pilgrimage

An elderly man stands at the corner of Bottineau Boulevard and Lake Drive. It is Sunday afternoon, and traffic at this particular intersection is light. Occasionally, a rusted, clunking minivan shuttling its family of four home from the 10 a.m. church service will trundle through underneath the clouded sky. Mother shushing brother and sister, fighting in the backseat, father checking his watch against the steering wheel to see if he’ll make it home in time for the one-o’clock football game on TV. The elderly man standing on the corner watches these minivans pass by, blinking slowly against the hazy sun filtering through the clouded sky.

The elderly man walks up the street from the apartments where a lot of wounded veterans live, I think. They live there together because the units are cheap and nobody asks any questions. The man has a slight limp and his spine curves at the top, arching in a sort of question mark. He wears a battered baseball cap and faded dress pants. In the summer, a yellow button-down with ink stains on the breast pocket. In the winter, a sheepskin-lined denim jacket with the collar turned up against the bitter northern wind. Simple. He emanates simplicity.

Another car motors its way up to the intersection of Bottineau Boulevard and Lake Drive: a red pickup truck with the city logo on both side doors, its bed loaded with gardening equipment and other maintenance tools. Going to keep up the landscaping outside of the apartment building where a lot of wounded veterans live. The man driving the city truck takes the opportunity of the red light to flick the butt of his cigarette out of the crack at the top of his window, making brief eye contact with the elderly man on the corner as the butt hits the ground. The butt spits a couple faint sparks in each direction. The light changes to green and the city man moves his foot to the gas and pulls away from the gaze of the elderly man standing on the corner.

Across the intersection, the Muslim man managing the gas station leans on the counter, nursing a can of 7-Up that’s coated with beads of condensation in objection to the sultry noonday heat. The Muslim man watches the elderly man on the corner of Bottineau Boulevard and Lake Drive each day as the elderly man walks up to the corner from the apartment building where a lot of wounded veterans live. The man at the counter appreciates the consistency of the elderly man’s humble pilgrimage. He sees the grace.

I have watched the elderly man with the slight limp and the curved spine and the ink-stained button-down cross the busy intersection of Bottineau Boulevard and Lake Drive dozens of times, maybe hundreds. His gaze always towards the pavement, as if his very eyes are tethered there, never able to lift more than an inch or so above the ground. He only raises his head when he’s arrived at the Pilgrim Cleaners; there, he leans against the retaining wall that separates the cleaners from the busy street. His forehead lifts slowly and he watches the cars go by, occasionally rotating his head to track a single vehicle. He doesn’t seem overly concerned with much of anything. He never says a single word to anyone, and no one says anything to him.

He seems to maintain the quietness of this small town. I suppose he hasn’t always been here, in this place, but maybe he was here before it was much of a place at all, and in this way he embodies sentimentality in its purest form. Now-isolated in a city that doesn’t know his name. A sentimental sentinel. I’d like to call him plain, but as a compliment. Effortless grace and conscious-less reassurance that some things really do stay the same forever. I share the Muslim man at the gas station’s appreciation for consistency. A daily walk, an untold story. He doesn’t demand anything, except perhaps that his legs keep working and his curved spine remains straight enough for him to continue walking each day.