Careless Whisper

There he was again: same tan pants, same horrifically patterned polo shirt, brown leather loafers that had walked too far in life, gold wire-rimmed glasses that gave his eyes the same illusion of peering at fish in an aquarium. His snow-white hair, while still astoundingly thick, was in that same, side-combed pattern. His hands rested on his knees, the length of his arms, thighs and torso creating a triangle from the side profile. His back was unforgivingly straight, posture so perfect it would make an army general shed tears.

His frame was not frail at all. The polo shirts were loose and cooling, but it did not hide his bulk. Bulk that was still imposing even with the slight paunch that had made its unwelcome - but not unexpected - appearance in his 62nd year. He was a sight as familiar as the lake in the middle of the park, the only difference being the air around him: it seemed to ripple with a quiet confidence that was also suspiciously tinged with sadness.

The kind of sadness that plagues men who have outlived their purpose.

Sharing the ancient wooden seat of the bench faithfully every day was a small silver-and-blue flask and the day’s paper, folded neatly, looking like it had been untouched since leaving its home at the store down the street.

The sight of the old man every single day at the park was something people had adapted to, sort of like getting used to the scenery on your way to work. And the sudden disappearance of the Bench Man felt like it had disrupted the entire setting of the park: imagine seeing the prime colours of your country’s flag change to pastel colours. The change was that jarring.

Everyone noticed it.

I noticed eyes travelling to the bench. Heads swivelling to make sure what they were seeing was not a dirty trick. Some even paused mid-walk to glance around. Maybe he was late today.

But the Bench Man was never late, in both arrival and departure.

For three weeks, the bench stayed empty.

No one ever went and sat on the bench when it was his “designated” time there, but people soon got used to his absence. It gnawed at me, however, an itch too far out of reach for me to scratch. I never changed my route to work, passing by the park bench dutifully day after day, hoping to see him seated there once more, in that familiar posture, with his flask and newspaper.

The fourth week went by. Rain fell in torrents during the night, slowed to a gentle drizzle in the mornings. It was perfect stay-home weather but I dragged myself across the park nevertheless, huddled up in a thick coat and the multi-coloured umbrella my niece had gotten for me five years ago.

She claimed the colours would cheer me up when the sky was crying, and I often found myself smiling whenever I opened the rain protection device or shook it out after reaching my destination.

By the end of the fifth week, weak sunlight struggled to filter through the dense, gray clouds. The beginning of the sixth week promised warm sunshine, and a surprise.

I took the same route that Thursday, habitually scrolling through the hundreds of songs I had saved in a single playlist - a playlist I’d been meaning to separate into different lists but somehow was just too unbothered by it to ever set about doing so. The velvet soft voice of George Michael’s Careless Whisper caressed my ear drums, the rhythm tickling me all the way down to my toes. Satisfied, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and looked up, as I always did, at the bench. And there he was: the Bench Man.

Or what was left of him.

Seeing him always reminded me of my own grandfather: strong, sturdy, reliable. That assurance that men were once men, not just weak, hollow shells filled with insecurities and a need to be validated by the world.

I stopped short, crashing into the air like a clumsy mime.

He looked several decades older, as historic as the bench he now shared with a walking cane, alongside his usual newspaper and flask. His shirt hung from his shrunken frame as clothes often do on hangers. His pants looked almost too large for his receded waistline. Even his hair looked dull.

But his eyes were as sharp as ever, and the solitary confidence he wore as well as Superman wore his cape had intensified.

My curiosity - more often than not, the reason why I got myself into situations that I normally avoided like the plague - got the better of me. I marched right up to him and stood there.

He directed his gaze away from the bustling street, from following the various people that entered and exited his peripheral vision, to me.

I blinked at him, expectantly. Like he owed me an explanation for disappearing for over a month.

“May I help you, young lady?” His voice was something I’d expected: rich and full-timbred. His polite tone betrayed part of his personality.

“Yes.” I then realised that while he was a familiar face in the park, he was no more than a stranger. I knew nothing of him, except the fact that he might not own a smartphone or a TV. It was the only way I could justify his daily newspapers. I gestured to the other end of the bench. “May I?”

He nodded his permission.

I sat, pulling George Michael out of my ears and fitting the tiny contraptions back into their capsule. “I apologise for the suddenness. I’m just curious as to what happened to you over the past month.”

His head swivelled around, eyes focusing immediately on me, and something in my chest tightened.

Because of how thin he looks, I lied to myself.

“I see you every day on my way to work,” I continued, “and then you vanished and returned looking like . . .”

Bench Man arched one white eyebrow. His eyes blazed with words his mouth refused to deliver out of decorum: go on, I dare you.

“ . . . one of the walking dead.”

“My nurse used a much more courteous description,” he replied, after a moment’s pause.

I shrugged. “She gets paid to do so.”

The corners of his lips twitched, a small motion that was lost amidst the age in his face. I started to get a feeling that there was more to him than his daily ritual of sitting at the park.

“Could I be so bold as to inquire why?”

“Cancer.” The air around him thickened with curious emotion.

All my bravado retreated further than the hair on my non-existent Uncle Walter’s head. Memories of mum struggling to get out of her bed and going from glowingly healthy to gaunt and hollow-eyed clouded my mind’s eye momentarily.

“How is it looking?”

“It’s looking like I’m still alive.”

“Why do you come here every day?”

“The same reason you go to work every day.”

“Money?”

He rotated his gaze from the stores situated across the remainder of the park and across the street to fix his depthless dark eyes on me, analytical and silent. I remained unflinching under his stare, curiosity swallowing whatever intimidation I should have been feeling under such heavy scrutiny.

My initial answer was just something I whacked off the top of my head. I aimed for one more thought out.

“Responsibility.”

He regarded me with an expression I could only describe as empty, before returning his eyes to the stores.

“Responsibility,” he confirmed.

For some moments, we sat quietly together, eyes fixated on some lone point in the distance yet not really looking at anything.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Bench Man.” The moniker I’d created for him in my head slipped out before I knew it. It didn’t make a difference: he was Bench Man. I stood, blinking down at him. He dipped his head slightly, acknowledging my departure. If the made-up name I’d given him insulted or amused him in any manner, he certainly wasn’t showing it.

“It was pleasant meeting you too, Bag Girl.”

The old man had a sharp sense of humour.

I found myself greeting him every day. On days I had time to spare in my commute to work, I’d sit and talk to him. On days I could manage barely more than a brief greeting, I’d look down from my office building on the 46th floor to see him sit silently, alone, and get up at 10.30, on the spot to leave.

The atrocious shirt choices were borne from the passing of his late wife. She had been a seamstress, with her own little shop, and she used to sew all his clothes for him. He had shirts for every occasion, in colours that suited him as well as red wine paired with meat. Trousers were always custom made. Many would comment on his style, admiring how smart he looked, and he’d humbly inform them that it was all his wife’s work, and they should consider changing that hideous pale orange to a cooler, softer colour so it suited their skin tone.

After she passed, he could not bear to wear her work. He could not bear the thought of wearing something her hands had so generously made for him. He could not bear the thought of not waking up next to her. Or cooking without her. Or living in the same house without her.

He couldn’t bear life without her.

So he moved out. A smaller place with only things he needed, a place on the other side of town where nothing could remind him of her, or their life before she left. Clothes that she would have castrated him for wearing.

I was almost afraid to ask him why he came to the park every day.

“If you keep doing this, people might think I’m courting a younger lady,” he smiled at me one morning. I huffed grumpily, slumping heaving in the space next to his paper. His eyes wandered to the flask I had in my hand. Yes, he’d gotten to me. I went from spending seven bucks every morning for my morning drink to bringing my own from home. “Is that the same beverage?”

“I added milk today,” I groused, in far too foul a mood to speak much more. My partner had set all the clocks in our house and on my phone an hour earlier as payback for me swapping out the paprika with cayenne. I was at the park 75 minutes earlier than usual.

“The missus liked hers black, much like your mood today,” he added, pointedly looking away from me and towards the well-trod path in front of us.

I grunted.

“Maybe a story might lift your spirits,” he suggested carefully. I studied his expression then, observing how his brow furrowed first and his eyes clouded over with something like confusion. Then they were bright again. I straightened my posture a little, his promise of a tale reigniting that little child-like keenness in me.

“After Leslie went off to college, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves,” he began. “We had some grandkids by then but visits were few and far in between, and Darlene had started to feel fidgety, despite her responsibility at the shop. And then Little Laura came into our lives.”

Crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes as though he was going through the experience for the second time.

“She spoiled that girl to no end,” he chuckled. I imagined him sifting through the memories in his head. “Nicky is our first biological granddaughter but Laura was always the first to her heart. She loved Laura as much as Laura loved her.”

“Did you love her?”

“I do,” he corrected me. “She’s the reason why I come here everyday.”

“You’re waiting for her?”

“Yes, I am. Laura did not have a family she could rely on,” he continued. “Her mother passed when she was very young. Her father was an alcoholic with a history of abuse. Her relatives wanted nothing to do with her, and her younger siblings had all been dealt to homes, like cards.

“She managed to get into a good school, on full scholarship.”

Bench Man’s eyes glistened uncharacteristically. “We were so proud of her. But it also meant that she was going to leave us soon.”

I listened with all the eagerness of a child being told a bedtime story.

“She graduated, and landed herself a good job. A good life ahead of her. The only problem was that it was in another country.”

“Where?”

“Germany.” After the last syllable, his gaze turned distant, and he mumbled something too soft for me to hear. His hands never left his knees, only to gesture occasionally as he spoke. I decided against straining to hear him.

“You both couldn’t let her go?” I probed gently. He nodded slowly.

“Letting go of someone you have looked after since before they were allowed to go out on their own doesn’t get easier, no matter how many times you’ve done it.” He gave me a rueful smile. “It was especially hard for Darlene.” Here, Bench Man paused, his eyes clouding over with what I could only describe as sorrow. I felt it wrinkle the air around him. “Laura left, for five months. She’d been secretly working to get transferred to the branch here.”

“Here in Kingston?”

“Yes. But by the time she returned, hoping to surprise us with the good news, Darlene had passed. I tried to get a hold of her. We all did, but not one of us could reach her the last two weeks before she came back.” He paused here, and blinked. “I don’t think she forgave herself for missing the funeral.

“Anyhow, Darlene made me promise. I've been waiting here for Laura every day.” Bench Man’s brow furrowed fleetingly before he shook his head. “She's supposed to come see me at 10.30.”

“Why are you here so early then?”

“Darlene always said punctuality is a pleasant outfit to wear, young one. And I have an affinity for the flowers here.” He smiled again, caught in a vision visible only to his eye.

I sat back against the bench, slouching against it. The milk-splashed coffee I had hastily made was growing colder in my flask. The cap had been off since I sat down half an hour ago. I had been sipping from it the way people munch on popcorn during movies.

“Why here?”

“Her work place is close by.” He gave me a thoughtful look. “She would have liked you.” I pursed my lips. Bench Man breathed in deeply, inhaling the scents of the morning: dew on the grass, coffee and warm bread in the air, the warmth of the sunshine. I copied him instinctively, filling my lungs.

For some time, we just sat in companionable silence. Until I had to leave. He bid me adieu as he always did, with a nod and that slight smile. I grabbed my bag, and turned to walk away.

“Bag Girl.”

I paused mid-step, making a full turn to acknowledge his call. Right then, he didn't look at all like the formidable man from earlier on, pre-cancer. He was just an old man, delicate and a little lonely.

“Will you come by again tomorrow?”

I grinned, giving him a thumbs up. “You can bet your bottom, Bench Man.”

Once I was walking again, my heart clenched in that familiar ache I felt every single day. “I'll come and see you every day, grandpa.”

***

From another bench not far away, Nurse Bowen watched the pair part ways, his farewell nod and her casual wave ritual-like. She had been keeping a cautious eye on her patient from the moment Laura stood up. She glanced at the watch strapped around her wrist.

9:26am.

It was still early. She glanced from Bench Man to where Laura was walking off, and stood up to move towards him. Maybe today they could go amble slowly to the lake to feed the ducks instead of just sitting there until 10.30. He might like that.

“Ben, how does a walk sound?”