Mrs. Leishman was sent home from the hospital and was recovering quietly from her hip surgery, more specifically that meant that I was once again employed. Her list of errands was as simple as usual and provided a nice circuitous route for the personal bicycle ride and errand-doing I had planned for my own day: post office, copies, groceries. Before hand, she asked that I attend to the littler things around her house: garbage, clean-up cabinet, dishes, dusting. It was nice to make some money again. I am afraid though that she over paid me - $37.50 for two hours of work. Oh well, I can't complain about an abundance of money just like I cannot complain about the salami sandwich she made for lunch - hunger trumps morals just like free money trumps no money.
At the grocery store I had to pick up a case of water for her and there was this funny old man who was in front of me in line and he turned around and asked me why I had so many eggs. Distractedly, I said I didn't know. Then he touched my case of water and said "See". I looked at it, then back at him, and said "Oh, these are not eggs, this is just water." He turned around and then back at me and said "Butter," then laughed. His hat's tilt seemed to make his face all the more vulnerable looking.
I told him that it was not butter either, nor eggs, but instead the box contained individually bottled waters. He said "Oh" and added that he must have been thinking about his breakfast. I didn't notice as his invisible joke floated over top my head.
Then, he told me quite adamantly that I was 25 years of age, and I said no apologetically, that I was just a lost and lonely 18. He said he didn't believe me, and that he was 98 himself, which for some reason gave more vehemence to his disbelief. To turn the tables around, I said I didn't believe him for once. He said his birthday was in three months, January 6th. Then his wife, or whoever the old lady that was with him was, turned around and said it that was in nine months, and not three. He laughed and said "Sure, but time tends to wiggle."
Then he told me about how I will be 100 soon and that it will be nice to have lived so long and so slowly, to which I agreed. "Like moss on a tree, barnacle on a pier. The older we get the better. We get attached to life and living." He said he was going to be 94 soon. I laughed and told him that my roommate was a sweet and dusty 85 year old woman. A moment passed before someone up ahead of us in line, it was a long line, said something that triggered a part of a song in his memory and he started singing it, humming it, then asked if I knew the song. I said it sounded familiar.
He looked at me, then back at his cart of groceries, then at my water, then back at me and I answered that it was either Benny Goodman or Lawrence Welk. He said that I was right, "One or the other. Either either, or or." We then talked about how good music was, he talking in fits and starts and me in a see of inaudible nods. Eventually we concluded that neither of us could remember the other fellow that ran among that same group of people. My eyes found my feet, fingers found pockets. "Ted Lewis," he blurted, but I hadn't heard that name before. Then for some reason he praised me for remembering the name correctly, he continued: "Oh, you remember all that music, those were happy times. Such great music and girls! You were this big then I bet" (motioning with his hands about waist high) and I was not sure if he realized he was talking to a real person or a youtful reflection of himself. I felt happy either way, being myself or being a remembered variation of his own boyhood - time does wiggle. Mistakenly, I admitted to not having been born yet when Goodman and Welk were performing.
He threw a confused look into the air, as if somehow I had sprung some vague injustice upon him, so I reminded the man that I was only 18, born only recently and hardly aged at all, and that I was about 50 or 60 years late for old Goodman and Welk. He told me that I more than likely liked Charlie Parker or Thelonius Monk, "Those modern guys." I laughed, and agreed and admitted that he knows more about me than even I do.
His wife, I am assuming it was his wife, set up her groceries - chicken, orange juice, milk - on the coveryor belt thing, then put that plastic partition between her and his stuff. I couldn't quite understand it, they paid separately and were separate. I didn't want to pry, but it did seem a trifle odd.
He talked to me a bit about where he lived, which was out the store, make a left, then straight ahead on Crestlake. I told him I lived in the eucalyptus Grove. He said that he didn't know, his head wagged side to side slightly and the lobes of his ears seemed a bit like fleshy drops of water. Acknowledging, or feigning acknowledgement, of my age - we talked about college, which I had just been accepted into and had only recently begun attending. He had 5 nephews and a son go through there, long long time ago, and one at a school just south of here. I said how coincidental that all was - if there is one thing older generations appreciate, it is coincidences.
Then he sang his song again, Teddy Lewis I guess it was, and told me how the checkout lady and him were friends. I noticed his wife had paid for her things and was no where to be found - another separation.
"She has my truck" he said, and pointed to the checkout lady, named Celia. I said that she sure does, not knowing at all what the hell he was talking about, but humoring him nonetheless.
Celia totaled up his items then told him that he had saved a dollar and some change. He thanked her graciously, profusely, tactfully, and resumed to tell me about a nephew of his who had five kids who were all professors at the school I had just started at. His smile seemed to be a bit dimmer than before, thick clouds over sun.
Then, Celia told him she had a present for him and opened up her drawer under the cash register. Disappearing from view a moment, she eventually appeared and placed a smaller bag into his grocery bag, put both of them in a cart - one of those carts that people pull behind them, like an adult red-wagon - which I assume he meant when he said "his truck". I laughed when I saw it because I hadn't known what he was talking about to begin with, and was surprised when I did finally see a physical item matching his seemingly made up verbal description. A wiggly giggle.
He said he was happy about the present, rarely ever does he receive anything that is just for him, and asked what it was, then as soon as he asked he waved his hand away and said that he'd wait to find out when he got home. Coincidences and surprises - perhaps a surprise coincidence would somehow occur.
She smiled and I thought how nice it was that she had done that for a nice old customer like him.
"Fred, it's a present. I got it just for you. Open it at home. Enjoy."
I paid for my case of bottled water for Mrs. Leishman and Fred was standing at the part of the line where the groceries get bagged, just sort of hanging around and waiting, I suppose for me. He asked Celia what it was again in the bag, into her ear like a secret. Nervously, her lips mouthed the words and her voice carried it loud and clear into the world:
"It's some mouthwash and toothpaste Fred, you know how to use it?"
He said sure he did, but he thought he had some stuff at home for that, but didn't mind since having extra meant not having to get more later.
I walked with him out of the store, where he told me how to get to his home. He did not need help, he did not need any help at all he told me. "Celia breaks my heart with her soap," he muttered under his breath. "I don't need help." Not wanting to see his face wrinkle any further, I said that she was probably just looking out for him and his hygeine. "What's mine is mine" he said in invisible italics.
I figured that his wife took the car there and that he prefered to walk home with his truck-load of groceries--- left after leaving the store as he explained prior, "then straight to Crestwood" not Crestlake, and even that might not have made a single bit of difference. He seemed to be all wiggles, and it seemed that coincidence and story are what you make them.
I told him goodbye.
