Massachusetts First

“Anything good in here today?” a man said as he entered the Take-it-or-Leave-it shack behind me.

“You never know,” I replied.

The beginning of a long, one-way conversation.

He stood about my height, five-five, maybe a hair taller. Sky blue eyes, a resolute jaw and a smile that carried a permanent smirk, an endearing trait held by my own father. Bald on top with strips of silver-white hair above each ear and wrapping around the back. I knew he was a veteran instantly by the way he held himself. Erect, solid, determined.

I had heard him speaking to his wife before he entered, but I’d paid no attention. “What can I get for you, honey?” A mumbled reply.

He wore a gray t-shirt tucked into his light blue jeans, with some sort of device clipped to his waistband. Perhaps a cell phone, but could have been a medical device, no telling. His pant legs crumpled at the top of his athletic shoes.

I learned he had four children, three daughters and a son, and eleven grandchildren.

“Did you know if you measure your children at the age of two, the boys will be 50 percent of their adult height and the girls will be 56 percent of their adult height? Works every time, within inches.”

His grandchildren played sports, earned medals in the martial arts (no one will mess with the little one), one of them won a motor-cross race at the age of seven. His grandsons aren’t into girls yet, despite the attention they get from the fairer sex. His son was just like that at the age of twelve and is now six foot one and looks like a Chippendale dancer. The ladies love him.

“Women can do anything, but do you know the one thing that men have that they don’t? Strength. Men are stronger. Look at these.” He nodded toward his chest and promptly flexed his pectoral muscles. “I’m almost eighty years old, and I could lift you right up. Do you think an eighty- year old woman could do that? But women can multitask. Think about the cave-man days. Men were hunters. They could only focus on one thing. Women had to care for the children, pick berries, tend to the shelter and the fire all at once. Amazing!”

He confirmed my suspicions of his military experience by relating a story of a female sniper in WWII who killed hundreds of men. No one could believe a little lady could be so deadly. She was the best. He’d been a commander in the seventies who took a complaint from a female soldier about sexual harassment. Her supervisor told her she would need to sleep with him to get promoted. “I straightened that out in twenty minutes.”

I began to wonder how much longer I’d be trapped in the shed with this strange man. I looked toward his car, a dark blue station wagon from the eighties. I’m not one to notice makes and models, so that’s all I know. But a woman I assume was his wife sat in the front seat, her head cocked down and to the side in the sleepy way that old folks who aren’t in their prime seem to sit.

I realized that perhaps she’d heard all these stories a thousand times before. Maybe this man needed to tell these things to someone with alert eyes and fresh ears, and I was available today.

I could be wrong. He may be a blowhard who likes to hear himself talk, but I don’t think so. I got the feeling he was quite the ladies’ man in his prime, and may still hold himself in that regard. I wondered if he ever visits the Senior Center for companionship and conversation. I wondered if he spends every waking minute taking care of the failing woman, the love of his life, who waited in the front seat of the station wagon while he commandeered my attention.

I didn’t get his name. I thought about asking, but I think the moment was meant to be anonymous. He seemed to be the kind of man who would introduce himself if he felt it necessary. I hope, in exchange for this writing material, that listening to his stories for a few minutes was a fair trade.

by JK