Old Man
Bistro

Old Man

I’m an old man now, discontent with the rumbles of incontinence that surge like an express train through my guts. They told me the after effects would last a year to eighteen months after the cancer treatment, and it’s nearly a year, and it should be over, but it isn’t, so I sit here, in my car, outside the washroom in the local park, waiting for that urgent call that will send me limping to my destiny and soon now, I know it will be soon now, as the cold shiver grips me, and then I start to sweat, great pearls of salt water, trickling down forehead to nose, and I open the car window, and there she is again, in a green and yellow string bikini, the twelve year old who has haunted me for the last ten minutes, ghosting round, staring at me, looking at the car, and behind her, her parents, her grand-parents, her family, muttering in some strange and ancient tongue, about this old man sitting in his car by the public washroom, being stared at by the girls, the boys, the young people as they enter and leave, bees around the honey-pot, and they gather by my car, and mutter and grumble, raising their voices and pointing their fingers at me, at the car, and always that surging wave of grumbled accusations, rising like this tide, this hot, red tide that now rushes through my guts and rumbles me towards my destiny, a plastic seat in a tin shack at the edge of the woods in a public place, this park, where I have every right to be, and the girl’s long blonde hair whisks again and again past my window, and she points and the old ones mutter, and there’s the boy again, squeezing himself, and looking cute, and I can guess what they’re thinking and saying, even though I don’t understand a word of their language, yet their grumbles are loud and their fingers are sharp and pointed in my direction, and I can see a cell phone, now, with a man taking pictures of me and the car and the number plate, and someone else is dialing, I can see their fingers punching the keys and I know they would rather be punching me, my face, anything they can get their fists into and why not, because it’s a free world and if I am what they seem to think I am, a predator after their children, not an old man, incontinent, in urgent need of the washroom yet afraid to brave the crowd and leave the safety of his car, then they would indeed have every right to be pointing at me in this way …. but hey, everybody is innocent until they are found guilty by twelve honest men, and twelve of them now gather out there pointing at me as I sit, glassy-eyed, sweating, afraid to move in case I make it worse, just hoping that they and this terrible pain will go away, this pain, this train, this express train, rumbling through my guts to its inevitable conclusion … and too late, I’ve left it too late, dammit … and so, rooted to the earth and this spot, I soil myself again.