Waiting

He sat on the bench at the train platform, hand over hand atop a cane. A light breeze tousled the wisps of white hair that dusted his head, and the sun shone brightly across the uncovered tracks. He stared straight ahead, mouth a thin straight line and nearly black eyes glazing as the minutes passed by.

The clacking of a coming train drew his attention left, and the black of his eyes began to shine with something. Hope. It sat in the corner of his mouth as his lips began a slow ascent into a smile. 

This is the one, he thought as his hands tightened anticipatorily on the knobby wooden cane. 

The cane was old, hand-carved by a craftsman in a small town the old man once lived in. He’d gotten the cane when he was a young man, hoping it would make him look proper or interesting. It was a conversation starter, an attention grabber; something the man didn’t think he had naturally.

The train came to a bustling stop, a blast of polluted air filling the station anew. The man shifted in his seat, but did not get up. His eyes kept darting from door to door, waiting for them to spring open and release who he was waiting for. 

He could still remember the linen pants, cream and bright against midnight black skin. The brightly colored shirts to offset the plain bottoms. The long, slender hands that tugged at the shirt sleeves as though the bright colors were too much. The smile, the small gap in the front teeth where he would catch a glimpse of tongue pressed against the teeth in moments of anxiety. The smooth skin along a sharp, squared jaw. He remembered all of things clearly and sought them again now, older certainly, with wrinkles set in where none had been before or gray in the hair perhaps. It had been years since he’d seen the other man, but he would recognize his friend, his secret lover, with only a glance. 

The old man had been in love in a time when he couldn’t be, at least, not with the man who had taken his heart. It was expected that he settle with a woman. And women were fine enough, he guessed, but he had never loved a woman before and didn’t think he ever would. Not counting mother, but that’s a different sort of love, isn’t it? 

So when his state overturned the discriminatory marriage laws, he began to write letters. He couldn’t bring himself to send them at first; it had been years since he spoken to James, and he wasn’t sure James even had the same address anymore. Still, after the sixth written and unsent letter, the desire to see his friend again outweighed the nervousness of rejection. He began to send a letter a week, and each Sunday he would walk down to the train station and wait. James would come. He didn’t respond to any of the letters, but he knew James would come.

The doors rushed open, and people burst forth, hurrying this way and that. The old man had to stand to see through the throng of people, seeking the familiar shape amongst the unfamiliar. He craned his neck, pushed up on the cane to see over heads too tall for him. He looked from doorway to doorway, hoping not to miss a moment. The train emptied, the people dispersed, and the old man was left alone the bench again. He took a deep breath, let it out through his nose, and started home. 

He would need to start on the next letter; he would need to come back next Saturday.