Old Man Song

There were five of us when the oldest, Mak, began to sing. The wind was softly roaring into the tarp of the encampment, chiming a plastic bottle as it tumbled down the dirt track. Mak was old, maybe in his seventies; he was old in the same way that a piece of dry leather was old, folded and creased too many times - the grime of grease, ash, and the road had painted itself into the cracks of his hide. A long time ago, so he showed us in black and white photos, he was clean-shaven, and had a head full of black hair brill-creamed back, his arm curved around the waist of a sundress woman, both of them smiling on the beach, beaming in the soft halogen glow of the emergency lights two weeks ago. Now, Mak was old, weather-worn and weather-beaten, tobacco stained against the firelight, a messy white beard softening his thin features, his bald head shining like the old photo paper. 

We always listened when Mak sang - his voice was young, out of time and travesty, innocent against the backdrop of the camp. He knew all the songs from back home—the ones he taught his son, so he said, before he went off to fight for his ideals—or someone else’s, Mak was never quite sure. Mak didn’t like to mention back home, but he got there sure enough when the young boys brought back the supermarket-brand liquor. The old ones always talked about those old memory-days, days of sunshine, snow, women and good music - those liquor boys were too young to remember it, they never understood Mak’s raving, shouting and sobbing, but that was always a kindness that had been given - they had never known anything else, and so were content, for lack of contrast. Mak hadn’t had any booze tonight however, huddled as we were for want of a stove, around the burning tabloid—these times were when he sang best. The songs weren’t always sad, though many were—the bright ones of hope, even they sounded wistful when you saw the old mirth gleam in his deep-set brown eyes.

He always began with a story before his songs - when he first heard it, what he was doing when he heard it for the tenth time, the friends he’d been reunited with when he’d sung it for the first time, many camps and kilometres ago. This time was no different, and he began to tell the story of the song itself: Who was it about, what town did it come from (now a memory confined only to him), what he thought of it—and, for this one, only praises.

The song starts:

Instantly we are enthralled, him piping joy to his loyal children, fingers and boots tapping to his beck and call (and even though he’s seen it all) his face alights in joy, a smile cracking across his mask of pleasure. How could we forget him? His tired eyes, his loving voice? He only lived to see us dance, his only passion to live by chance—for tomorrow brings another day, another day, so sings the lonely piper: He sings of late late nights, of borrowed time, of city lights, and the faded long wire of desire that takes us home to the coast—for that was where he was born, so long ago, and grew old enough to see the dawn, with the friends that he loved.

All gone, all gone, he collapsed down to the floor to a round of applause from the five of us. He had stood up in his reverie, wild arms and body thrumming to his own rhythm, our minds caught in the ecstasy of his performance. We were silent for a while, then began once again to talk of the current things - money, food, the children and that uncle that was handy with tools but would only be coming next month. We began again to talk of things to occupy our hands and minds, and to put off plans of prosperity that would never come to fruition. Mak had fallen silent. He could not stand it. He could not live in a world of present hope any longer—he had been a soldier, a student, a teacher, an aid worker, and now? Now he was a wastrel, a warbler from a time long ago, and I think he realised that he could not go with us next month to the next station. Not after what he had seen. Not after what he had left behind, a whole world, a whole life—but it was too late that we had noticed he’d left. He had wandered across the sea.