Werner Low
Found Pen
I found a blue pen on the sidewalk near the college. Unlike the slender, drafting models I favor, it had a plumpish barrel, a turquoise finish flecked with silver, and a fat nib from which vivid blue ink flowed too freely for my taste. I figured I'd give it to my daughter, who was fourteen and colorful. But half an hour later, having no other pen on me, I used it to write a Get Well card to a fellow who'd just been released from the hospital.
I didn't intend to write anything particularly deep, because the man wasn't a friend so much as just the husband of my wife's friend. But, partly because the pen raced out into the white space, like an escaping bird, I said that almost losing him had made me realize how important his friendship was to me, and I hoped that we could deepen that relationship in the future. After I'd written it I was embarrassed and wished that I could backspace over it, but the only alternative was to toss the card and start over, and I was too cheap for that. Also, the man had truly had a narrow escape, so I let it go.
A week later he called to say that he'd been touched by my note and suggested that we have a guys' night out sometime when the "girls" were off seeing one of their chick flicks. I felt odd about his offer -- as if I'd misled him -- but it would have been rude to say no.
We had dinner at some steak place that would not have been my first choice. After a few drinks he told me about what he'd been through and how it had brought him so much closer to his wife. In exchange, I told him I was thinking of leaving Janet. I hadn't planned to say that -- I hadn't even known it was on my mind, at least not in a substantial way -- but once the words left my lips I realized that it was true.
To my surprise, instead of advising me to not be hasty, or to get counseling, he said that I should not underestimate the power of what I was feeling. He said this with such wisdom that he sounded like a priest.
When I got home Janet was already in bed. Not ready for sleep, I went into my office to check my e-mail. There was nothing, but I sat for a minute anyway, almost guiltily. Then I pulled open my desk drawer. The found pen -- which I had not yet given to my daughter -- was nestled in the pencil tray, awkwardly plump and blue amid the thin black models, like a slash in the fabric of the midnight sky.
Here
On the long, afternoon walks of my retirement I always keep an eye -- and an ear -- out for helicopters. My walks are positioned safely between the two rush hours, so if I see a helicopter hovering I know it's probably not just a traffic tie-up, and if I spy two -- with perhaps a third headed in that direction -- it's definitely some sort of disaster or crime. If it's big -- a roof that's collapsed, a gas leak, even a hostage situation -- then I'll hear it on my walkradio as well.
Even if I don't hear the address on the radio, I've gotten good at estimating the distance of the disaster by the apparent size of the
helicopters and the faintness of the sirens, and I head in that direction, even if it's on the other side of the city. Why not, since my walks have no other destination? I'm careful to not speed up, or become attached to the thought of getting there before it's over, because often I don't. But if the helicopters are still there as I draw near, almost overhead now, and so loud that my bones are vibrating, it's hard to resist excitement like that.
Usually the ambulances have already been loaded and the flames are out by the time I arrive, but there are often wrecked vehicles that have yet to be towed, crime scene investigators kneeling inside the yellow tape, or even bloodied spectators. Other times there is strangely little sign of what happened, or is even still happening. With bomb threats, for example, there's often nothing to see but the various police and fire officials, and the crowd trying to edge as close as possible without getting too close.
I like to see what there is to see -- I don't pretend to be above that sort of prurience -- but that is not my primary reason for going to these scenes, just as exercise is not my primary reason for walking. I go less to see, than to be seen. Occasionally by the news teams on the ground. But in particular by the helicopters. In the news stories about these events they love to show aerial
footage. The helicopters are not allowed to get too close, so it's difficult to make out individuals. What I do is position myself near a landmark such as a fountain, or even a car of an unusual color. I also wear the bright orange hunter's hat that my children gave me so cars will see me when I'm out walking. I never look up at the helicopters, because that would feel false, or even disrespectful in certain cases, but I'm acutely aware of where they are, and will sometimes shift my position slightly to be more in view.
I have a small TV-VCR in my bedroom, a larger set-up in the living room, and a third unit, which the children think is broken, in the basement, so I'm able to videotape all three of every evening's news programs. Afterwards, with a glass of moderately good red wine at my side, I study the tapes, and from time to time -- not always, by any means, but from time to time -- I find myself there. Once I was standing next to the distraught mother of a victim as she was being interviewed by a field reporter, and I've been in the background of many shots, but usually I'm just a small orange dot seen from high above. It might seem strange, but that's actually the perspective I like the best. Myself as a fairly insignificant dot in this big city. Yet here, very definitely here.
©2006 by Werner Low
