I sat at the bus stop, reading. It was a cool, windy day; damp from an early morning rain. Presently, a man on a bicycle pulled to a stop directly in front of me. A man I had seen before.
“That must be an interesting book, eh?”
I glanced up at the man, “Yeah, it is.”
“What’s it called?”
“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. James Joyce.”
“Is it all about family and stuff?”
“Kind of. It’s a biography, but it’s sort of written like a novel.” The man smiled at me, his dark, weathered face creasing around the eyes.
“You go to the school down there, huh?”
I nodded, and continued looking at the man. I did not remove my sunglasses.
“How many years?”
“I’m done next month. I’ve been there four and a half.”
The man smiled again, a vacant, listless grin, “You keep goin’ to school.”
“I will.”
“I went to school in new Mexico for two years before I got drafted…Vietnam,” the man paused. He glanced away before he continued. I kept looking at his eyes. “Then after Vietnam, I never got back…started drinking…”
“My kids keep telling me to go back, but I’m too old now,” he chuckled. A tired laugh.”You know what they tell me? You’re never too old to learn.”
“They’re right,” I said. The man laughed again. His smile and his laugh were painful–the response of a man who knew no other way to respond. A man who had given up on his mind long ago. Or maybe the other way around. Something told me this man no longer spoke to his children, surely grown now.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“My name is Zach,” I extended my hand to meet his. His hands were large, rough, dry from exposure to this desert climate.
“I’m Ben. Could you spare any money, Zach?”
I made the obligatory search of my pockets, knowing that I had no money on me, “Not unless you take plastic.”
“No, I don’t want plastic,” his smile faded as he started to ride away, “You finish school. I’ll pray for you when I get up in the morning.”
“Thank you. Take care, Ben.”
I looked back to my book, read a line, closed it. I looked up and watched the traffic pass. I opened the book again, closed it.
As I finally started reading again, the man walked by with his bike from the other direction, a brown paper bag in his hand. As he passed, he said, “The bus is coming.”
So I picked up my bag and got on.
