Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Gets In

A month ago, I said my goodbyes to Twyla outside the Thaiger Room and crossed to the other side of the Ave. While walking north to my apartment, I saw a small elderly man with a brownish green duffle bag larger than his brittle torso stumble under its weight. He fell to the ground, a mass of pamphlets and postcards scattering about the sidewalk in a swirl of hysteria. The man huddled into the duffle bag strapped across his back for a moment, hiding his thinly round face deep in the crook of an arm. All around him, college students and middle-aged adults passed in a hurry, agitated with how he was in the middle of the sidewalk and thus in their way. I was soon in front of the man and crouched down to the cool sidewalk and gathered up his pamphlets. Wondering why he collected so many different advertisements and stuffed them in his duffle bag, I asked him whether or not he was hurt. He answered my question in a quiet and sharply squeaky voice that I couldn�t understand. I handed him a stack of his pamphlets which he then hurriedly stuffed in the top of his brownish green duffel bag. Standing up, I offered him my hand. His was rough and weathered when he clasped mine, but the movements his body made in order to stand were delicate and feeble. Squeaking something I understood to be a �thank you�, he clutched his duffle bag close to the front of his body and scuttled off. I watched him rush down the street, realizing that his entire life was in that duffle bag- a life of pamphlets and postcard advertisements.

This afternoon, I said my goodbyes to Twyla outside the Thaiger Room and crossed the Ave. When walking north to my apartment, my eyes squinted against the onslaught of rain, I saw the same squeaky voiced man. He was standing with his back against a wall near the Russian bakery with it�s sandwich board sign jutting into the sidewalk, boasting the best piroshki. The man held out his hand to me. I did not take it, nor place anything in it, but nodded at him with a smile. Did he remember me?