There was a sad old man who lived across the street from me while I was growing up. Honestly, I don’t know if he was all that sad. We never spoke. But he looked sad. Like he was ready to die.
His daughter lived with him. She was probably in her 40’s. She was nice, but also sad. I don’t think she had many friends outside of her Dad.I remember thinking that if I was that old man, I would feel very guilty about wasting my Daughter’s life like that. She was so profoundly lonely. Any time that somebody smiled or waved at her, she would run up to them and start talking. She turned any interaction into a 15 minute conversation about the weather or local politics, as that and her Father is all she knew.
On TV and in Movies, old men who live across the street are mysterious. They have dark secrets or mystic powers, and it’s always the kid’s job to find out what they were. It was painfully obvious to me that this old man had no mystery about him. His daughter told everybody about his ailments and medical short comings. There was no mystery there. I knew he was weak.
I remember one day, I woke up early and went outside. The old man was lying down on his lawn. I went up to him. He didn’t smell very good. There was a bag of bird seed spilled next to him, but no birds.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked him.
“That’s a good question.” He said with a chuckle.
His voice was soft, but deep. He sounded as if he were struggling not to whisper. It was the first time I had seen him smile. I smiled too. He suddenly felt more human.
“I think I’ve broken my leg. Would you go inside and get my daughter?” He asked.
I looked down at his leg. He had rolled his pant up to his knee. His shin was all swollen and purple, and it looked bent in the middle.
I didn’t want to go get her, but I didn’t know what else to do. I especially didn’t want to keep staring at his leg. Maybe he’s dead, I thought. Maybe I’m imagining this whole conversation. I went up the stairs and knocked on the door. I turned around and looked at the old man. He smiled again. I hoped he wasn’t dead.
“If she doesn’t answer right away, you can go inside.” He said.
I waited a minute, then did as he said.
Their house felt stale. It was a struggle just to breath the air. There was a stack of old newspapers by the TV, and a bag of medical equipment on the couch. Other than that, it was pretty clean.
“Is anybody home?” I shouted.
“Who is it?” A plain voice said from the kitchen. I followed it.
It was the daughter. She was slumped over a sink of dirty dishes. I wondered for a second how a sad old man and his daughter could have so many dishes. Maybe they had a party, or maybe she had put them off for a few days. I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of what was going on outside. I felt sorry for her, but I also didn’t want to get in trouble.
“Your Dad is outside. I think he broke his leg.” That seemed as good a way as any to tell her.
“Ah, shit.” She said as she threw her sponge in the sink and ran outside. I followed her.
When we got outside, a few other neighbors had come out to check on him. They and the old man were all smiling and laughing. The old man now had the bird seed in his hand. A few cardinals were in the yard, too. They didn’t seem to mind the crowd.
“You old fool! What were you doing outside without me? Aren’t you sick enough?”
Nobody said anything, but I could feel how uncomfortable her anger made everyone. Except for the sad old man, he seemed used to it.
“I’m sorry, Martha.” The old man said. “I wanted to feed the birds, and you were still asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”
Martha sighed. She knelt down and kissed her father on the forehead. I couldn’t tell if she was appearing less angry for the crowd’s sake, or if her Father had won her over again.
“Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself. Look at your leg. This will be the last time you’re able to leave the house for a while.”
The other neighbors and I helped Martha get the old man into their car. When she and her father left, they all turned and congratulated me on doing the right thing.
“You’re a hero.” One of them said.
I didn’t feel like a hero. I felt like a stranger who was intruding on someone’s life. I looked over at where the sad old man had been lying. The birds were still there. They didn’t give a shit about the sad old man. They just liked their seed.
I told my parents what happened. They said that we should all go visit the sad old man in the hospital. I found that to be strange. We never spoke to him much while he lived across the street from us, why would we travel to the hospital to do so?
My Dad said it was so he knew that somebody cared. I thought about the birds.
I had never been to a hospital before, even when I was born. My Mom had me in a taxi cab in Philadelphia. It felt stale, like the old man’s house. It was much more chaotic, though. There were people in different colored uniforms, running around taking sick and injured people to different colored rooms. I wondered if any of them cared about the sad old man. Probably not. But that was understandable. They all looked pretty busy.
When we got to the old man’s room, I felt out of place. Like I had on his front lawn. There were balloons and flowers at the table. Why couldn’t we have just sent those? What were we going to talk about with this sad old man? I wanted to go home, but I was also curious about how the old man was doing for some reason.
The old man looked at me and smiled. He didn’t say anything. My parents and Martha talked for a bit about how warm it had been recently, and the new city councilman. I sat by the window with the old man. We sat and watched the birds outside. Neither of us said anything. It was nice, but he still seemed sad.
The man died a few months later, and Martha moved away. I went over to their house from time to time to feed the birds, but they rarely ever showed up.
