I like to walk down the hill to the convenience store maybe a couple of times a week. I live in a large-but-pleasant apartment complex, kinda out in the boonies. So I’m listening to Prokofiev’s “Summer Night” Suite on my iPod and striding the mini-mall, when I chance upon a tall, broad-shouldered, handsome black guy, probably about 10 years younger than I, muscle-clinging black tee shirt and camouflage shorts, holding the hand of the cutest little boy you’ve seen since this one. Tiny, little-boy pants. Jeans with no back pockets. (Where does he put his little-boy wallet?) The jeans are so baggy it looks like he has no butt.
I passed them and watched, and watched, and watched with a big grin on my face.
When I was headed back home, they were still on the path in front of me. I desperately wanted to ask him whether I could take a picture, quickly interview him to find out who/what/where/when/why/how. I wanted to share a bit more of it than I am sharing. But I’m glad I decided against it. There’s something to be said for haiku, although it sounds more pitiful in English:
A father and son
Walking hand in hand without
My interference.
Therefore, I will refrain from mentioning the pièce de résistance when he pulled the kid from his side by the torso and placed him up over his shoulders.
B.R. Merrick writes for “Strike The Root” and “A Voice for Men,” lives in the Northeast, is proud to be a classical music reviewer at Amazon.com and iTunes, and in spite of the poisonous nature of television, God Himself will have to pry his DVDs of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” out of his cold, dead hands, under threat of eternal damnation.
