Why?

When my brother and I were kids growing up in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana (next door to New Orleans), we loved to run and play outdoors like all kids of a certain age do. When you are six and eight years old, life can be pretty carefree. We played cowboys and Indians, pretended we were Mighty Mouse after watching the cartoon show on Saturday morning, built forts, played hide and seek, and, I am sure made a lot of noise.

Noise from kids. I am sure that is what disturbed our two neighbors next door — two retired, elderly nurses (of all professions), sisters who loomed large in our imaginations as impossibly mean ogres because they looked at us innocent, playful kids with such malevolence for disturbing their peace and quiet. And they said things. I don’t remember what. I’m sure they talked to my parents about us causing such a ruckus.

Looking back, I think that’s probably all they lived for. To be left alone in their miserable solitude. Even at that young age, I, the older brother, knew there was something terribly wrong that people could dislike children so much. I guess I wondered how people could be so mean. I was only 7 or 8 years old when I lived there. But the fearsome old ladies were always there, too, shuttered up in their apartment.

I don’t mean to say we paid them that much attention. We just kept our distance. We were wary that a window or door would open and one of them would be there to scold us. It didn’t happen often. Mostly they were invisible presences. Like ghosts maybe.

The story we most remember in our family is of my brother, 6-years-old, crew-cut blond hair, who hardly ever said much to anybody, telling one of those ladies one day after she had scolded us, “God gonna take away all your money.” We still laugh about that line. More than 60 years later.

Now that I am much much older, I fear whatever forces of time, coarse or terrible events, misshapen childhoods, doomed relationships or marriages, led those two women to such a lonely and bitter old age.

I live alone. I know well the solitary life. I know that the unlimited stillness and quiet of the world I inhabit most of the time makes me acutely sensitive to noises and unwanted sounds. I live within some still and deep cavern in my mind at those times. I have ample opportunities to ponder what went wrong, if I choose, and if I am in such a mood to do so. I who proclaim to relish this solitude I am famously know to enjoy, also fear it.

One Saturday night about 10:30, I recall hearing across the way were shouting and running around having a good old time. It’s rare to hear that around here. Sure it was late. They were not a bunch of drunken teeangers hanging around bored out of their minds. Just kids being spontaneous. I lurched from my chair to see what the commotion was all about. Silently cursing. I took a deep breath and realized what I was doing. What this could mean? It was nothing. I was a kid once.

Two nights ago, I was on the beach at dusk. The light was fading fast, but there were still people out coming in from their walks. And there are always families this time of year on vacation. And kids. And I was sitting in my chair looking moodily out over the ocean, cooled by a nice breeze that was starting to pick up. I was feeling a bit melancholy, moody, no doubt about it. It had been an intensely hot summer day.

It was low tide. There was a vast expanse of beach. But a family with their three small kids ambled by. And the kids, in their total uninhibitedness, practically stumbled on my chair, looking at me quizzically like I was some kind of beached whale, and then moving on. I almost had to laugh. But I wanted them to go away. I wanted to take my chair and with it down the beach, away from everybody. Away from the father and his daughter flying a kite nearby also. So near that I thought the pretty kite shaped like an airplane was going to dive bomb me any minute.

My God, don’t let me get like those bitter old ladies. Let me age gracefully if at all possible. Don’t let the night become too dark and lonely.