Most men I know have become automatons of the modern workplace, units in corporations, measured and valued only for their productivity. They are tense from subducting so much anger, burying it so they can get up and do the same tedious job over and over.They become tense parents, controlling spouses, piling damage onto damage until their home-life implodes. What's left of them after that is bitter, confused and full of resentment.
Tommy isn't like them, he's a total enigma, but I can't tell why. He has all the same reasons to be bitter but he walks and talks like he's just been on an inspiring hike in the mountains. Somehow the stress rolls right off him instead of sinking in and twisting the way he thinks. Every day is fresh to him, every person is fresh, he wouldn't know how to hold a grudge if it came with handles. Just being near him is like taking a vacation, but he's no open book.
He's like a person that got beamed in from Mars as a full adult. I don't know a single person who has any idea who his parents were, what is childhood was like, if he has any siblings. The only clue to a past is a photograph of a red haired girl on his desk, she's leaning against a wooden pier, her hair flying back in the wind. I once asked him about her and he simply smiled, lost in a pleasant memory he wasn't about to share. All he would say is, "Pretty, isn't she?"
In that crowded room was one man that didn't appear to truly belong. It was as though he'd been parachuted in from Milan, Paris, or some other fashionable place none of the rest of us had ever been to. In whatever conversation he was in the other person was enthralled, yet afterward didn't recall anything important in what he said. It was as if he could converse without leaving any verbal "fingerprint."
The man was in the same oil splattered overalls as everyone else yet his nails were expensively manicured. He walked with the same stiffness as a man to his table in a michelin star restaurant, quite unlike the casual saunter of the other mechanics. His hair was a salt 'n' pepper grey, his face tanned, and his eyes bore the beginnings of crows feet. Rainer clicked his pen to take a photo, instantly sending it to HQ.
The man walked in, three day stubble and a neat pressed suit, the kind you only see on high priced lawyers and gangsters. He took in the room with a single sweep, his grey eyes settling on nothing before he left as expressionless as he entered.
No man who seeks to be mysterious can truly be, there's something about wanting the attention that gives them away. Truly mysterious men have no such desire, their motives remain hidden and hence the allure. The have a stand-offish quality that dares contact without inviting it. They are independent and casual, nonchalant and slow to temper, analyzing situations with ease. They are kind but don't form emotional attachments often, though when they do they can be counted on to be truly heroic.
The plaza at noon was a place for lovers. Every possible place to sit was taken by a couple gazing into one another's eyes or else laughing at a joke. Yet by the fountain stood a lonesome gent, statue-like in a designer suit. His face was clean shaven and utterly serious. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of round sunglasses that mirrored the scene in front. He stood there every lunch-time, all summer, rain or shine. Then once August became September he was gone.
There was no-one in the park but an old gent who appeared to be reading a newspaper. Amy paused at the gate, the greenery was already charcoal and two dimensional and the grey path was melting into the night. She shivered. It sure was cold; now that jacket her mother had tried to force on her didn't seem like such a bad idea. Across the park cut ten minutes off her trip home, more if she ran. But that man, just sitting there, how does he even see the print? She resolved to walk quickly, the cheap black runners she'd bought for waitressing moving quietly over the tarmac until she stepped on a twig or dried leaf left over from the fall. She didn't want to stare but her eyes kept flicking to the man, so still, so decrepit. Now that she was closer his attire was discernible from the darkening gloom. It was theatrical but shabby, a cloak like a magician with a flash of red silk beneath the collar. As she approached, she locked her gaze dead ahead, but once she reached his bench he was gone.
The man almost belonged, but not quite. He dressed in scrubby jeans like all the others and wore a t-shirt from some band that had been in fashion before he was born. His hair was spiked like some boy-band pre-madonna, but something about his eyes was just book-ish. Like inside that persona was a little nerd. Then there was the device on his wrist, he hadn't meant for it to be seen. Some guy bumped into him with a red wine and he had whipped off his jacket to wipe the stain before it set. He was at it pouring on some white wine and rubbing it when he suddenly froze mid-stoke and put it back on before he'd finished the job. Then he smiled and resumed his conversation about indie music with some punk chic. But I'd seen it. It was like nothing you can buy in the stores, heaven knows what it does.
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