Every morning he waves his blindingly neon arm to each and every vehicle that passes by, a hectic motion that tired eyes dreamingly read as spray paint or spin art. He chats with each and every on foot pedestrian and pats the top of each and every small child’s head as he guides them safely across the street like a hometown hero. Robust, jolly, friendly, eccentric, charismatic, helpful, cheerful, full of life, full of stories, full of waves. Where does all this joy come from? Is it authentic?
It has been a decade and a half since he last ushered me to the other side of Washington Street. The neighboring avenues collectively bask in a presidential theme, even the town’s public schools. What gives this community the right to be so damn American? I recall asking the crossing guard my inquiry one morning. It was hot that day and he wore only a simple yellow sash across his front. I always found myself glancing to where the sash gathered a bit at the top of his swollen belly, leaving a damp spot beneath it. He pondered a bit after my query as we strolled toward the school and said, “I’ll get back to you young man,” but never did.
Today I am parked across the street, sitting in my beat up ’84 Oldsmobile, a car a year older than I am and still running just fine for reasoning unbeknownst to any mechanic. This is a place I’ve been parked times before, yesterday, in fact. I roll my window down a crack and strain to listen to his high-pitched gleeful chatter with a small child and her attractive mother.
The crossing guard has become an enigmatic character in my life, a staple, an obsession, a constant state of ponder cemented in my mind. I long to decode the mystery that looms above his head like a heavy smog. He’s a sideshow – a freak of happiness. I never in my entire existence saw him have a bad day. Never have I once seen him without a smile. Doesn’t it get old? Don’t your fucking cheeks hurt? They have to rest at some point, and so I sit here as often as I can and hope to catch the moment where his happiness dissipates and laughter vanishes. I started to look for it, anticipating said moment, as a kid and here I am, fifteen years later, still waiting, still watching.
I know his everyday routine at this point. He religiously entertains a daily visit to the grocery store, where I used to man the register in high school and where I obsessed over the fact that he purchases the exact same god damn items at the exact god damn time. He buys a Kaiser roll from the bakery (keyboard code 533), four slices of liverwurst, a single slice of tomato that he gets for free from the deli (“No charge,” he’ll say no matter how many times you’ve heard it before), a jar of pickles, ten cans of cat food (yes, ten), a banana (keyboard code 4011), a ham and cheese Lunchables, three cans of grape soda, and an air freshener. He buys a fucking air freshener every day, those foul smelling tree shaped ones. No matter the day, no matter the weather, at 4:10PM on the dot he comes to the grocery store.
I recall one day at work in particular. We were out of air fresheners (because he bought them all) and seeing the empty rack in aisle six caused him to have a serious fit. I mean you should have fucking seen it – he lost his shit. It was what I could only assume was a debilitating panic attack, so much so that it didn’t seize until some shmuck of a customer retrieved an air freshener from their car and gave it to him.
He lives only a few streets away from me on McKinley Avenue in a carriage house behind the home where his mother used to live. She died ten years ago when I was 16. I saw him the next day at the grocery store, buying the same disgusting shit, and he was still smiling. Aren’t you sad motherfucker? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. The house is set far enough back in the distance where it’s nearly impossible to sneak a peek inside. The porch light remains on at all times, usually illuminating his rusty brown Chevy that has piles of old clothes, magazines, and a home radiator in its backseat. I slowly drive by on my way home from my bartending shift every night at 2AM to have a look and he’s usually up with all of the lights on – doing what, I have no idea.
If he’s not at his post as a crossing guard, or dawdling around the grocery store, or stuffing his fat face with a burger at Wendy’s (he dines there late night, I’ve seen him many a time when satisfying a beer-munchies craving), he’s at a church, or a temple, or a mass, or a synagogue, or a chapel, or any formalized religious gathering of worship he can get his greedy little paws on. So I’ve followed him a bit. It’s been years of here and there, a once in awhile venture, but yes, I’ll admit, I’ve followed him. I’ve sat in the rear of a few religious buildings, seated in a folding chair or in a pew or kneeling or whatever it all may require (it’s very confusing for me to follow, having not grown up religious family or ever really formally educated on religion, but I do my best to blend in) watching him, puzzled, trying to determine why he feels the need to pray so often. What awful incident would spark the need for so much worship?
So between the smiles and the air fresheners and the indistinguishable religion and constant prayer, I am baffled. I sit here today, Tuesday, and know he’s off to the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses immediately following his trip to the grocery store and after he sits in the driver’s side of his filthy Chevy and devours his single slice of tomato like a rat eating a large, dirty crumb, followed by each individual slice of liverwurst, the Kaiser roll, and the jar of pickles in its entirety. If you thought he bought all of those items to make a sandwich, you were gravely incorrect.
Yesterday, I was fired from my job. Right out of high school, and after leaving my job at the grocery store, I became a full time bartender at the local pub. After eight years of never missing a singly shift but perhaps having one too many shots of Jameson on the sly, they asked me to leave when they caught me on a security camera passed out and asleep behind the bar, telling me I “have a problem.” Maybe so, but today I “have time” and am accompanied by my hazardous friend, Jameson, as I anticipate the crossing guard’s afternoon shift to be complete. I wait for him to walk that final child across the street that will be coming from afterschool band practice, lugging their trumpet or trombone.
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ gatherings are long and dull. They last well into the night, which prompts the aforementioned late snack at Wendy’s. Investigation is a possibility tonight. I have a solid window of time allowing me to browse, snoop, and hopefully unveil something that will put my mind at ease and put this maddening fascination to rest. It’s getting colder now so the sun goes down early. His house is set back near the woods. No one will see, no one will hear, no one will know. I’ll walk from my house, with my ear buds in, pretending like I’m going for a strole. I need to learn of the part of his life I cannot see, the existence I cannot follow. I need to understand the complete world of the crossing guard.
–
It’s 6:30PM. He’s well into the first half of the Jehovah’s Witness meeting by now, presumably on his third or forth jelly donut and coffee. The night a few months back when I sat restlessly in the back row I watched disgustedly as he devoured six large round balls of dough stuffed with strawberry jelly, letting globs of red goo drop onto his shirt without a care.
I exit my house inconspicuously. It’s quite dark out, only streetlights provide illumination. The air is eerily moist with fog, restricting distant vision but blending me in with the indistinguishable gloom. I realize the tip of my cigarette is creating a floating amber orb so I flick it to the street and resume my invisibility.
I reach his corner and my heart begins to pound, I feel it beating at my breastplate like a raging bull anxious to escape. I slip down the driveway toward the carriage house, trying to appear unconcerned, like I’m going for a visit or checking up on his ten cats.
I go for it, breath, and go for it. I try the doorknob and jiggle it with no success. I never thought that gaining entry would pose as a problem, everyone in this town leaves their doors unlock, including me. I sure won’t be doing so after tonight. The side of the house has a window that is open just a crack. This time I scope out my surroundings, is anybody looking? The fog is still set on the town like a cozy white blanket – if I can’t see them, they can’t see me, right? I slip through the gap in the screen and am immediately smacked in the face with a vicious odor as I drop down to the floor, head first. The floor comes earlier than expected and the darkness makes it difficult to see why. The surface I hit doesn’t seem sturdy enough to stand on; it’s not a table? I catch my balance and come to a seated position as I grab my phone to provide light, which it does, and I am horrified by the sight. I pull my t-shirt above my nose and try desperately not to breathe in too deeply, if at all. The stench is overwhelming. I am standing upon one large pile of garbage, presumably three feet high. A small, narrow pathway is a mere few steps ahead but I have to crawl on top of the magazines, newspapers, soda cans, Wendy’s bags, and cat food in order to get there. I slide down, sending an unsteady pile of mess to tumble with me. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect this. I take photos with my phone to capture and remember this sight, hoping the flash will help discover things I cannot see or don’t want to see in this very moment.
I walk toward the next room. Given the small size of the home, the kitchen comes quickly. I gag as I cross over into the deranged area where the stove is hardly visible. Floor to ceiling garbage, mold, scum, bugs, fungus, soot, muck, grunge, dirt, filth, nasty, disgusting, repulsive. From the ceiling hangs hundreds upon hundreds of air fresheners, all different colors, all different scents. My eyes divert in revulsion to the center of the floor where a stained mattress rests with jars and wrappers but no sheets upon it.
I am unable to breathe, there is no clean oxygen left in this hellhole, not even with the window slightly open. I have to get out, I shouldn’t have come, this was a mistake. Where are the cats? Where are the fucking cats? I see the cans of food, the ten cans a day that accumulated into pyramids of tinned kitty chow but I don’t see or hear the felines. A brutal feeling of claustrophobia sets in and a wave of nausea due to the sights and smells before me grips my entire body and doesn’t let up. I nearly tumble as I struggle toward the exit. I can’t crawl over the garbage toward the window again. I can’t touch it without losing my shit.
The door, the door, let me just get to the door. I light a path with my phone and hear a crunch beneath my feet but don’t dare look down. The door, the door, the door, I’m almost there. I extend my arm and reach for the handle, home free, escape, but instead the door swings open toward me. There he stands, his round body still and backlit by the looming haze as hit eyes bleeding with rage – no smile, no joy, no happiness, no laugh, no wave – just pure and undeniable fury. I open my mouth to explain but he forces me backwards with a strong blow to the chest. I loose my balance and fall back into the filth and sink into a pile of grime. I helplessly rest there as he hovers over me with boiling madness and closes the door behind him.
