Like Father Like Son

The paper felt like cloth in his big hands. He had folded and unfolded it hundreds of times until almost every word had creases. It never left his pocket and every few minutes he found his hand crept towards it to bask in its reassurance like a cat to sunny sill. He was not one for smiling unnecessarily and his face was unused to the manoeuvre yet today he found his cheeks making a frequent journey towards his eyes. 

He rested his stocky frame on the bench, the muscle from years of labouring was slowly but steadily melting into fat now that he no longer worked the caravan site. Boy, he had loved that work, even though not a day had gone by when he hadn’t returned home without an ache in his back. The silence that greeted him when he opened his door was all the more deafening after the squeals and giggles of the kids playing on their bikes around him all day. ‘Jick’ had been their name for him – he had thought it was a childish version of Jack until the day he had unzipped his battered holdall to reveal his latest hoard of jigsaws gleaned from the local charity shop and they excitedly chanted ‘Jickjickjicksaws!’ He was considered a regular by the jovial lady with over bright lipstick and giant beaded necklaces who worked behind the shop till. She always had a few jigsaws with cartoon characters on put aside for him. He insisted on counting out the coins to pay the exact money as he wasn’t one to trust technology and the card reader still seemed like a magic trick to him.

“For the grandkids then are they? Oh I remember those days, spending hours all huddled around the table doing a colour each,” she smiled.

“Yeah” was all he ever managed in response to her chirpy banter.

His words didn’t come easily to him. He spoke more to his rabbits than to any human he knew. Somehow it was as if their fur provided a softer landing for his words than the complicated shells people had.

Years ago things had been different, he had been so full of life’s stories they rolled out of him as soon as his mouth opened. That’s how he had won her over. She had been so much younger than him and he had gone into her parents shop every lunch break and bought two of whatever chocolate bar was nearest to her, sliding one across the counter to her with a self assured grin. It took a month before she accepted one and another before she would join him on a tea break to eat it. He had known as soon as he saw the crinkles at the corner of her eyes – she must smile an awful lot to have those already. He had been right, so much laughter, too much laughter. Her parents had fired questions at him like boys shooting at birds, shooting to wound and maim, to diminish him. Their relationship had limped along but was shot down quickly in a flurry of feathers. Who was he, a mere labourer? They soon made her see it was like pairing a peacock with a sparrow! The baby had celebrated his first birthday before Jack had even known he existed, born and adopted with ‘father unknown’ on the certificate. How he had wanted to be known! Every child on the site whose fingers curled into his, every grazed knee he had patted, every laugh that drifted through the air formed a bridge through time to that moment he had found out.

Sometimes life’s events splice a life into Before and After. The person he became smiled less, said less, felt less. Sweat carried some of the emotion in rivulets down his body and into the ground he dug as he worked. Love and laughter were the stones he removed and buried.

The paper in his pocket was an instruction to build him and repair him. It felt warm to his touch, as if ready to set light to his old life. He absentmindedly played with the edges like a child sucking a comfort blanket. Time was no longer linear, this week he felt as he was in a queue that never got any shorter. Only soon he would be at the front...he realised he was scratching his ears, a nervous habit his ex wife had hated. His fault he supposed, he had never been able to let go and give himself after that first time, he already knew he wouldn’t be good enough. Scarred, he had remained distant until the space he put between them became physical miles.

The bench creaked as he stretched out his legs, one ankle larger and heavier ever since a nasty fall from a ladder. The splintering wood beneath him resembled the skin on his hands, well worn, dirt ingrained in the cracks from years of use. That strange music of many children playing reached his ears from the other side of the park and he smiled. Soon. Rubbing his hands together was like sanding a piece of wood that never came smooth.

The clock struck time and Jack creaked his top heavy frame to his feet. Flashes of orange flecked the floor beneath the trees, like orange peel discarded after a picnic long ago. Unfolding the paper one last time he didn’t even look at the time and date written on it as the print could be seen every time he closed his eyes. Slowly, eagerly, he walked like a groom up the aisle towards the bandstand.

The backing track of laughter was interrupted by a car’s brakes on the other side of the hedge. A tall man in a tailored suit had stepped out of a convertible like a grasshopper unfolding. His confident voice carried in the air as he waved off a glamorous driver. Sunlight lit up the sticky fingerprints on the rear window as the car pulled away with a roar. The man automatically checked his mobile phone before frowning and slipping it into his pocket and loping along the pavement and through the gate to join the gravel path ahead. Eyes cast downward Jack saw the man’s shiny shoes dig into the gravel, like giant beetles as he picked up pace.

Jack’s stride slowed. He watched as the man reached the grandstand and took the three steps in an athletic leap. He leaned on the barrier, arms wide, a Lord surveying his land. The man’s hair was black and glossy like a wet Labrador. Jack’s feet faltered. The man looked left and right as if daring the world to start performing for him. Jack stood still. He stared at his boots scuffed by the teeth of years of trudging rough ground. His journey was at an end. He hooked his thumbs into the frayed corners of his jeans pockets and sighed, letting out the excitement that had died and turned to dust. Turning slowly but surely his wide brow catching the faint warmth left in the afternoon sun he started to head home.

The noise like pebbles being pulled back by the tide in an increasing rhythm gradually broke through his fogged thoughts.  Dark specks rose into the sky screeching and scattered like shards of crockery dropped on tiles at the sound. He lifted his head as a polished shoe fell in step beside his battered boot,

“Excuse me but do you have the time?”