The Waiting

He is out on the porch no matter the season or weather. Even in winter, when the gray skies return about three, he is there, both hands on his cane, leaning forward on his seat, ready to jump, ready to run, run far, run to fight, run to meet someone.

When I come by on my way to fill my barrel he is out on the porch waiting, silent, listening, watching, knowing. I come and I nod when I pass near him. I take my place at the well, begin working the pulley, pulling up buckets, filling the barrel.

I have always meant to introduce myself, to ask what the war was like. I want to know if he could swallow the answers better when he was a boy, and what ships he was a hand on. How much deeper and richer did the talk used to be at the pub when folks still read some, when words and the stillness of the night meant more than motion and the fantastic color of film?

I have always wanted to ask why it's easy to sense a sharp departure coming up. But I just keep filling my barrel. Tilt the bucket, hear the pouring turn higher pitch as the barrel fills, drop the empty bucket, spin the handle, lower the rope, hear the distant splash and gurgle, pull the dead weight up again.

I shy away from what could have been. From the grand steps I could have taken, the acquaintances I could have made, the generous ways I could have acted. I run from the things that were meant to be said.

"You make me sweat and that is shy I never speak. You make me wonder. You make me whole in imagining your worlds."

I am nearly silent with my habitual motions, but I could almost swear the old man is disturbed by my noise. He is quite distinctly straining to hear past the squeaks and distant splashing. To hear if someone might not be coming down the road or calling his name. To be sure he doesn't miss it this time, the calling, the meeting, the coming of the day he knew would come but could never have known when. I see the old man try to hide his intently waiting, try to control the lengthening of his neck as he stretches to look down our small dirt road. I see him hold back words, the furious questions he has had forever. That he knows I'll have myself one day. That he knows we could never answer.

"Do corners of the world drop away after you leave them? Do faces I knew see me here waiting for their return? If I stand up from my chair on this porch and finally walk deep into the woods the way I've wanted to do since I was a boy, the way I've dreamed, could you come, stranger, if you chose to? Could you just leave? What is it that stops you? Is it your love of a woman that keeps you walking home each night with that barrel of water? If we leave here together and some woman comes searching for me while we're gone, do you think she will know she has found the right place? Will she find me here? Where has she been? If you see her, will you tell her I'm still waiting?"