The old man

The man babbles constantly. Everyone looks at him with a certain curiosity and also annoyance because it always is the same. Every day the same old man comes to the same dusty street corner and places his polyester jacket on the unused parking meter of the unused parking spot in the middle of our town. On and on he goes about this or that, not really paying much attention to what is going on around him and no one paying much attention to him and his raspy voice.

“I’m lookin for my Annie, she’s my daughter and about this high,” he’ll say holding his hand at his hip and his eyes look frantically about. “She’s a real good girl, yes sir real good girl indeed, I make sure she knows that, but I can’t find her and it’s worrisome. I jus’ got back I know it’s been a long time but I mus’ see my baby girl. I think she’s with her mum but I can’t find neither of ‘em and it worries me so.”

Most everyone in town knows to avoid him, because the man is as crazy as they come. His wife died thirteen years ago, and his daughter is twenty two, 5’7, and more or less a portrait of her mother as a young woman. Every now and then someone will feel bad for him and try to distract him, take him to go and get a cup of coffee and try to talk to him about the news or the weather, but all he really cares about is “that god damned war in Vietnam” and “his Annie.” So the time goes by and he finds himself back on his dusty street corner with his polyester jacket on the unused parking meter of the unused parking spot in the middle of our town.

And every night Annie comes and grabs his hand, and tries to get him to come home but he says, “No love I can’t, not yet, not til I find our Annie. Then we can all go home and have us some dinner and talk about the day, and why she ran off.”

And every night Annie leaves in a heap of tears because he keeps standing on the dusty street corner with his polyester jacket on the unused parking meter of the unused parking spot in the middle of our town rambling about his daughter he can’t find that held his hand as he rambled. And I wonder why she doesn’t just leave him alone, he’s a crazy old man who needs to grab his jacket and go home with his daughter who was holding his hand, but he won’t ever because he is the man who stands on the street corner talking endlessly. If only he’d realize that he hadn’t lost a daughter, no she had lost her father. Maybe then he wouldn’t babble constantly.