The darkness had already fallen on the crowded theater, my feet were up on the banister in front of me, the two next to me broke out their fruit juice stash from a leather purse, the opening credits spit and the movie made by some French people and it opens on the tube in London, and it was dark in the theater, and people who came in late paused to allow their eyes to adjust, then they crawled backwards and frontwards toward the back and the front row. There was a pause in the civilian action. The theater door opened again, the hallway light beamed, and an old gentleman in an ancient gray cardigan walked slowly into the aisle. He did not pause. He did not hesitate in the darkness, with the air possessed by someone who has difficulty seeing at all times, and who has gotten used to dragging his body through the recesses of space and time. A Post Office line or a dark movie theater, no problem, same thing; a crosswalk a supermarket and that’s how it goes. The man shuffled. At least 85, easy. He stooped at the shoulders, relied on a cane, and moved slowly but without pause into the shadows. He wore a bright, sharp orange baseball cap, with some writing on the front. I didn’t catch the phrasing. The old man was alone. He had shuffled to see Swimming Pool at the avenue theater, the 7:15 showing. I forgot about the old man, ignored the stragglers still arriving, and settled into the film. Now it’s 10:12 and I still don’t get the picture. But don’t worry: I’ve yet to give it much thought. Just arrived home after following the old man slowly around town.
I assumed he lived in a nearby apartment building. There are several – at least eight – apartment complexes off Piedmont Avenue and off Broadway – that contain the old and sliding away, dinner hour and workout rooms. Oakland is a good place for old folks to live and die. Don’t need a car, the weather is great, plenty to do within walking – or shuffling – distance, and younger family members visit occasionally. Why, we have a friend who currently lives in Berlin whose grandmother lives off Lake Merritt, downtown, in a fifteen story with balconies and a presentable entryway. I wasn’t going to follow pops, but his gait appealed to me. After nine o’clock in the darkness of Oakland. His shoulders sloped to 27 degrees. His hair gray, and he wore sideburns that were long, loose strands, not a thick bush. I finally deciphered his florescent orange insignia: the laundry detergent SURF. The hat was easily from 1974. It leaned sideways on his head. His cane was black and he leaned on it, used with definition – in his right hand only. He sort of flipped the bottom knob of the cane out in front of him and then followed through, his weight on the downstroke as he pushed by its settled state on the concrete sidewalk. A black, shiny, new cane, with a curved padded handle, the kind of foam that bicycle handlebars sported when Cruisers showed up on the scene. The man crane his head upwards, a thrust of the face skyward, like looking at a soaring bird aloft, in order to see the WALK signals across each intersection. He moved half a mile an hour. I was compelled. In order to observe him properly I had to pause at curbsides, on street corners, in front of newspaper boxes. All I wanted to do was see which of the nearby, apartment buildings he walked into, the glass door swinging after him. That one, near the Post Office? Nope, he kept on walking. I doubled back to follow. Damn, pops, which one’s it gonna be? He moved farther away from Piedmont Avenue, and thus decreasing the tall apartment building options. Took us five minutes to do a block. The shuffle of his legs, the swing of his cane before it supported his weight, the way he tilted his head backwards, the slow going: I was proud of him, the elderly man out on the town, investigating this wack French movie with plenty of young tit about a mystery writer and a swimming fucking pool. Good for pops. Hope that can be me someday. SURF and an old gray cardigan and brown polyester slacks. Okay, okay, the next one, yes, the one now with the septuagenarian on her balcony in her flowing night robe, yes, the glass doors and the stenciled palm tree name of the place, this one has to be it, it’s the last one.
He did not pause at the door. The sidewalk started to climb. The ascent slowed him down. An incline of two degrees and, at 86, it was like climbing a mountain. I could see, also, my friends with such a slope at that age. Damn. Take those hills! I stood still on the next corner and waited for him to make the crest. Had to play off my standing around during this darkness as two young woman walked hurriedly past. The old man in his hat began the descent down the other side, toward Broadway. He was out of options heading that way, I reasoned. I’m going to have to follow him all night.
At Broadway he halted in front of Kayes, the neon sign and the bar. Yes, of course, there’s my story, I thought: he’s going to walk into the bar and sit at the stool and I’ve got an old lonely man in his gray cardigan with a movie and a whisky, that’s the one, grand avenue man.
He crossed the street away from the bar. He moved toward a 7-11. He entered. I had to follow. What will he buy? The only way to answer was to observe, and I’d have to catch him snatching items off the shelf. Surf Pops inched up and then down each aisle, tilting his head in order to observe the contents of the shelves. He went down the bathroom and kitchen items; down canned soups and Pringles; up ice cream and frozen things; past the cooling bins of bottled liquids, all the while looking up to see. Each aisle, magazine racks, looking. No hot dog, no alcohol, no porn, what, sir, are you after? It was ten o’clock. He stopped in front of the candy. He tilted his head back and looked. He did not seem to be after a particular brand. Browsing, looking for inspiration perhaps, a spark. His hand reached upwards, slowly. And he grabbed peanut caramel candy bar. He placed the peanut caramel candy bar in a small brown paper sack that he snagged on the way in to the store. He looked at the next cardboard offering of candy. He passed. He fingered some red Twizzlers. He grabbed them, thinking, then set them down again. He moved over and located a bag of peppermints. Surf Pops selected the bag of peppermints and placed them in his small brown paper sack. He finished. I had been flipping a quarter, pausing and looking over aisles, pretending occasionally to be confused over choices, wondering what to consume. There was a cop in the far corner. I left the store and stood next to a tree and a rock, near a laundromat. A young man and young woman messed around near a concrete abutment while waiting for a load of laundry. Surf Pops exited the store and shuffled along the sidewalk on Broadway. He stopped at the light, waited for the change, and crossed the broad avenue. He turned left, passed Art’s Crab Shack. I had to lean against a wall in order to observe his transference of one block. He passed the Warren’s Liquor store, the bus stop, the gas station, and continued alone into the darkness of Broadway, down and away, toward nothing but car dealerships and darkness, a few hospitals, and eventually downtown. He moved slowly past the shadowy Red Cross building, holding his small brown paper sack, his orange hat bobbing in time to the flick of his cane, the weight upon the cane, and the flick, the gray of his sweater mingled with the gauzy impenetrable distant blackness, very deliberately walking away and now gone.