The old man

“We live in a world of bullshit”, he said.

He was sitting in a doorway swaddled in an old overcoat, of the kind that might have been picked up in a junkshop twenty years ago.

His hair was long and streaked with grey.  His beard unkempt.

He looked up at me, his eyes somehow far away and rheumy. 

“When I look at the kind of people who make it to the top, I can see why I prefer the bottom.” he said.

“Sure there are liars and scammers all around here, but at least they’re acting alone.  You can cope with that.  You can’t fight it when the whole place is that way – the whole frigging system. “

“I can’t live like that. “

“And, yet, they are the people who run this world.  Makes you sad, doesn’t it?”

His hands opened slowly and gracefully and a sweet, familiar sound drifted up from the doorway. 

In his lap was a worn and battered concertina.  His gnarled, discoloured hands drew the straps apart as his fingers worked blindly at the buttons. 

A rasping bass chugged along in ¾ time as the fingers of his other hand released flurries of notes to drift away into the gentle drizzle.

I passed him most nights, head down as I hurried to the station to catch the train home. 

He wasn’t as obvious as the Big Issue sellers on the street corners, though I’d often heard his playing and sometimes his hoarse voice singing old folk songs.

On this night, for some reason, I paused as I drew level.  He’d stopped playing and asked if I had a cigarette.

“No.”  I answered.  “I wish I had.”

He drew me over.

“What do you do, son?  I see you go by every night – always at the same time.  Do you work in a shop?”

I shook my head.

“Over there?”  He jerked his head in the direction of the tall office building across the street.  It was the headquarters of an insurance company.

“Yes.  Over there.”  I confirmed.

He asked me what it was like inside.  “I imagine big marble floors and oak panels.  Is that what your office is like?”

I laughed gently.  “No.  It’s very cheap and functional.  Not pretty at all.  We all work in one big room with screens dividing us up.”

“No corridors?” he asked. 

“No panelled doors?”

“No.  It’s quite grim.” I said.

He played a few bars of a song.  “I worked in an office once – years ago.  I tried it.  That was a big firm, too.  I hated it – stuck it for five years.  I hear it’s even worse now.  Even more bullshit.”

He’d touched a nerve.  I could just about raise a smile and a slight snort.

“You have to decide what you want in life.” he said.  “I chucked it all in – the whole frigging lot.”

That was when he gave me his speech about the “world of bullshit”.

I looked at him sitting in the doorway.  He was filthy.  He had that mother-of-pearl colouring – thickened skin.  I wasn’t sure, desperate as I am, that I’d swap places.

He seemed to pick up my thoughts.

“I made my bed.” he said.  “It isn’t easy.  No one owns me – for good or for bad.  It’s lonely on the streets.  But I’ve been free to come and go as I please for…”

He stopped in mid-sentence and looked down at his hands.

“for I don’t know how long.  I’ve lost count.”

“Listen, are you sure you haven’t got a fag?”  He rummaged in a deep pocket and pulled out some change.  “I’ll buy one off you.”

“Stay there.”  I told him, and walked to the kiosk on the corner by the crossing.

A couple of minutes later, I was back at the doorway and unwrapped twenty Marlboro.  I lit one and passed him the lighter and cigarettes.

He smiled and took one, lit it, then held out the pack.

“No.  I’ve given up.” I told him. 

He chuckled and nodded, pushing the pack and lighter into his pocket.

“Thanks.”

I asked him if he knew “Fiddler’s Green”.

He rolled the cigarette to the corner of his mouth and produced a flow of wheezing chords from the concertina.  After a slight pause, he began to sing.  Every other line, the end of his cigarette glowed.

I listened for a while, then mouthed a thank you and set off for the station.

As the sound of the old man’s playing fell behind me, lost to the rain and the evening bustle, I laughed at myself and the life I’d fallen into.

He was absolutely fucking right.  Though who but a brave man would put themselves in his place?