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The Man in the Blue Blazer

Peter McMillan

    Three dogs race about and wrestle with one another near the playground on a sunny July Saturday afternoon. Two Dalmatians and a Labradoodle. A young couple in their twenties and an older woman, Australian by accent, stand by watching and enjoying the moment so far removed from the last time they met in the park in the blowing snow of a late January afternoon. The park, dimensioned like a soccer pitch with sidelines thrown in, abuts an elementary school to the north and a one-block residential street to the south. The upper storeys of the rear façades of a dozen-and-a-half homes on either side rise above the heavily-treed backyards, which are protected from wanderers by wooden or chain-link fences.
    Cutting through the middle of the park in the fresh-cut grass is a man, fortyish, in a smart blue blazer. He’s unremarkable if you’ve never seen him before. He takes the same path summer and winter, it doesn’t matter—blue blazer, white dress shirt open at the collar and beige or grey slacks, shopping bag in hand, coming or going. No one else seems to know or care which is which.
    Last February when we had that 50-centimetre snowfall, he—the man in the blue blazer—was seen trekking through the park with no winter coat, no hat, no gloves, and no boots. The only thing different was the cherry red scarf. There was the umbrella, too—bright yellow and blue and of good size and durable against both the strong winter winds that sweep through from the northwest bringing frigid Arctic air and the sudden summertime gusts that bring saturated cloud banks and heavy rains across Lake Ontario. Once upon a time a powerful summer storm carried away the Town’s lighthouse and pier ... so they say.
    Some of the newcomers—and there have been many as we transition from what the Town called a legacy neighbourhood to a community of million dollar-plus homes in one of the longest-running housing bubbles anyone can remember—thought he was loony. That thought crossed my mind the first few times I saw him, but after awhile, I began to imagine something a little different. Maybe he has an elder parent in the nursing home behind the renovated shopping mall-cum-condo complex a couple of blocks away. It could be he brings home-cooked meals. Or, perhaps he works in one of the ground-floor condo offices and brings his own home-cooked meals to work. No reason—other than boredom—to think he might be some sort of Hitchcockian figure with dark and hidden pursuits.
    The Dalmatians and Labradoodle finish their romp and are taken home pulling at their leashes past the family of four that has just arrived. Two chubby, kindergarten-aged children, a boy and a girl, run to the swing set and the slide, respectively. They’re new—very recently so. Just built the new two-storey at Sunset and Yale—one of the nicer infills that doesn’t follow a boilerplate design. There’s no dog with them, though you can guess that one isn’t too far in the future by the way the kids react when they see the dogs.
    It is momentary and mostly unnoticed—the man in the blue blazer passing—for it’s the playground that’s the centre of attention. On any given sunny weekend afternoon in summer or spring and even in early to mid-autumn, this scene plays out countless times. The park—actually, it’s called a Garden, though the flowers, the hardy and handsome hydrangea being a favourite, are sparingly planted and shades of green predominate, except when the fall colours of maples, birches, and volunteer sumac flare up—is a hub in this residential pocket. A younger community and more professionals working from home since the pandemic has increased the park activity beyond anything that had been expected back in the ‘60s when this subdivision replaced the longstanding apple orchard or a pig farm—oral history is unclear about which, though the former is preferred.
    Having lived here for 25 years, I’m considered an old-timer. There are only a handful of people who’ve lived here longer—only two, maybe three, whose names I remember. It was that kind of neighbourhood and it didn’t feel that strange to those of us who’d emigrated from the city ages ago. Privacy was a thing, as they say now.
    The man in the blue blazer hadn’t always been ‘the man in the blue blazer.’ At least, I don’t recall him from the early days. But ever since I started paying attention, he has been, for me anyway, a fixture, a constant pre-dating the long wave of gentrification. Before the pandemic, I’d catch sight of him when my wife and I would go for walks after dinner. During the pandemic, I worked from home, and because my office overlooks the park, I’d see him often. My wife used to tease me calling me Emma when she saw me staring out the window. Now that I’m semi-retired and alone—fancying myself as writer, though it’s mostly scribbled sketches about what’s on the other side of the glass—I sit at the window more than I ever did.
    Who is he? What does he do for living? Does he have a family? What kind of car does he drive? Does he live in a MacMansion or what newcomers call a legacy bungalow? But the usual questions don’t interest me. I want his story. What lies beneath the surface of his constancy? Is it some profound personal commitment? Is it a routine that has consumed him? Is he nuts? They tell me that I can’t use terms like that anymore. Not in public, anyway. I disagree. As an eccentric myself who relies on one of the many varieties of soma on the market, I think I have certain language rights, and I indulge that sense of entitlement.
    Curiosity has tempted me to shadow the man in the blue blazer in order to remove the veil of mystery ... and intrigue, if there’s any of that. But when I consider that he might be nothing more than a 21st century Bartleby, I realize that a part of my life will have ended in disappointment. My imagination will have lost its quarry, and there’ll be precious little left to keep it going. The same would be true if the man in the blue blazer is taking specially prepared food to an old parent in the rest home. In fact, it would be true if it turned out that he is a lunatic who’d been long ago released from a psycho hospital to live among us regardless of whether any residual tendencies of a perverse or violent nature persist.
    And so, when I think beyond the moment of discovery, i.e., the end of the story, it’s clear that the man in the blue blazer must remain un peu de mystère. It keeps part of my chemically-balanced brain occupied and entertained. As one who thinks along these non-Euclidean lines, it has occurred to me that another may need me for their own little mystery as much as I need the man in the blue blazer. What if I were to disappear from my window? Would someone else miss my presence?
    What happened to the old guy in the window—you know, the one who always seemed to be looking out to see what was doing? Kinda creeped out some of the neighbours, but over time you got used to it. Whenever I waved, he nodded. Some days that was the only human contact I had on my short-cut through the park to the metro.
    Maybe I flatter myself to think so ... but do any of us live and leave not a trace behind? Would I be wrong to think that was tragic, or would I just be perpetuating our arrogance and vanity?
    _____
    From offstage the response comes, sotto voce, “Yes, you mite.”

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