Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Silent Partner

I’ve aged. The neighborhood has aged.  Everybody I know has aged.  So it seems to me a little strange that hte guy I’ve never spoken to dosn’t seem to have aged a day.  I’ve dwecided to find it encouraging.  Otherwise I might hav eto kill him, but that just seems like an overreaction adn he doesn’t strike me as the overreactive type. 

I guess I first saw him not long after moving in, back in the early ‘90s.  I was somewhere near the house, on my block or thereabouts, when he caught my eye.  His thick jet black hair stood in striking contrast to his easy gleaming smile.  His dark eyes flashed brightly and his shoulder dipped slightly with a courteous nodding bow as we passed on the sidewalk. Dusky olive skin, low-key casual attire, and a firm steady gait - he greeted me so naturally that I had to ask myself if I already knew him from somewhere.  I didn’t, I concluded shortly, but I could have easily enough. Maybe I’d never see him again, but at that moment when we passed each other on my new sidewalk, his warm natue reached out to welcome me.  I appreciated it, and decided to introduce myself to him if ever I ran into him again. 

That chance came within a few weeks, when our paths crossed a second time a block or two from my home.  But I was busy or had a mouth full of food or something, so I forebore to say hello.  Same thing the next time, a few weeks after that.  It became a pattern.  Morning, afternoon, evening, night; right at my front door or down the block or out on the boulevard, our paths would cross and we’d share a smile and a nodding salutation.  In my tangential way I acknowledged with regret his infirmity when he broke a leg and was tottering around on crutches.  One morning we exhcanged grins as I loaded into the car before dawn for a trip to the gym, and then again late in the evening as I came home from some random soiree.  The synchronization of schedules would have perturbed me had I not already considered him an ally, a silent partner in my embrace of my community. 

And yes, the partnership was silent.  Beyond a syllable or two of greeting at most, we never spoke.  This is not to say that I was parochially asocial.  There were lots of people I spoke to - some friends, some mere neighborhood familiars like that guy who walks his dog or the lady with the cactuses.  We’ll chat for a minute, if we have the time, and then go on with our lives.  But not me and that guy I’ve never spoken to.  We never actually spoke. 

Not so long ago some friends from college visited town and we pulled together a bit of a supper out with as much of the old gang as we could assemble.  It weas a fairly big meetup for a bunch of guys who’d lived together twenty-three years ago. We gathered at a coffee house across the street from Q, where we’d be eating.  The Blue Danube is authentically eclectic, a tightly-wound, tightly-run bohemian hangout for going on forty years or more.  It’s pretty popular, too, so when we walked in, Jon and Brian and Billmo and Mande and Dave (and maybe Kim?) and Kel and me, we were walking into a small room already very full of furniture and people. 

One of those people, as fate would have it, was the guy I’ve never spoken to.  He was standing by the far wall, sipping a cappa and looking very comfortable.  Our eyes met again, as always; as always, we exchanged a congenial nod and grin.  We had never spoken but the circumstances seemed propitious.  The moment was ripe. It was time to speak to this stranger-friend, and I was going to make it happen. 

As I resolved to sept over and break our mutual silence at last, he started walking across the room toward me.  He had reached the same conclusion as I had, at the same time. I raised my and to greet him with a handshake in the middle of the crowded room.  He raised his hand too.  Then he seemed to veer to the left.  Things were happening quickly and not quite correctly, it seemed to me.  He was not meeting my gaze and his outstretched hand reached at an angle away from mine.  Was he going to miss the handshake?  He was!  He was walking right past me - and into the friendly handclasp ... of ... some random guy?  I glanced back into my group of friends and noticed another couple standing with us, strangers, a little younger than us maybe, but normal enough.  They looked for all the world as if they were part of my group, except of course that I’d never seen them before.  The guy I’ve never spoken to was shaking hands with this dude and greeting gladly the woman with him who’d arrived with us, but who were not actually part of “us.” He joined these interlopers with with obvious delight. 

As they peeled off for another part of the crowded coffee lounge, he did look back toward me for a moment and I thought I saw wry rue flash in his eyes. If so, it was reciprocated.  I fully intended to have a chuckle with him over it when next we had a co-locational moment, but that turned out to be inconvenient for some reason.  As were the next few chances I let go. Now it’s been quite some time since that night that I almost shook hands with the guy I’ve never spoken to, and it would no longer really be appropriate to make that an initial subject of conversation.  It’s not current any longer.  We have news to catch up on.  If we ever catch up on anything, I mean.