Windy days.

He was old, not just physically but his heart and soul had aged. Little black beads replaced his eyes. Under his faded brown fedora he had bits of scraggily white hair, bleached and lost with his years. Age spots covered his scalp and neck, his bottom lip quivering in fits, involuntarily. Big hearing aids plugged deep into his ears, still hard of hearing. His hands rough like sun bleached leather he carried permanent calluses that stood as testimony to his life; a life of manual labor, hard work and earned wages. He took daily post on a park bench that hugged a concrete walkway in the center of a park. The day I met him it was a particularly windy day, so much so that no matter what direction you walked in the wind was always pushing against you. I sought cover behind a giant Oak tree and while breaking from the blitzkrieg that was the rain I decided to smoke; soft package of filter-less lucky strikes. A cigarette so gross homeless people will turn them down. I lit up and inhaled deeply the warm smoke complimented the cold wind nicely. I melted.

“Those things will burn ya’ up, kid.” Came a voice from the sidewalk. That’s when I first saw him. Sitting there on that park bench, jacket being tugged in various directions from the wind. I squinted, at first thinking maybe it was someone I didn’t recognize.

“You don’t know me!” He spoke again. “It’s rude to stare, it’s also rude not share. Come on over here and gimmie’ one of those shit sticks.”

I paused for a moment and took another slow drag from my shit stick. “fuck it.” I muttered. I stood up, tucking my neck into my jacket collar I quickly walked to the old man and handed him a cigarette. He pushed the end into his chapped, dry lips, the cigarette stuck there. I didn’t say anything and neither did he. For a moment the only noise came from the Oak trees as the wind tore at their leaves.

“I need a lighter, this isn’t going to light itself.” He said.

His voice was raw as if he spoke through a stoma. He said, “Sit down here kid, enjoy the wind with me. I have something to tell you.” I sat.

“Look, life will catch up to you. You’ll here all kinds of crap about just doing what you love and what makes you happy. Some magazines or a radio show might tell you that you’ll have only one true love. Maybe you’ll see it in a movie. Where the girl leaves everything behind for that one man, they get married and grow old. You’ll be told that when you grow up and if you go to college and get a good paying job that life will always be better. That if you smoke the right cigarettes and drink the right booze you’ll have all the right friends. Well, it’s shit.” He said. Pausing he took a small drag from the cigarette. He exhaled and chased away the smoke with the back of his hand. He looked up and watched the leaves fighting with each other. He didn’t smile

“It’s shit because you can love more than one woman. I mean you can really love more than one. Love, that is more dangerous than violence. It can wreck a young heart, love can destroy confidence it can wreak havoc on the soul. It’s not the sun that ages you, it’s the love.”

His trembling hand pointed a finger at me, like an aiming gun.

“When I was 18 I once loved a girl, we had dated in high school. I loved the way her hair fell around her shoulders. This smile that she had, you wouldn’t believe something so beautiful could exist. She had this glimmer about her, even when she was sad she still shone. Guess what happened?” He asked me. His big eyebrows raised and his tiny little charcoal eyes fell onto me. He nodded.

“Yeah, I went to war and we died.” He said. “She met some other jackoff and went and got married. She had some kids and they had some goods jobs and bought a home, and guess what!” He said. Looking at me, he nodded again.

“I was ok with it, because I met another beautiful girl. She was so pretty that the sun was jealous.” He said.

I couldn’t even hear the wind, not anymore.

“I remember the first time I ever saw her. She was at the market and she was wearing this little summer dress. I’m telling ya’ kid, she was a knockout. She probably got her groceries for free because it would have been an injustice to charge her for anything.” He said.

He paused again and flicked his cigarette butt into the wind. His hands clasped into each other. He smiled a little.

“Oh, we got married. Had our family and we grew old together, she grew old. She…” he quietly trailed off.

“Look.” He said. “All’s I’m saying is that you need to be really careful when you love. It doesn’t matter what it is, it could be your job, your house, your kids or even these shit sticks. Life can really burn you up.” I was sitting on the bench at this point, the old man and I. He struggled to stand and with the help of a cane succeed. He looked down to me and said, “Just, just make sure you live a little.”