Even though the morning was muggy and hot by 9am, I pushed myself to take a walk. There was plenty of shade along my walk, and I appreciated the slight breeze. As is my custom when walking alone, I strode quickly and powerfully, arms swinging almost 45 degrees from my body. Every now and then a car would pass and I’d step off the road as best I could and watch the car swing wide of me as best it could. Covid was in the air, and everyone and everything repelled like two positively charged magnets jumping away from each other.
About a mile into my walk I spotted a man walking toward me on the other side of the road. He was older than me judging by his white hair and goatee, his slight hunch, and his ragged stride but he was dressed for exercise and moving briskly. As he got closer I noted with a smile the colors he was wearing: his running shorts were the lime green of faded Astroturf and his shirt the pale blue typical of a wispily clouded sky on a hot sunny day. The color of his clothes would have been more appropriate on the golf course, but in my tony Connecticut town the preppy colors popular in the mid 90’s hung on like a bad habit.
The man saw me after I’d spotted him. He’d started to cross to my side of the street, but when he saw me he veered back. Without looking at me, he walked to the curb next to a vast expanse of dense forest that dotted the area between the homes. Then he turned toward the forest, undid his fly, and, still standing on the asphalt, proceeded to pee as if I wasn’t there.
My resolute gait softened as I considered the scene—not just the tableau before me of an older man peeing on the curb, but of me witnessing the older man peeing. He knew I was walking toward him with a deliberateness that would within seconds have me standing close. After all, he had met my glance before deciding to abort his move to my side of the road and return to his. But he could have waited the few seconds for me to pass before initiating the peeing process (the turn toward the curb, the yank of the fly, the flow), and this left me with questions. Was it an act of desperation, a physical need no less urgent or controllable than a sneeze or a sudden belch? Or was it an act of defiance aimed at the upper class suburban neighborhood that may or may not have been his? Or was it an act of aggression aimed at a stranger who had thwarted his intended route? At me?
I picked up my pace. The man finished his business and returned his fly to its pre-pee status before returning to his walk. He remained on his side of the road and I on mine. Neither of us wore cloth masks and therefore obeyed the rule of the coronavirus road: Keep your distance. I usually waved to every passerby to show solidarity against the virus and to acknowledge with a shy smile our rebellious act against self-incarceration. In my experience everyone waved back. Not a grand wave requiring a full arm extension, the wave you give as your ocean liner pulls away from the pier at the start of your world tour. Just a flip of the hand in the other’s direction. But I worried that my wave to the old man after his leak might suggest my approval or endorsement or even bemusement.
In the end, I waved.
The old man glanced at the movement of my hand as we moved past each other from the safety of the 25 feet separating us. Then he continued past me without waving back. Nor did he nod or smile or in any way acknowledge me, confirming to me that even his glance in my direction was inadvertent on his part. At that point I quickened my pace. I didn’t want to see him or for him to see me; not even as a blur in our peripheral vision. We made ourselves mutually invisible on our walk on the hot morning, erasing as best we could any thought of the other and of the viral threat that connected us.