The days are getting longer, slowly, but noticeably, especially when it's not raining and you can appreciate the lengthening stay of the sunlight. He sits there, as he usually does around this time, just after 5, when people are finishing up their business in downtown. He used to sit there, on the steps to one of the backdoors of the courthouse, in order to get more traffic, to get more people to feel sorry for him. His face is totally disheveled. There are plentiful strands of gray hair, coming not only from his scalps, but also from around his lips, his chin, his cheeks, even. He resembles some sort of a monster, or he would if he had the right attire. But his attire is one of despondency, defeatism.
His eyes say it all. If you look at him, he doesn't look at you anymore with pleading eyes. There is no more light, and the lengthening twilight doesn't nurture any sparkle in those windows to his souls that seem to have permanently shuttered. His lips are chapped from the viciously dry air of this long winter. They are slightly parted, making him look as if he were tired of too many things. He sits there on the steps of a door that would remain locked until tomorrow morning, when new plaintiffs, suspects, and infinite number of legal experts enter the building that for now is buttressed by this man's desperation.
He does look at you. He fixes his gaze on you, not with any mean spirit, for there is no real spirit left. There is but a hint of curiosity. Curiosity of who you are, why you wouldn't help him, as he surely could guess you wouldn't, and where your life is leading, as you walk past him, wondering what he has done to deserve this life for so long. Yes, it's been a long time, for as long as you remember, he has roamed around downtown, often sitting there on those steps, watching life go by. You've seen him walking the streets before, in broad daylight. He walks in the same manner he sits, aimlessly, wandering in the labyrinth of of his own mind, it seems. Sometimes you see him talking to the police, and you're not sure if he's in trouble or he just likes talking to the police. You've never seen him escorted by the police. But perhaps the police are some of the few people willing to talk to him. Others have given up on him, just as you have.
He has blue eyes. And they would be so beautiful if they weren't so detached from the rest of the body. They hold you like magical crystals that might tell you your future, reveal your fortunes. And but they themselves reveal a much younger man than you might have otherwise dismissed as an old mendicant. And you wonder even more, as he knows you are doing, what he has done wrong, what missteps he has made, to deserve all these years of wandering in this section of the world, one of the least interesting sections in the world.
Maybe he is actually a Yale graduate. Is that possible? A fable starts to coalesce in your mind. Why else would anyone be roaming around and not be begging for money directly. Why pose as a beggar but not speak like one, like the rest of them. There have been times when he was seen walking in the residential neighborhoods, wandering aimlessly as well, with that signature gait that doesn't seem quite recognizable in beggars.
You let your imagination go wild while he looks on with his mask of facial hair that belies a temptation to your imagination.
