By Amy Gray, Contributing writer
Here is a little-known fact that it is, in fact, unknown, and in truth there is nothing little about it. It all took place one day last June, while I was out walking my dog. We were just scurrying along the river bank when we saw in the bushes an old haggard person, slumped in a pile of beige and brown. It made us both ponder. I stopped to have a look but Hank just went right in sniffing and poking around. The person jolted a bit and turned to have a look at me. It was a man who I guessed would be in his 50s, with a hairy face and dirty long locks. He smiled an open-mouth smile, that revealed his lack of four or five front teeth. And the ones that remained looked like broken windows hanging from a burned out house, sure to fall soon but they hadn’t given in yet.
I smiled back, but turned my eyes down, to see his jacket, the white fluff from the insides poofing out of holes burned by cigarettes or torn by a snag here or there in the thickets.
“Do you live here?” I asked. He laughed so loud the leaves on the trees shook, the bees quit buzzing. Hank jumped behind me.
“Of course not,” he bellowed.
“Oh,” I said, and started to back away, thinking this might be a good time to be getting on.
“Name’s Handy,” he said.
“Handy? Nice to meet you, I’m Amy,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, love.” And he stood up, teetering from side to side, his big coat unraveled to below his gut and swayed back and forth to place itself fittingly just above his knees. He braced himself against a tree. Each button was a different color and a different shape. I made a quick mental note of this as he yawned and stretched.
“I made these buttons,” he said, reading my thoughts, and maybe Hank’s too, who seemed to be exploring the bottom wood-snag button.
Watching this large man stand there in the sunlight, head to toe in a jacket like a brown blanket, made me sweat and begin to feel uncomfortable.
“That’s interesting,” I said, and turned to walk away.
“I made this one out of a tin can, and this one from a rock. This one I made out of glass I found in the river…” He was pointing to the buttons and could have been speaking to himself for the low volume, but I knew I was supposed to be hearing.
“I see. Well maybe you could make some more and sell them, then you could buy a new coat.” I offered.
“There’s no coat better than the one I’ve got,” he announced. “It mesmerized you, didn’t it.”
“I suppose it did,” I answered. “But more out of curiosity than anything else. Why are you wearing it, and how did it get so trashed, and what are those buttons made of… and it’s not something you can wear out and about, without being stared at.”
“Wrong you are,” he said. “People glance and look away. I’m sure they look at you a lot longer and scrutinize you more. But me, me they simply cast aside in the first second and move on. I have absolutely nothing to offer and nothing to hide.”
But you make buttons, I thought, and you smile an open-mouth smile. You do have something to offer. Again, as though he were reading my thoughts, he said, “Can I show you how to make something out of nothing?” And he began to walk toward me.
“I guess so.” But I wasn’t sure what that could mean. I also wasn’t sure if I should trust this stranger. Together with Hank wagging his tail, running ahead, we strolled down the river bank, keeping each other at arms length. “Tell me when you see the first sign that is nothing,” he said.
I saw moss on a tree branch, it had a feather attached to it. I saw sand and rocks and weeds growing out of cracks in the earth. I didn’t know what “nothing” was until I saw the shiny remains of a beer can. It was crumpled in the ashes of a fire pit.
“There’s nothing,” I said, “waiting to be something?”
“Right you are.” He said. He grabbed the can and sat down on a nearby rock. He slipped one hand into the great curtain of a jacket and pulled out a small carving knife, like a magician revealing the white rabbit. He directed the gleam of the blade to shine on my arm, modeling the knife for my approval. I nodded.
For the next five minutes he whittled on the can, cutting and turning, rolling and molding. I listened to the high crackling of tin and sharp bursts of breaking pieces. When it was done he let out a loud “WHOOP” and handed me a tin motorcycle the perfect size for a mouse to ride. I could almost hear its engine starting. It was complete with two wheels, spokes, handlebars, a triangle seat and of course all the connecting pieces necessary. He was like a clown handing me a balloon poodle, only it was more amazing. It was something much more special.
He stood up and slipped the knife back inside, close to his heart. “It’s getting warm,” he said.
He dipped his worn-out hands into the river and splashed water on his face. “I have to be getting along now.” He smiled the great smile again, my heart sank. I wanted to know where he would go, when he would be back, if I would ever see him again.
I wanted to thank him, to give him something in return, to apologize for what I said about his jacket. I didn’t want him to leave. He was leaving already. Hank was jumping about, ready to walk along too. It had been 15 minutes or so since we had discovered each other, and it was over now.
“So long, Amy.” He spoke my name like an old friend, like he had used it a million times before. It hung there in place of him. He walked along the river to a clearing in the shrubs and disappeared. I went back the way we had come, to where he had been sleeping. The grasses there were already lifting themselves off the ground, unforming the mold he had left of himself.
We walked home. I placed the motorcycle on a shelf behind a glass panel; Handy, I placed somewhere else.
