As I fumble my way half consciously out into the street in the purple light of the early morning, a few cats rush up to me expecting food and I disappoint them with love instead. Autumn has begun and there is a hint of rain in the air. I check my watch to reassure myself that I’ll catch the bus that leaves twenty minutes on. I’ve still got some time, though, so I take a bit more and try to keep my feline friends from hissing at one another. I can stand the streets at this hour. There aren’t many moving yet in this alley, but as I look down the street I see him for the millionth time, the well-dressed and impossibly-old uncle, a man who defines the words ‘respect’ and ‘duty,’ as he purposefully plods his way home from the earliest of daily prayers. It’s got to be the only journey he makes anymore, and he’ll do it four more times before the day is over, and probably once more before his knees start to hurt.
I more than watch him. His walk is hanged, low, and slung to the angle of the cane he bows to the earth – just as his piety has bowed him to the carpet, and, with his help, pace faith down the street another generation.
The crease of his pant leg hints at an equally devout wife, performing her duty to him as he does for another. His beard is cropped and coarse, frosted wires that would tremble at each step were they not so intertwined. Each fragile stride, if it can be called that, moves him barely at all; he knows his age. And anyway he doesn’t need a quick pace anymore. We all will rush around this city a million times and still he’ll beat us to the grave.
His is a sincere walk, and in its existence, not wanting of anything. This morning ritual simply is, and its roots lie further back in time than most of the routines we keep in our daily lives. For him, it is ordained, something he merely realizes with the eye for the recognition of one, and that is enough. This is how he keeps time away from him, by moving with rhythms set to the moon, delegating the night’s menace to some hour when the sun is high in the vault.
I am still squatting on the pavement, and now he is quite close. But I fear proximity, as if my youth will shift the air and impolitely impart a lick of wind to his regal countenance. I fear him, yes, and so deify him. With the luxury of distance and unknowing, I make him what I wish him to be and nothing less. I don’t want to know how he raised his children; I will say he did so righteously, and without bias. I won’t ask how he treats his wife, I will hope that she knew more than the kitchen, the laundry, the bedroom. I won’t fear the clasp on his mind; I will pray (to which god, I wonder) that he has opened it. And I won’t question his theology; I will believe, because he believes, and because there is still a part of me that wants to.
It is cold now and the rain does not stop him.
All images courtesy of the author.
