Joe

I spotted Joe last fall while walking through our local village.  With rays of sunlight seemingly shining down on him, and him alone, he struck a casual summer vibe, a biblical beacon, amongst a sea of woolly sweaters and hats.

 “Look there’s Santa taking a quick break before he gets busy with Christmas,” I volunteered to my kids while silently considering there might be possible mental health issues. Sitting alone on a park bench his attention was wholly taken up by whatever was on his smartphone. It was a peculiar coupling, a book would have made more sense to me. He seemed peacefully unaware or uncaring about how different he looked from everyone around him. With girls in tow I convinced myself to not talk to him, the one caveat being if he was still there after we got our hot chocolates then it was a sign and I would have to!  Yeah well he was still there wasn’t he and I tried to walk past him but …  There were many things I wanted to ask Joe, he had badly bandaged fingers and dried blood on his arm and of course, the elephant in the town square being his bare feet and summer attire in weather that demanded layering for everyone else. Instead, we covered the basics, the big so what have you been doing for your whole adult life kinda thing.  Born and raised in Rhode Island he moved to the Pacific Northwest 30 years ago and went to work on the tug boats. I asked if he had traveled the world on those boats and he said he had gone as far as Alaska and the Panama Canal. Every inch of me wanted to sit down, light a ciggy, and tell my secretary to hold all calls. Stories were shouting out to be told but with one kid dancing all over the place and the other hovering nervously, eyes beseeching me to wrap up this conversation, they were going to have to remain elusive for now.  These days he is retired.  He still loves boats and the water but is happy to be back home, “in the most beautiful place in the world.” Apart from his outward appearance there was no hint of the crazy, he was easy to talk to, and I gleefully assumed he was just some wildly intelligent eccentric who bears no mind to the constraints of societal norms.  He’s a dude who knows who he is and what he likes,  rain or shine. When we said our goodbyes, there was a hope, that come this summer I would see him again, maybe in the same spot, sitting there perfectly content in a ski suit and winter boots, ignoring all those around him in their weather-conscious outfits while he stared at his phone enjoying the beautiful summers day!