Of Winks and Wings - Part 1
I have a little story to tell you ... it's absolutely true, of course, at least as far as I'm concerned, but you can take it as you wish - as a tale, a fact, or just the musings of a hack writer - no matter.
It happened about ten weeks ago, late in October, and while it's probably nothing very earth-shattering on the surface, if you give a bit of thought to it, it just may deserve an extra question-or-two. But that's just MY opinion, you should find out for yourself.
It all began when I went to the park to feed the ducks.
As usual, stopped at the market for day-old bread to break up, then made the ten-mile drive and parked under the oaks where the car would be in the shade ... it was a cold autumn day, but the car still got too hot if it was sitting in the sunshine for any length of time.
As I got out and pulled the bread bag out of the back seat, I glanced in the direction of the park pond to see where the ducks and geese were at the moment and saw a familiar hat atop a figure sitting on the bench. It belonged to an old man named Clarence who I had talked to briefly a couple of times ... he always sat on the same bench, in the exact same spot. I didn't sit there myself very often, as I liked to go down to the water's edge and sit on a big, flat rock there. From that spot, I could throw the bread into the pond, that way the ducks would get some water along WITH the bread, and digest it properly. But sometimes, if it was really cold, I'd sit on the rod-iron bench and let the birds come to ME.
Though I'd never thought about it LONG, I had noticed that about a third of the bench's painted seat had been worn down to the bare wood, and public works clearly hadn't been around to check on it or re-paint it, for many years. No biggie - it was quality hardwood and was worn quite smooth, so there were no splinters, and people used it continuously without concern.
When I got near the bench I said hi to Clarence, and though he replied right away with his usual kind voice, there was a break in it, and his smile was not nearly as broad as it usually was. I continued down to the pond's edge and fed a couple of the swans, but the ducks and geese were not there, (most likely on the backside of the little island in the middle), so after the long-necks had their fill, I went up to sit on the bench for a few minutes, as it was cold that day, and the bench was still in the late-day sun.
I said hello again to Clarence, but this time he didn't answer, so I glanced his way again and saw him wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, (a beautiful embroidered one that I'd seen him use before to carry crumbs in, or pat his forehead with on hot days, though he never used it for his nose, and kept a small package of Kleenex in his pocket for those duties). I didn't want to disturb him in a private moment, so I avoided asking him what was wrong, and just sat down on the end of the bench and made a soft comment about how nice the sun's warmth was, again with no reply, though I could see peripherally that he was still wiping his eyes.
Since the ducks and geese were still nowhere to be seen, I decided to try Clarence one more time ...
"You OK?", I asked, casually. Still, no reply, though I knew he'd heard me, as his face was turned my way. This time I looked directly at him as I spoke ...
"Hey, Buddy, are you alright?" And while he'd just wiped his face, another stream of tears ran down his cheeks, and he looked at me quickly and then away, blotting with the handkerchief as he did so. I could tell he WANTED to speak, but was just unable to at the moment, so I looked back toward the pond and let the last question hang in the air.
"I'm ... I'm ok," he finally answered slowly, with another crack in his voice. "I've just been here too long, is all." And with this, he straightened up a bit and seemed to not be dabbing his cheeks as often.
"Why don't you head home and get warmed up then, Clarence?" I said to him, more a suggestion than a question, "It's late in the day and the birds will be tucking in soon, anyway."
"Oh, no... no... that's not what I meant," he replied, though I didn't press for him to elaborate, more out of awkwardness than anything else.
Still no birds around, so I sat silently and fidgeted with the bag of bread crumbs, breaking them into smaller pieces. Clarence wiped his face one more time, then ceremoniously flattened and folded the handkerchief on his lap, (I could see then it was decorated with hearts and love messages, his name in the center), all the while handling it as if it was the finest lace, ever-so-tenderly tucking it into his jacket pocket. I thought this was probably a sign that he was heading home, but he sat still, looking into the air in front of him, as though he could SEE something there that I couldn't.
"Fifty years. Today," said Clarence.
"I'm sorry, what's that?" I replied.
"It would've been fifty years ... today," he answered. "Fifty years that Grace and I would have been coming here, every afternoon ... to feed the ducks and geese and swans. The swans especially ... Grace loved the swans."
"They're beautiful ... Grace was your wife?" I asked.
"My True Love," he said with reverence, emphasizing the last two words. "Yes, my wife ... she didn't like the words 'wife' and 'husband', she said they sounded too much like ownership. So we always used 'True Love', that way people would know right away how much we meant to each other. Silly, I guess, but it was important to her, and I didn't mind."
I made a mental note of the fact that I agreed with that view, that there had always been something a bit too "possessive" sounding about those labels, and that "true love" was much more specific and special. "I like that," I said, continuing, "She must've been very special ... to be so specific about what she wanted you to call each other."
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