TIME TO SEE-1
GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK
My grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf; So it stood ninety years on the floor. It was taller by half than the old man himself, But it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn on the day that he was born; It was always his treasure and pride, But it stopped, short, never to go again When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering Tic toc tic toc His life's seconds numbering Tic toc tic toc It stopped, short, never to go again When the old man died.
Written by Henry Clay Work
Recorded by Trickett
on Streams of Time
filename[ GRANCLOK DC
My back was to the door when a tall, broad shouldered young man, his head shaved, entered and walked past me to a table across the restaurant. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon, well after the usual lunch crowd would have filled the small space with busy, noisy conversations. The place was totally still now.
As he walked past, I watched him because of his hulking size, not fat just very big and tall, and I saw that he had a 4 inch Maltese cross tattooed in faded black ink in the middle of the back of his neck.
He wore an olive drab fatigue jacket that was too large for him, but it matched the deep olive tint of his skin and seemed altogether fitting, given his imposing size, shaved head, and menacing tattoo.
I looked down quickly at the newspaper I had just opened, lest I be caught staring at him. After all, he might be easily offended and conclude I was giving him the evil eye. The Evil Eye is a strange offense that is often alleged these days by young men in the city. That odd superstition makes them not only peculiar but also quite dangerous.
The idea of Evil Eye always seemed silly and childish to me in the year 2000, but more than one person in this insane city had perished from bullets intended to obliterate an evil eye for eternity. Sometime it felt like I had walked through a discontinuity in time and wound up in the Dark Ages, where superstition allowed men to see evil manifest at every turn and where simplicity and innocence were never considered first.
He had no sooner seated himself across the room than he rose and strode back across the restaurant in my direction taking long purposeful strides. Abruptly, though, he stopped, settled his large body tentatively on the edge of the seat of a nearby booth, and leaned over with his elbows on his knees, burying his forehead in his hands, a very puzzling maneuver. Was he sick, I wondered?
The server at the Pick Up window nodded to me that my order was ready; so I stood and walked past the curious young man to the counter. I picked up my food and started the return trip past the man to my table.
Just as I neared him, he looked up, his face configured with the most contrite and shamed expression. His eyes were so forlorn that I was moved by them instantly.
He spoke at a volume barely audible, but in sounds that I really couldn't make into sense. Perhaps you've heard men who were deaf and without ability to speak, and who attempted to speak with such strange, guttural sounds as to be unintelligible? This is exactly what was happening I realized. He was deaf and couldn't speak a word. I looked at him with a puzzled expression and tilted my head trying to understand.
Immediately he pulled a stubby pencil and scrap of paper from the pocket of his baggy fatigue jacket, scribbled something on the paper, and thrust it in my direction.
It said, "Have any spare change?" He averted his eyes immediately in order to spare himself further pain of being seen with such need.
There is no way I can endure the knowledge of another person suffering with hunger, as I've spent my share of penniless days, even weeks, with no money to buy food. I didn't speak a word. Actually I was a little afraid of him, yet at the same time embarrased at how my heart had gone out to him, huge and powerful though he was, even menacing. Nevertheless, he was helpless to buy the food he needed and so clearly humiliated at being unable to do so that he could not look at me.
In silence, I put my own plate of food down, reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill, which I offered to him with no condition or comment, then I picked up my plate again and continued to my table. He accepted the money without looking up.
Before I could even get to my table the young man was ordering at the counter, pointing and grunting at what he wanted on a huge menu that hung above the register.
In minutes he sat before a huge plate of beans and rice and chicken and tomatoes and onions and cilantro, shoveling the food into his mouth as fast as he could. He never looked up or even seemed to notice his surroundings. He was totally focused on his food. I was glad to see him eating.
I watched him from across the room, not daring to give any indication that I was noticing him, much less watching him as carefully as I was. It was a gift to see him eating when he had been in such need. I did turn my attention to the newspaper for a few moments, but when I looked up again, the table where the young man gobbled up his food was empty and he was gone.
Immediately I felt sad for being unable to correct his pain for more than a single mealtime. I thought that I hadn't done for him what he really needed. He needed to earn the money to feed himself. And I had not offered him that favor. Instead I attended to my own discomfort at seeing him hungry.
I should have been unselfconscious and addressed the issue with him as a friend, since at that time he was so embarrassed, resource-less, and unable to reach out. Then I would have learned the truth about him.
I was the impoverished one, I thought, impoverished in humanity, with a poverty of spirit that prevented me from responding to a fellow human being as he needed. That realization hurt so much I told myself I would be vigilant from now on.
A thought occurred to me which I addressed to No One and yet to Anyone who might be seeing these events: "Please help me to see the need in my brother's eyes and to respond with what he needs, not what I need."
Drawing a deep breath, I gathered my newspaper and put it in my briefcase. The cashier called out, "Sir, Sir! That man who just left, the one who couldn't talk, he put this paper on the counter in front me and pointed to you. Then he left."
The note read,
Thank you for $20 Sorry I can't talk Thank you for caring I'll pay you back Hugo
He'd underlined, "I'll pay you back" *****