainment. An old advertising tag line came to him. I am my own entertainment. My feet are my Mercedes. He sighed after the silliness and got up to go take his plate to the sink. He rinsed off the egg and placed it in the sink.
He took his coffee cup into his office and sat at his desk. He had lined his house with bookshelves filled to capacity. They had become his refuge again, from loneliness. As an awkward child with no social skills, he found it easier to escape into the realms of fantasy, science fiction and spy craft. They became his friends and protected him from the crushing loneliness he sometimes felt. Now that he had outlived everyone who was dear to him, they protected him again. He sat at his desk sipping the warm, biting coffee. His eyes drifted over the shelves as the rising sun brightened the room. Titles, like the names of old friends, drifted through his conscious brain. Many of them he had visited more than once.
He got up to put a record on the turntable. Yes, he was one of the few who still had a turntable and he liked to sit and listen to the vinyl records that he had accumulated over the years. He placed a record by Segovia on and moved the needle to his version of The Old Castle, Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition. Originally written for the piano, it was a somber piece made even more somber by Segovia’s guitar playing. The melancholy mood created by the music was in direct contrast to the bright sunshine which had begun to shine through his office window. He took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his office chair to let the music wash over him.
When he finished his coffee, he went to the kitchen to add the cup to the growing pile of dishes he’d have to do when he returned home. He kept his house tidy except for the books everywhere. He had contemplated selling the house and moving into an apartment that would be easier to clean but that would mean getting rid of his books. He decided to stay in the house as long as he was physically and mentally able.
He grabbed a light jacket from the hall tree by the front door and his favorite fedora. As a young man it was always baseballs caps, but now as an old man he thought a fedora was more elegant. If you had told him twenty or thirty years ago that he would be thinking about elegance he would have thought you crazy. At the bottom of the stairs he turned right to go towards one of the main roads. The birds were out in full force. He could hear them even when he couldn’t see them. His neighborhood was always full of the symphony of birds. He heard the distinct call of the red winged blackbird, several distinct notes followed by a rising crescendo. His wife had hated the birds. As a long time night shift worker she had to sleep during the day and sometimes the cacophony disturbed her sleep.
The street down was flanked by houses on the left and a big lot that was parking for the local chapter of the VFW. He was eligible for membership but he couldn’t see any reason for it. He was not proud of his military service and he certainly didn’t want to sit at the bar drinking all the time. Been there, done that and he didn’t want to go down that road again. He continued his walk to the train station. There was a tiny café in the train station that served coffee and sandwiches where he sometimes stopped. Their coffee was pretty good. Today he just felt like really stretching his legs and walking.
He had a fondness for cemeteries that dated back many years. There was a little cemetery just past the train station and he turned through the open gate. In the nineteenth century families who had the means would have their loved ones buried in garden cemeteries just outside the city limits. The cemeteries would have beautiful landscaping and funereal monuments. Whole families would visit the graves of their loved ones and spend the day picnicking and enjoying the beautiful landscaping. He imagined that would ease the pain at the loss of their loved one. It was almost like still being with them even after they had gone. This cemetery was more like the traditional twentieth century ones he grew up with, straight lines and rows, just like the one his family members were buried in. He never visited their graves. He could see no reason for it.
He used to live near one of those garden type cemeteries that the owners let fall into disrepair. The older burial cites were overgrown with thick vegetation and the beautiful monuments were broken and in disrepair. There was a plot that had a bassinet carved out of stone that decorated the grave of a child. He was so affected by it he wanted to take a picture of it but when he came back with a camera the area was so overrun by growth that he was not able to find it again. He was ashamed to admit that he and his friends used to hang out and drink beer in the cemetery at night.
He turned a corner around a small copse of trees and saw a graveside ceremony taking place. The funeral must have been for a former military member. The casket was draped in a US flag. He stopped and waited at a respectful distance. He didn’t want to distract the mourners. He couldn’t hear what was being said by the minister, but he imagined it was the typical ashes to ashes stuff usually spoken at funerals. After the minister returned to his seat a lone figure in a ceremonial army uniform slowly marched a few paces away from the graveside and put a bugle to his lips. The plaintive notes of Taps reached his ears. No matter how many times he heard it, that bugle call always made him emotional and he fought back the tears even though he didn’t know the deceased. He thought that this particular arrangement of notes hit something inside him every time. It hit the grief center where he stored the grief of every loss he ever felt and every time he heard it the grief was released anew. When the honor guard folded the flag, presented it to the family and the mourners began to disperse he continued to walk through the cemetery. He was glad that no one would be burdened with the cost of burying him. In his will he left all his money and property to charity with a little set aside to cover the cost of his cremation.
After leaving the main gate of the cemetery, he crossed Morland avenue and turned left. He liked to walk through the park just a short distance down the road. On a warm spring day like today there would probably be many families in the park. Watching them was always a pleasure. When he arrived at the park, he could see that his guess turned out to be true. There were quite a few families sitting on the benches and walking around the park.
He glanced over at the playground equipment nearby and saw a little towheaded boy playing by the swing set. The boy reminded him so much of himself. When he was a boy he had blond hair that went from blond to brown to full on gray as he aged. His boys looked like that when they were young. Kids were supposed to be a comfort in your old age but by some unfortunate circumstances he had outlived both of his boys. He lost one to a car accident and the other to drug addiction. Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their kids. It’s just not the way things should be. He hurried on not wanting to stare. These days parents were quick to see pedophiles lurking everywhere. It was tragic but he didn’t want to give any parent a reason to be concerned, rightly or not.
He lost his wife Margie just a few years later, to a brain aneurysm. She just didn’t wake up one morning. It shook him up every time he thought about it. How long was he laying beside the corpse of his dead wife? He was crushed by her death. One day she was vibrant and healthy and the love of his life. The next day she was gone. They were going to spend their twilight years traveling the world and now that would never happen. The far end of the park was usually his turn around point so he headed there. The area was wooded and had a small creek running through it. He liked to pretend he was out in the wilderness when he walked through that end of the park. Growing up a city kid through and through he didn’t have much wilderness experience but when his boys were young, he took them backpacking, little overnight trips into the woods all up and down the east coast. Then they got older and started to have lives of their own. He didn’t want to be the clingy type so he encouraged their independence but he would often look back fondly at the time they spent together when they were young.
When he was a child in the city, they used to play in Cobbs Creek. Abandoned tires, discarded appliances all over the place, but they didn’t care. The polluted, trash filled creek was their hideaway. They spent as much time as they could there. He reached the little foot bridge that crossed the present-day creek. This was where he turned around. He passed the playground equipment and looked at the young moms playing with their children. The youthful innocence of children at play made him think about his own boys. He and his wife used to take their boys to a playground like this when they lived in the city. If he was honest the young moms brought back memories of a different kind.
He retraced his steps through the cemetery, past the train station and turned up the hill to his house. Before he retired, he could tell how hard a day he had at work by how hard it was to walk up this hill. Today wasn’t too bad. He soon reached his house and entered the living room. It was almost noon so he decided to have lunch. He looked at the bookshelf and saw a group of old friends. They kept him company and held the loneliness at bay. Sometimes he would add new friends to the shelves but often he would visit with friends he had known before.
After he had finished lunch, he sat on his favorite chair. He tried to stay away from television but he often failed at that. Sometimes he just needed the noise to keep the ghosts from overwhelming him. Sometimes he actually paid attention to what was coming out of the idiot box.
Late in the afternoon he would often think of his boys. When they came home from school the house would be filled with the sounds of their laughter and their brotherly squabbles. George was the good boy, honor role, sports star, popular in school, lost too soon when his car skidded out of control on a patch of ice. He was only twenty. Tommy, on the other hand, was constantly in trouble. Parents weren’t supposed to have favorites, but if he was honest, he’d have to say Tommy was favorite. His troubles reminded him of himself at that age. He knew that he was lucky. He had a lot of help pulling himself out of that hell. He never understood why some drug addicts could succeed in pulling their lives together and why some died. He tried to help Tommy as much as he could but nothing seemed to work. He got him into rehab. He got jobs for him. He let him live at home. Every time he seemed like he was getting it together he would fall even further into the pit. He wracked his brain trying to figure out whether he could have done differently.
Every room, every piece of furniture, held memories. He and his wife used to entertain at the long dining room table. Food was a common love for them. They would plan intricately themed meals and show movies. Gone with the Wind would follow a sumptuous southern feast. Meals together with family and friends were replaced by solitary meals alone. Food went from being a time of togetherness and conviviality, to just a thing he did so he wouldn’t starve. He just couldn’t enjoy it in the same way anymore.
The afternoon dragged on into early evening. The shadows faded into darkness. He took a shower and put on his pajamas. He climbed into bed. He found himself going to bed much earlier these days but sleeping less. Sometimes when they would sleep together, he would reach out and caress her leg just to know that she was there. The big empty space where she used to lay was filled with a longing that he never knew was possible. Sometimes, in that twilight dream world halfway between waking and sleeping, he would feel her presence, like an amputee experiencing phantom limb syndrome. Then he would awake again to the fact that she was gone. Sleep was an infrequent respite.