The Old Man’s Masterpiece

The painter is very old. He wears white pants and a white t-shirt and, in the afternoon, he wraps a long strip of white cloth around his head, the tail hanging down his back like a child’s braid. He positions the extension ladder against our second story windows and so I close the curtains. I can hear his radio whisper, murmurings about Jesus. I don’t stop to listen. It’s none of my business.

It seems to me that he has already scraped and repainted the worn spots, which was his job, and I wonder if he is finding new places to scrape because he likes it here, leaning on his ladder and, sometimes, laying on his back to touch up the overhang. I worry about startling him in these precarious positions so I sneeze very quietly and try to keep the cat out of the window.

When I let the dogs out very early this morning, the painter smiled at me from the other side of the gate. He seemed glad to see me even though we’ve not talked other than to say hello. I think he is happy here. Glad for the work and wanting to be especially painstaking. Maybe this is his last job as a painter. There is no way of knowing.