The Promenade

My father used to drag me to the promenade every weekend to go shopping with my mother and two sisters. The brick walkway would stretch out before us, store fronts facing one another, looming down on the frantic shoppers below. I would look hopelessly at the kiosks and benches in the center as I faltered from the heat of the afternoon sun. My father and I spent most of our time waiting outside on one of those benches in that tremendous heat. That was what I remembered most about the trips to the promenade. The waiting and the sound of my feet slapping against the pavement while my father scouted ahead for my family.

The memory of my father and I walking along the promenade rushed back to me as I walked that same brick walkway I had walked as a child, my feet still slapping against the bricks. Except this time, instead of my father, I was being pulled along by my soon to be wife. It was amazing how no matter how much time passed some things never seemed to change.

The trip to the promenade today should have felt like an important one, but to me it felt more like something from a check list. It was just one more task to mark off before moving on to the next. My fiancé, on the other hand, was hell bent on the trip, determined to find a bakery she had read about that supposedly made fantastic wedding cakes. The most spectacular wedding cakes in all of Texas, actually. According to the last store clerk I was forced to go in and ask, we were going in the right direction, but still had no idea where it was located. I wasn’t entirely disappointed we hadn’t found the bakery. The wedding planning excitement had worn off almost as soon as it began for me. Deciding which card stock to use for the invitations or what band to have perform at the reception were all overrated decisions in my opinion. I couldn’t see how anyone could enjoy planning a wedding ceremony. The whole process was both horrendous and exhausting.

My mind began to wander and I started concentrating less on looking for the bakery and more on what the other stores had to offer. The store fronts we passed all seemed so exciting and full of life. A few of them caught my eye and I actually had the desire to enter and look around. I stopped at the very thought as I caught sight of a beautiful antique coffee table in one of the front windows. Antique furniture was my single vice. I loved the look and texture, even the smell, of dated furniture. This piece in front of me, for instance, was pulling at my heart strings. The dark wooden surface was drawing me closer. I felt my feet propelling me forward, yearning to have a closer look, but my fiancé’s voice broke through my thoughts like fingernails on a chalkboard and curtailed my impulses.

“John,” her voice rang in my ears. I turned from the furniture and looked at her. “The bakery is right up here. Let’s go, I have a meeting in less than an hour.”

I glanced back at the coffee table, contemplating whether I should tell her to continue on without me. The thought was fleeting and one I knew I would never act on. The fight brought on by that revelation was one I honestly didn’t want to deal with. My pausing to look alone had already earned a scowl.

I turned and trotted after her instead. It seemed she was always ahead of me these days, never pausing to let me catch up. I remembered times in the past when it hadn’t been like that. At one time, when we were still just dating, she would have enjoyed walking beside me, squeezing my hand softly in hers. Since the prospect of marriage and life together forever she had become less interested in the moments of passion. Our relationship had become based on individual needs and responsibilities. My main responsibility was to keep the peace and the pace.

She was still scowling at me from behind her oversized sunglasses when I neared her side. The bakery doors were open in front of her and as I came to stand beside her the smell overwhelmed me. The aroma of wedding cakes and other sweets were suffocating, verging on the point of unbearable. I felt my gag reflex react before I could even get my emotions in check. I grasped at self control and hoped my fiancé had missed my lapse in composure. I knew instantly from her facial features that she hadn’t.

“What now,” she asked, hands on hips. “You don’t like it here?”

I began to back peddle in hopes of turning things around. The last thing I wanted was to end up on the losing side of this conversation. I wiped at the tears that had formed in my eyes from the poignant aroma and began to shake my head violently.

“No honey,” I pleaded, “the smell just surprised me. I’m not feeling very well today.”

“Well, are you going to be able to get through this or not,” she asked.

“Would it be alright if I sat this one out,” I asked, seeing an opportunity to miss out on yet another decision about the wedding.

“Whatever,” she said. I watched as she turned on her heel and marched into the bakery without me. The distance between us brought a warm, comforting feeling which was almost unnerving.

The truth of the matter was that my fiancé had the ability to scare me beyond measure. I have to say it wasn’t one of the traits I was marrying her for. The qualities that had drawn me to her were softer qualities; passionate qualities. As I tried to pinpoint one of those favorable traits the warmth in my stomach disappeared and was replaced by a leaden-like void. At this particular moment I couldn’t remember a single one.

I headed for the center of the promenade, looking for the benches I remembered from my youth. I found most of them to be full. They were filled with loving couples in passionate embraces or sometimes fathers like mine had been, with small children who were impatiently waiting the end of his family’s unpleasant shopping excursion. I wandered farther still finding no unoccupied benches. I had almost turned back when my eye caught one that looked slightly promising. It was in the center, no other benches surrounding it, but concealed by a sign announcing a restaurant’s special of the day. One side of the bench was open, the other occupied by an elderly man in his late sixties or early seventies. As I walked closer to him I could make out the liver spots that covered his skin. He was balding, with only a thin, silver layer of hair surrounding his crown. The old man didn’t hear my footsteps as I approached the bench. He just continued to throw slices of bread out of a brown lunch sack he clutched in his lap. He was murmuring to the birds who had gathered around him.

“Do you mind,” I asked when I was close enough for him to hear me. The old man looked up, but appeared confused as if he didn’t catch what I had said. I motioned to the other side of the bench and asked again.

“Oh,” he nodded, understanding. “Sure. Sure.”

I sat as softly as possible, trying not to disturb him, and kept my attention occupied elsewhere. From experience I have gathered over the years, I’ve found that older people tend to want to strike up conversations with people sitting near them. I didn’t want him to get the idea that I had picked this bench intentionally. To my surprise, the old man did nothing of the sort and it crossed my mind that I should not have been so quick to judge. Shortly after sitting down my mind began to wander in the silence. My thoughts were running through my head at the speed of sound. I was trying to process all the excerpts of my life in general, my job and especially my wedding. These aspects of my life were all overwhelming and when my mind had the chance, it wallowed in them. I was actually so deep in thought that I didn’t hear the man speak to me the first time. I just happened to glance in his direction and found him staring at me curiously.

“I asked if you wanted to feed them,” he repeated. He extended the brown lunch sack with the bread out to me, for me to throw some to the birds. I shook my head and pasted on a polite smile.

“No thanks,” I said, glancing in the direction of the bakery, but saw no sign of my fiancé. My theory of the need for the elderly to strike up conversation was proving to be true after all. I wished, suddenly, that I had passed the bench up and sat somewhere else. I crossed my legs and looked in the opposite direction in hopes that he would lose interest in me.

“What do you have on your mind, son,” the old man asked.

My hope of having time to myself to think fell to the brick walkway of the promenade and shattered. I turned towards him and found him facing me, no longer tossing the bread from the sack. The birds were at our feet looking on with the eyes of an intrigued audience. I pursed my lips and shook my head.

“Oh nothing,” I said, feeling terrible. I felt I should have been kinder, more compassionate, to the old man from the start. “I’m just waiting for my fiancé.”

I watched as his eyes glazed over and he pursed his lips in a tight, forced smile. He opened his sack once again and began throwing bread to the on looking birds.

“I know how that goes,” he murmured softly. I scratched at my neck, partially wanting to end the conversation and return to my preferred silence. I knew in my heart though, that the right thing to do was to humor the old man.

“You waiting on your wife, too,” I asked, looking back in the direction of the bakery. I still found no sign of my fiancé.

“No,” the man said, tossing more bread. “My wife passed away a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. Becoming more attentive, I looked at the man directly. I felt dreadful for asking him about his wife. If I had been paying more attention I could possibly have avoided the awkwardness.

The man didn’t seem to mind my insensitivity. He just smiled slightly and waved the apology off. The birds danced at our feet, squawking greedily for the bread. I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning back in my seat. I felt the wind pick up and I opened my eyes to stare at the brick floor of the promenade. Little pieces of sand and dirt floated atop the brick past my feet. As I was watching nature in its pure, unconfined form I felt the man’s eyes staring intently. The intensity with which he stared was quite disturbing and sent a chill down my spine. In that moment it felt as if he knew something, something about me, that I might not even have known myself.

“You know,” the old man said. “I don’t even miss my wife.”

The statement alone rattled me, piercing deep into my soul, but what was truly unnerving was his expression. As I glanced toward him, I found the man to be completely sincere. He was still staring at the birds, as if his only concern, his only purpose, was to make them happy. It was almost as if he felt nothing about what he had just admitted. I tried to speak, but my mouth felt dry and I couldn’t find the right words. So I sat silently, waiting.

“I used to own my own business,” the man continued, constantly tossing more bread. “You wouldn’t have known it, though. She was in complete control less than a month after it opened. I even took another job at the arsenal just to get out of the house. She used to control everything. It drove me insane. When she died, everyone acted as if I should be in some kind of immense pain, but I just felt free.”

The old man tossed a final piece of bread and crumpled the sack into a ball, placing it in his jacket pocket. I simply stared at him. His honesty brought a total loss of words on my part, but it also brought about a question. A question I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to. My mouth was dry, but I swallowed anyway, trying to find the right words.

“Why did you marry her,” I asked, having to force the question past my lips before I had time to really think about it and ultimately stop myself.

“I honestly don’t know son,” the old man said as he pushed himself up from the bench into a standing position. “Fear maybe.”

The old man flashed me a tight, understanding smile and gave me a small salute like all old timers do before they depart. I sat motionless and watched him make his way down the promenade into nothingness. The sick feeling crept back into the pit of my stomach as I watched him go. It was hard to think of the old man having no one to go home to and even harder to think that he was alright with that as opposed to the alternative. I was brought back to reality by a voice in the distance.

“John,” my fiancé called from the doorway of the bakery, hands once again on her hips. “Let’s go, I’m already late.”

I stood slowly, taking a deep breath before I made my way over to her. The visit with the baker had not seemed to improve her mood. I followed after her in the direction of the car feeling as if I already knew where this brick walkway would lead me. I had already heard where it would lead once today first hand. Thoughts of my childhood trips to the promenade invaded my mind as I walked, bringing back the Closter phobic grasp of a hand around my wrist pulling me through the moments that made up my life.