I spotted him from a distance, sitting on the bench under the bridge where he always used to sit. As I walked up, he turned his head. I raised my eyebrows, opened my mouth, tilted my torso forward and pointed at him. He smiled.
“Hello, Carl,” I said.
He nodded and smiled and said, “Hello.”
He was holding a cigarette in his left hand. He held out his right and we shook hands. I sat down next to him.
“I haven’t been out here much,” he said.
I admitted the same.
“Are you still singing?” I asked.
“No,” he said. He had a distant stare on his face. Â “I had surgery recently.”
“Oh. What kind?” I asked. Â “Are you ok?”
It was for prostate cancer.
So we talked a little about sleeping thru the night and the various complications that go with that. Â I talked about radiation. Â He said he didn’t need to do that. We talked about the doom of not having any more children, a thought that in our 50s and 60s made us chuckle (and makes us tired). We talked about doctors and incisions and PSA tests. He talked about getting back in with his choir. I talked about how I’m walking at home in the mornings rather than running around the lake in the afternoons.
“How’s your son?” Carl asked. “How old is he now?”
So we talked about our sons and their jobs. I told him about how I jokingly asked Ben where he was going to live when he told me about his summer job—and about the look on Ben’s face when I asked. Carl told me about his son’s apartment and how he told his son that he can always come back home.
And then it was time for me to go. We shook hands again (and then yet again), and said goodbye.
“Tell your wife hello,” he said.