He Asked the Way

I watch from my second story apartment window towards the main road. The newly darkened sky is the universal signal for the local scum to come out of hiding. My front door is locked. I see him – a long brown trench coat and a matching gardener’s hat. The way he walked was the sign that first attracted me to his presence. Slow and cautious, as if the dirty pavement was about to give in from beneath at any second. He stops to ask an old man on a park bench to show him the way. The old man is concise with his directions, using exaggerated hand signals to direct the Stranger. The Stranger moves without profile across the street, this silent element operates in a seemingly separate society.

Police sirens tear up the corrupt tar with their ravishing howls, and their lights briefly give a new power to the face brick walls of the surrounding buildings as if it were an amusement park – the sad reality then hitting me in the face that this part of town is too dark to relate to innocent entertainment. I step away from the window for a brief second to turn off the flickering TV. Now I can see the street more clearly without the annoying glare from the glass.

Clown suit or not, his passive presence is now blinding to the eye. He sticks out like a sheep in a wolf den, but any dealings of his are unfound, untraced. Now I remember that he had asked the way, what is he waiting for? The real comedy is when this arcane persona causes the inconsiderate community to infect each other’s minds with false guesses about who he really is. As they say, sometimes it should be better to know nothing than to know something. By his rights he fails to disclose a name, which is acceptable practice in the new world. But what hidden pasts have brought him here anyway? He searches the empty street with his eyes, as if taking a newfound liking to the dull suburban architecture.

As he turns around, he notices one of the local tramps we all know as “Barney” sitting on the pavement. The Stranger looks back to the street and takes out a small scruffy notepad. He scribbles just a few words on it, crumples up the paper, and gently drops it to the ground. The angry sirens now make a second pass, and the Stranger rounds the corner into an adjacent street.

[ A descriptive piece that I wrote in grade 8 (for the most part) in doodle-form on the back of a book when really borededed ]