Sunday.
In front of him stood a man breathing heavily. His eyes darting to and fro in disbelief. Scanning everything from the chipped paint to the splintering boards. Finally his eyes rested on him standing in the doorway with a newspaper clutched in one hand.
"Who is this man?" I thought to myself. "Why is he looking at the house like that? Does he think it's gnarled and unbefitting of the neighborhood? I bet he's one of those flashy youngsters from one of the big cities who wants to tear down my house to build some garish condos."
I stood there for a few moment giving him the sternest look I could muster as if to say "I'm not interested in your get-rich-quick scheme. Go away and leave me be."
But, no. Now I could see it in his eyes. He wasn't one of those condo builders, he was just a man standing in front of an old house.
"I wish he'd say something, anything. It's been so long since I have talked to someone else, I don't even know if I can carry on a conversation, let alone start one with a complete stranger," he thought. We stood there for another split second, but then it was all too much. I felt overwhelmed. I couldn't bear the torment of being so close to a brief oasis from my solitude that I turned and walked back inside leaving the man standing there, my solitude now my only comfort.
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I wake up to the sliver of sunlight protruding through my plush curtained window. Finally, the sun. The rickety sweak of a spring reverberates around the room as I place my feet with unclipped toe nails on the green carpet. The very toe nails that I once painted with bright pink nail polish. I pick a piece of paper at random out of my notebook of the past. Walking into my kitchen, I slip my gray woolen coat over my frail shoulders and gather the bread crumbs off of the counter from my meal the day before with the present conscious intent to feed the pigeons. Tossing the crumbs into my pocket, I shift the door open with my slender, wrinkled hands. The number "713" stares at me from across the hallway. A faint haze of memory neither clear nor completely hidden, sits in the depths of my mind. A woman, young, staring at me. Indicating to the door in her own eccentric way, without motion, only with knowledgeable eyes. 713. The number nags at my conscious, but I continue down the hallway closing the door behind me, attempting to disregard the feeling of forgotten memory aroused by the simple number.
Padding down the stairs, the faint trickle of crumbs drains from my holey pocket. I am aware of this, but I choose to ignore it. If the crumbs wish to drop, let them drop. The sun shines on my face as the door to the cool atrium closes behind me.A young woman walks towards me with the wary look of one searching for something she consistently fails to find. A flicker of understanding dawns in her eyes as the crumbs trail behind me. She moves past me, brushing my left shoulder, disrupting the precious and antagonizing notebook. With a brief apology she continues on her obvious journey for something I fail to see. Similar to the many shoulders I have felt before. Hoping for a memory. Nothing. My shortly cropped hair barely shifts in the playful breeze.The park is surprisingly uninhabited, excusing the somewhat elderly man crumpled up on the wooden bench. I sit next to him. He doesn't acknowledge my presence until I reach in my pocket to offer some small bread crumbs. He gives me a somewhat sardonic look, until he awkwardly, but graciously accepts. He slips them into his pocket. Like so many times before, a brief shimmer of knowledge collides with me and disappears as quickly as it came. Another somewhat scraggily man in a large sanctuary accepting a sandwich from young woman's hand. The memory disappears. Nothing. I pull out my notebook, shrugging aside the pain. The front page reads "Karen- 2:30." The unkempt man stands and walks down the street towards the church. He empties his pockets. Bread crumbs. Remembering my appointment, I wander up the street towards the large building. Number... panic strikes. The room number fled from me. I can't breath. I fall to the ground. The distinct feeling of disorientation and confusion returns to me with colossal impact. I see myself wandering the streets aimlessly for days with no one to help. A man grabs my arm."Excuse me are you okay?" He looks at me with concern. I tell him I'm okay He retreats. For once I fully recognize someone from my past. An image completely clear and untouched by a marred memory floats in the recesses of my mind. A court room. The dark haired young man with his head down as if in shame. A young woman next to me in tears. Barnaby stalks away in the opposite direction in almost in a huff. 716. I remember. I stand dazed and walk home immediately knowing I need to be there but of the reason I am clueless.
The sunlight tickled my eyelids as I lay on the hard-wood floor. I sat up quickly, scattering the pile of matt boards that I had been up cutting the night before. I had a show coming up, and I was at the point where the best sleep I got was on top of my work. And I must have been out cold because there was a note taped to my forehead.
Morning, Sunshine!
I’m in the studio, so bring me some breakfast.
XOXO
-Your Mark
His reckless handwriting ran across the old receipt while lopsided, ball-point hearts whirled around his name. I smiled. This was his type of joke. He wasn’t my Mark, and he hardly ever XOed me. But he got a kick out of the whole platonic roommate thing we had going on. In the evening he would swing the door open with a robust “Honey! I’m home!” scaring the bejesus out of me every time. But the breakfast he was serious about, so I grabbed some fruit, and a bagel, and fixed a thermos full of Earl Grey, and I headed out to meet him.
“The studio,” as Mark called it, was more or less a shack where he could work without neighbors complaining about his tribal drum and battle cry records. He had lived with the volume turned down for too long, and it was beginning to get to him. His shack in the woods was a godsend. He could cut loose. He could turn it up and move to it. His own personal rhythm.
It was faster than mine.
As I walked along Barnaby I wondered what time it was. The sunlight was so diffused by the overcast sky that it was hard to tell how long the sun had been up. I passed the run-down parking lot and turned right. As I headed into the woods, I began to hear Mark’s unruly tempos rising. “Right at the rotting stump, left through the briar patch, clockwise around the big oak,” another one of Mark’s jokes was the quality of his directions. But this time it wasn’t funny because I ended up in the back lot of an old, worn-in house. I realized my mistake and started to turn back when I was captivated by the dozens of sporting balls that decorated the patchy lawn. I leaned down to grab the abandoned baseball at my right foot when I heard the screen door creek and snap. My heart jumped and my fingers came loose of the red stitched seams. The baseball rolled until it hit the porch as I raised my eyes to apologize for trespassing. He wore small brown shoes, tied with tired fingers, and loose brown slacks. His hands hung at his hips holding an empty mug, and his shoulders curled heavily over his timid chest. Thin, gray hair was combed flat against his head, and long, untamed eyebrows wisped around his deep, wet eyes. I rambled off apologies and I even offered him some tea, but while he was staring straight at me, he hardly seemed to recognize me. I finally shut up.
He bent down and reached out and grabbed the baseball I had held earlier. Then he straightened up and pitched it right to me. My reflexes clicked, and to my surprise, I caught the speeding, weathered call. It clapped hard against my palm, and my fingers wrapped around it. I dug into my bad and pulled out an apple. I tossed it underhand to the old man on the porch. He caught it with his right hand while his left hand held the mug. He nodded to me as he rubbed the apple on his chest, and we both turned around and went our separate ways.
I clutched the baseball in my red hand as I walked back thought the woods. I turned it over and flicked off years worth of dirt until a row of tiny black letters was revealed. Barnaby Baseballs. Trusted and Durable.
I dropped the ball into my bag and quickened my pace as the deep drums and high cries grew louder.
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