If you live on Bainbridge, you have undoubtedly heard about the old people who sit in lawn chairs out on the sidewalk on High School Road, right across from the high school. It’s very busily traveled, especially since the city has torn up a major intersection near downtown to build a roundabout and is forcing traffic outside that center. And now the high school kids are being allowed back in the buildings, so there is confusion and gridlock around the roundabout east of the high school.
Amidst all of this are these two people, sometimes joined by one or two others. The presumed main character is a tall, thin man always wearing a little hat on his head. He has his lawn chair, and he’s always smoking. He has a large nose, glasses, and otherwise the thin, wrinkled, drawn face of the inveterate smoker. He’s at least in his late 60’s. He's tall, intimidating, looking like, don't fuck with me.
But he’s usually joined by a woman. She must be in her 50’s or older. She’s chubby and always wrapped up a little and always smoking. Unlike the man, who will stand and stride around a bit, she’s always in her lawn chair. She has a round face, long straight hair, round glasses, so the overall effect is of a round person, nearly a caricature. (I guess you could say that he is a caricature as well, a rangy Okie considering moving to California.)
She is perpetually smiling, but I think it’s a frightening smile: it’s a perfect oval, but her mouth is always closed, and she will force eye contact with her if you’re driving past. She waves to people either whom she knows or who have waved before. She could be sitting out on her porch, she’s so easy-going.
I never look at her. I don’t want to encourage her, for she gives the impression of calm, cheerful insanity.
They sit right on the sidewalk, smoking, and they never wear masks. People are forced off of the sidewalk and around them. Occasionally, someone as insane as they are will stop and make conversation.
I also avoid her eyes because those two have had encouragement enough. Our local rag, the Bainbridge Review, apparently tired of the endless debate about the new police station cum municipal court, and with nothing better to do, took a picture of these derelicts and published it. The photo was accompanied by a story about how popular they had become with the populace. High school kids, typically ninth graders, adore the crazily smiling creepy lady.
Now that the sun is here, and brightly and prematurely at that, they’re going to be out there much more often, and longer. Though I could have been driving past at 6:00 p.m. this winter, the temperature 48 degrees, the wind brisk, the night dark, and the old Okie would be out there, stalking about, smoking.
Anyway, I voiced my annoyance with them, and Kate thought I was being downright churlish. Ed asked me what was it about them that so upset me? He was, of course, getting right to the point.
I’ve thought long and deep into the night about this. Why indeed have I taken up against them? They’re harmless, at least as long as they’re not covid positive. They only intrude on your business if you let them by gazing at them. They aren’t really a public nuisance. What’s my problem?
I realized that I have two related issues.
First, I’m really annoyed by the old lady. She does in a sense intrude. She forces you to look away simply by the threat of her grimly smiling stare. If you meet her eye, you’re in for it. You’ve had it. She’s going to gaze into your eyes and on any encouragement at all will wave at you.
Why? Because secretly deep down or even right on the surface—for I know nothing about her motivations, do I—she wants the attention. She’s not the mayor or even the ambassador of her apartment building, in fact she’s no kind of prominent citizen. Who the prominent citizens on Bainbridge are is a mystery to me and probably most everyone who isn’t in on the charity world. (Ed’s wife is on a lot of nonprofit boards, maybe she knows.)
My point being that Bainbridge isn’t the kind of place that champions a set of prominent citizens. Even the city council is as low-energy, small intelligence a group of people of malign intent as you’re likely to find.
So she is stepping out. She is making a point of herself. She is a sort of goddamn Walt Whitman, celebrating the body electric, containing multitudes.
Why should she want to do that? Such a risky proposition. I’ve written about this phenomenon before in this blog, how I was taught that you never called attention to yourself. You never even took a chance on calling attention to yourself.
When I was 12, in the seventh grade, I was a chunky kid in my last year of little league. I could flat throw the ball. I averaged two strike outs an inning, and our team won the championship.
But there’s a subversive back story. The same year, I had travelled with other Latin Club members, for yes I was that bad of a nerd, to a state Latin tournament. This was in Florida, which maybe explains it. I didn’t do very well, but the teacher was an aggressive, forward-looking teacher who groomed kids to win state honors, as a senior, Lewis, did that year.
The tournament was in Tarpon Springs, a lovely city on Florida’s west coast. We were a friendly group of about eight. As a bunch of nerds might do, we walked around town, ate together, even stopped in a souvenir shop and all bought hats. A romance even flourished between Peter Skottegaard and Beverly Seybert, whose younger brother, Dave, was the catcher to my pitcher for dozens of games. Hi, Dave!
When I arrived back home in Ft. Lauderdale, some nights I would go over to the ballpark to watch other teams in our league play. One night I wore my new Latin club hat. Our coach, who was a gruff, fat, cigar-smoking fellow, was there. He had a tough side to him, and note that he was hanging around, scouting, in fact.
But once when I was uncharacteristically getting hammered, he came out of the dugout and walked to the pitcher’s mound to talk. I was crying, and he put his hands on my cheeks to console me.
Just then he spotted me and walked over; “I like your sister’s hat,” he said. He was kidding, but I was mortified. I never wore that hat outside again.
The scene reminds me of Ryan Gosling’s character in The Big Short. He’s pitching his idea of shorting the housing market to Steve Carell’s character’s investment firm, and one of the fellows questions him sharply. Gosling’s character looks at the guy, smiles shortly and says, “That’s a nice shirt. Do they make it for men?”
My parents’ lesson was confirmed by my foolishly wearing a hat in public and thus calling attention to myself. It was Ft. Lauderdale in the spring, and the air must have been dripping with humidity. Why would I wear a hat? To call attention to myself? Was I crazy?
And the guy in The Big Short—why would he take a chance and wear a shirt that someone who was concentrating on selling him an idea would notice? Plain light blue button down shirts for me.
What bugs me, finally, of course, is that the insane woman has gotten away with it. This is one of my hot buttons: people who get away with stuff I would never chance. It’s enraging, if you think about the whole situation. She’s sitting out there in a lawn chair on the sidewalk, for crying out loud, across the street from the high school and just up from a shopping center and thus arguably the busiest street in town. She’s smoking and not wearing a mask.
She’s training her crazy-eyed, weird smile on everyone who will meet her eye. And not one person has shot her dead? Instead she is praised by the newspaper?
I am beside myself with rage. I’m done here.
Comments