“Hello there.”

I heard a mans’ voice behind me while I was putting things in my car. I turned around, and saw an elderly man walking up slowly towards me in my drive way. It was around noon, and I could see that he had been enjoying a walk along the street with a small radio in his hand.

“Do you live here?”

Either I lived there, or I was just someone who loved parking in other peoples spaces to load stuff. He seemed like a nice, calm guy who had seen stuff in his life, although almost everyone seems like that when they are old.

“Yes“, I said. He stopped along half of the way and said something which I didn’t hear. I walked up to him to hear clearly what he was saying.

“Are you the son of the guy who lives here?”

I took less than a second to think whether he actually knew my father, or if he had just lost it at such an age. I was not young myself, but it feels interesting assuming others are older when you are in a weird mood.

“No” I said. His expression didn’t change. He kept the same mood of looking at me normally. “It must be the landlord. Really nice people.” He decided to introduce himself quickly, and coughed near the start of his introduction.

“*cough* is my name” he said. I didn’t get what it was, I introduced myself and before I could finish my sentence of asking him again what his name was, he said “Do you like it here?” by waving his hand around like a magic wand, in a circle like motion. I was in the mood of being myself. I wondered quickly if he meant if I liked it in the neighborhood or in the driveway. I decided to answer the question as if he meant the neighborhood.

“It’s nice“, I said, “interesting so far.” I could see that he had been interested in knowing who this nameless person was in this supposedly “safe” neighborhood. He pointed to a car two houses down from mine, and said “I live there. That gray car is mine.”

“Nice“, I said. I looked at the driveway he pointed to, and I could see another car besides the gray car. Either he owned two cars, or he lived with someone. His house, driveway and the cars were sparkling clean, and I could see from his clothes that he was a very neat person. I could also feel that he had no exact purpose for this talk other than an introduction, which was nice. Elderly people rarely start introductions by themselves on this street when they are already enjoying a quiet walk by themselves.

“I knew the guy who used to live here before“, he whispered while looking at the lawn in front of the house I live in. “The guy used to work on this lawn for 10 years, every day. He lived up to be 90.” With that his eyes shined wide open. I could see that he had blue eyes which were covered with red spots now. I could also see that living up to being 90 and still having the energy meant a lot to him.

“Interesting” I said. There is a school right in front of my house. Its a busy street around noon and morning, but the houses are built in such a way that inside you can’t hear much from the outside unless your windows are wide open. It has been a cool month mostly, so far, so windows are always closed. I could hear the children screaming a bit in the far distance, even though the school gates and the fences are right across the street, which is as wide as about 3 times the length of my driveway.

“The guys in this house were all nice“, he said while pointing to the place where I live. “Those guys there“, he said while pointing to the house in between his own and mine, “are pigs.” I looked at him normally and nodded and looked at the house next door. I wanted to ask if they were fat like pigs, or dirty like pigs, or were mannered like pigs. The house looked dirty from the outside since it had a very weird creamish-type color painting on the outside, blended with white and gray painting in some spots.

“Have you seen their lawn?” he asked me. I said “No” and without waiting he said “You never had a chance to jump over the fence and look at their lawn?” I didn’t know at first if he meant to say that as a joke, as a sarcastic remark related to something I didn’t get, or if he actually meant it. I wondered if he knew that one can look at a neighbors’ lawn by merely looking over the fence. However, looking at his serious face, I knew he was dead serious. I said “No, I haven’t had the chance.” I kept a straight face and thought he would smile; he didn’t. “You should see their lawn; its very dirty, those people keep all the junk in their lawn, messing up things“, he said. I didn’t know if they were messing up things in his lawn somehow, or the junk created smell that went into his house, or something else. It was something which I knew that had to be seen to be understood and he would not explain anything more than that. I just nodded my head as if to show that it was interesting and looked at the house again.

“Do you know about fire?” he said. I thought I had missed the “the” in that sentence, unless he wanted to know if I was older than him and had ever seen this thing called “fire.” I assumed he meant the former, and I said “No” and he said “Oh, too bad, there was a sign there I just read“, he said, pointing in the opposite way [from his houses' direction], “it said the house was burnt down.” By the way he emphasized on the house, it felt that the owners weren’t home, or the house was for sale/rent. I could see that he was pointing to a house about three houses down from mine.

I had been smelling something like gas leaking for sometime now in my driveway, which wasn’t related to my house. I had even told my landlord about it, who had confirmed it wasn’t in my house. I wondered if I should tell the old man about it. I decided to let him keep talking, as he seemed to enjoy it. “The whole house was burnt down.” I could still see the house standing, so I assumed that everything inside the house burnt down. “A Christmas tree burnt down“, he said. I wondered if a Christmas tree had also burnt down or if it had burnt the insides of the house down. I assumed it was the latter reason, which he explained by himself soon. “It must have caught fire from the lighting or some gas.” I nodded to show that I understood, and he seemed to like me at that exact point.

“You’re a nice fellow. Good to meet you again.” I said “Good to meet you also.” However, he didn’t start walking, and looked at me for about 10 seconds. In such situations, one either walks away, or looks back at the person in amazement and asks if everything is ok. However, I kept looking at him and kept the same smiling face. He finally said “I used to work for HP, down near downtown.” Downtown was less than 5 minutes drive from our place, so I knew he must have been living in this place for a long time. “I worked there for 20 years, and retired long time ago. HP is a fine company.” He stopped and looked at me with one of his eyes open slightly wider than the other and his head tilted at an angle, as if waiting to get an approval of what he had said. I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to do so, so I nodded, saying “HP is a very interesting company to work for, yes.” He asked me what my major was. I told him my major. He said “Perfect, you can work for them, they are very close by.” I nodded, saying “Yes, that would be very nice and interesting.“

By this time he had probably spent a good several minutes talking to me. I could see that he was feeling exhausted from all the talking and probably the walking he had done before he talked to me, which is probably why he said “Ok, I have to go now. It was nice meeting you. I will see you later.” I wondered if I should ask him his name, but he had already started to play with his radio again while walking away.

I knew I would meet him again. I decided to let him play with his radio, for now.