“Listener up there! What have you to confide to me? . . .
Talk honestly, no one else hears you…” – Walt Whitman
This last week I’ve come into contact with so many characters. I’ve heard them, watched them, rubbed shoulders as we shared a room. We pass quickly. I wish for a few more moments, a few words between us. Sometimes for lack of time, sometimes lack of courage, the moments often pass by without the words that could have been spoken. In these cases, they were only thoughts in my mind as I watched up close.
There was the man gunning his worn-out car through an intersection then into the other lane and back out again, not bothering to signal his turns. I watched him just beat one red light, then brake in frustration when he didn’t make the next one. He seemed late for work with the windows down, unshaved, and unshowered, his wiry hair going all over the place. I had to laugh a bit watching him in his Wednesday morning sprint up White Bluff Road, phone in hand. Friend, why don’t you just get up a bit earlier so you don’t have to rush? You seem sort of unstable, sir.
I sat in the room as a young therapist listened to a young woman; she started to cry. This girl described a scene as best as she could recall, how it happened to her, a child too young for first grade. These years later, she still blamed the child, not the monster looming over her. From my seat, the room felt charged with the weight of a terrible thing, now finally creeping out in the open after pent up so long. The therapist started to cry too. You are feeling it with her – that this moves you is what she needs to see. Tell her again it wasn’t her fault. You are doing well.
I watched a father become furious with his small child. The mother had stepped into the bathroom, and the child was screaming bloody murder. He told her over and over to stop, growing more and more inpatient with each failed attempt. He seemed embarrassed and confused as he harshly clamped his hand over her mouth and gave her a wide-eyed, threatening look while hauling her out of the room. The child’s screaming grew fainter as they marched away from the bathroom. She just wants her Mom. Is it so bad for a child to cry? Someday, you may wish you had been more gentle. This seems to be affecting you more than it should. Why are you so angry?
In a restaurant just off the beach a couple sat together at a high-top table. His finger wore a faded gold wedding band. Across from him, his wife, beautiful in her orange summer dress. They weren’t talking loudly, but loud enough to hear. He pulled out a list of questions to spark their conversation, and she laughed: “This feels like a first date!” They finish the meal. He asks for a sweet tea to go, and they head out toward the beach. You have something special, more special than that burger and fries. I feel proud of you for coming here, printing off those questions, walking on the beach with her. It seems nice.
A man in his twenties pulls out his phone and opens the Bank of America app. He quickly glances at the digits next to the account, taking an inventory. His face doesn’t betray any expression as he stares out into the distance. He quickly puts down the phone, goes back to what he was doing. It’s so odd how our security is shaken or bolstered by the numerals on a digital screen. When you are older and think back, your finances won’t be what comes to mind. It is important; it isn’t everything.
These are five of the characters I bumped into. And each of them are, of course, me. I am the man car sprinting, crying, hand clamping, beach walking, and inventory taking. They are me, and I am them. Some of them feel like strangers, and others more familiar. “I am large. I contain multitudes.” says Whitman, the father of free verse, in the 51st section of his Song of Myself. And so do I, Walt. So do I.
This essay originally published in the July edition of The Savannah Post and mailed with a stamp to readers. Sign up to receive this delightful monthly publication in your mailbox here.
