I was reading at a coffee shop a few nights ago when I began talking to an old man by the name of Gene. He was one of those old men whose soul was no older than Peter Pan. The wrinkles high on his cheeks surrounded eyes that shone the clear blue of youth and his voice carried the vigor of a young man on the altar or on the phone with his friend shouting “It’s a boy!”
Our conversation began as any would. We each had our newspaper: he with his Kansas City Star and I with my artsy local weekly referred to me by a girl I know from school. I commented on the abysmal success of our Royals and how they need only to win one more game to stay under 100 losses for the first time in years. Gene agreed with a chuckle and added that he was at first very pleased with our new manager, but now realizes that our problem has always been that we need some good left-handed pitchers.
Gene and I talked like old friends until the place closed down. Topics on the table were anything from bad drivers to the arrogance of college athletes’ touchdown celebrations to the fallacies of the church to petty theft and the moral equivalence therein to any other crime.
As I watched him drive his tank of a silver Suburban down 7 Highway toward the interstate I realized that I love that old man. Old Man Gene the Photographer from Oak Grove. I watched his tail lights for as far as they would let me follow them, until they were tiny red dots blurring with the big trucks and sports cars that may or may not be those damn bad drivers from Johnson County.
I sat outside for a while after the lights inside had been turned off. Just me, my paper, The Age of Innocence and the quasi-Techno Latin band singing to the bugs flying madly around the light above me.
I often wonder, “What is Gene doing now?” I like to think of him driving that giant SUV down some distant highway, sipping his coffee and singing the love song on the radio to his wife, asleep in the passenger seat. He is probably on his way to his son’s house to bounce his granddaughter on his knee or to teach his grandson to skip stones.
I pray I will remember that man for years to come. I want to remember how he reminded me of the ease involved in loving a stranger and of how that person next to you at a stop light or behind you in the movie theater is just like you: in the middle of their story and trying to make the best of it. I want to always think of Old Man Gene the Photographer and how he made me cease to question why God created the coffee bean.
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