Ezra
He stands, waiting patiently outside the shop doors staring at passers-by. He turns and peers into the bakery’s window hoping to catch someone’s eye to mime something funny or point and laugh. Spotting me, he gives me a weary look while pointing next-door to the Barber shop then at his wrist, as if to say, “they’re late”. I respond with a “how could they” expression and carry on making coffee for the ‘morning rush’.
When the Barbers next-door finally opens he stands outside, broom in hand, occasionally sweeping the pavement and leaning on it, watching the world go by. He makes funny noises at people walking past - an air of caution showing on their faces unsure of what he’s on about.
No words ever escape his mouth only incomprehensible sounds, like he’s trying to speak but forming no words.
Later on he hobbles into the bakery. One of his legs is permanently bent as if broken but never fixed. He sports bright green shoes, highly visible under his five-inch, too short, cut-off jeans.
I catch his stare as he looks expectantly at me. He points to the coffee cups and then at the tea rack looking for his morning beverage. While I’m busy making him his tea, a cheeky smile spreads across his face as he tries to steal the biscuits from the bowl in front of me. I spot him and laugh jokingly while shaking my finger, a smile upon my face. I then hand him his takeout tea with two biscuits balanced on top. He nods his head and gives me the thumbs up which I return.
During the day he often dances and jigs around doing that little wiggle wave with his arms, from one side of the body to the other. He moves to his own beat not caring who is watching, or what they think. We call him Michael Jackson.
He’s a man we know little about - why he spends all day everyday loitering outside the Barbers; how he came to be the way he is - deaf, mute and nearly illiterate.
It seems a sad life to live. I assume it’s the friends he’s made that keep him here like the Barbers next-door and us at the Bakery. He has become a special character in Strathmore shops. People have come to know and love him for his endearingly odd ways and the way he delights in the simple everyday things happening around him.
Ezra, he lives for the moment.
