Sam I Am: Part 3

I find him on a park bench in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Sam’s idea, not mine. He lives just down the road in Holborn; a one bedroom flat he has been renting since his divorce. I wish we’d gone there. In the park, it’s way too cold, and despite my thick wool coat, lined boots and heavy scarf, I am shivering head to toe.

As I approach, he smiles and waves, and I can see the sliver of skin left uncovered by the thick glove that’s too small for his hand. “Hi Sam,” I say as I arrive in front of him. He stands and bends to a 90 degree angle to plant a kiss on each of my cheeks

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he exclaims, standing up straight and clasping his hands together. I examine his face, flushed red and partially covered by his curly brown mop of hair. He looks good, more self-assured than last time I saw him. He’s wearing a long brown cashmere coat that appears to be of good quality and his eyes are the same bright blue as always, contrasting with the gray of the buildings behind him.

“What’s new?” I ask, somewhat awkwardly, and he chuckles, which puts me slightly more at ease.

“Shall we sit?” he asks, gesturing at the bench behind him.

I consider the cold metal and shake my head. “I’m freezing. Let’s walk for a bit.”

We walk, and immediately, I’m straining to keep up with his long strides, running alongside him as he follows the curve of the large circular path around the park. Finally, he looks down at me and laughs . “Sorry,” he says, slowing considerably so that I can keep up. “Sometimes I forget my size.”

I laugh too, glad the ice was easily broken. We walk in comfortable silence for a minute, and then he turns to me. “So how are things?” he asks.

I shrug. “Pretty good, actually. Thanks for asking.”

“Is the blog going well?”

I sigh. “It’s sort of the bane of my existence. I feel obligated to write it and it’s agonizing, yet I always feel good when I do, even though I hate what I’ve written.” I laugh. “It’s a complex love-hate relationship.”

He nods, looking down at his worn brown shoes as he walks. “I can understand that.”

I’m silent as I craft a response, turning it over and over in my mind. Eventually I say, “Of course you can. You’re a musician.” The words hang in the air. They sound right. I’m pleased.

Sam raises an eyebrow and looks at me sideways. “That’s not my day job, though.” He says it with a slight intonation at the end, as if it could be a question.

“You’re right. It’s not,” I reply, gaining confidence. “You’re an accountant, but a musician is really what you really consider yourself to be.”

He roughly pulls the glove off his right hand and examines his callused fingers, worn from years of guitar playing. His face breaks into a huge grin. “Yeah, I do. I do consider myself a musician. If I could accommodate the lifestyle to which I’ve grown accustomed based entirely on the money I generate doing gigs, I would be a happier man.”

I nod, chuckling at his enthusiasm.

We reach a wooded portion of the park, and watch as several squirrels dart across our path. Even in the winter, when the trees are bare and the skies gray, London’s largest public square is majestic and beautiful. It’s no wonder Sam loves this place.

“I love this place,” he says.

“Yes,” I reply. “It reminds you of your mother.”

He stops walking and gazes across the park into a grassy clearing in the far left corner. I watch him. His face is pensive, concentrated, somewhat forlorn maybe.

I have an idea. “Why does it remind you of her?” I venture.

He’s quiet for a minute, and then he answers in a soft but confident voice. “Before, well,” he pauses, “before you know what.”

He casts me a meaningful glance. I do not, in fact, know what. “Before then, she used to bring me here. She’d sit over there, and I would play with my brothers while she read her books.

“Usually, I’d play for a short while, gradually get tired of their teasing, and then I’d go sit down next to her. She would read aloud to me.” He giggles softly, briefly covering his mouth with his hand like an embarrassed teenager. “She was always reading one of those romance novels. The really sordid ones. But she would skip over the juicy bits when she read to me. She thought I didn’t notice, but I was always perplexed by why the men seemed to be going about ripping bodices for no good reason.”

I imagine the scene he describes. I picture his mother, too young and too beautiful to have three sons in school, lying on a blanket in the sun. I envision her with her shoes off and her brown curls cascading over her shoulders, taking advantage of rare moments away from her controlling husband, losing herself in the impossible lives of fictional heroines.

Then I picture his brothers, Charles and Liam, long and lean but nowhere near as big as Sam. “Why did they tease you?” I ask. I am having a hard time picturing this enormous beast of a man as the subject of any sort of childish ridicule.

He shrugs. “I might have been the biggest,” he says. “But I was always the weakest. People always expected me to be an athlete,” he chuckled, “and sometimes I got away with it because of sheer brute force. But I was very slow and never very coordinated. Charlie and Liam took the piss every chance they got.”

I think of Sam’s propensity for girlish outbursts of clapping and giggling; I see their point.

He begins walking again, shuffling his feet through piles of leaves on the ground. He seems to lose himself in thought for a while, and consequently, I do too. I’m trying to get a step ahead of him, trying to decide who he is before he fills in the details, trying desperately to develop an interesting, multifaceted character.

He finally looks up and I’m surprised by his expression. Gone is the reliable joyful countenance I’ve come to expect from Sam. It seems his face has somehow aged in the past hour; the lines in his forehead have deepened and dark shadows have appeared under his eyes. “There’s quite a bit of sadness,” he says finally.

For a fleeting moment I feel guilty, but quickly I’m defiant. “Yes, but that’s life,” I say, somewhat impetuously.

He nods and continues shuffling his feet among the dry crackling leaves. I start to regret my harshness. Not everything has to be dark and gloomy. I throw him a bone. “Okay, listen Sam,” I say, trying to sound cheery as I struggle to keep up with his gait. “Things are good for you. You have your music…”I pause grabbing onto the sleeve of his coat, “…and you have Beth.” My voice is suggestive, almost teasing.

He looks at me, seemingly considering my offer. “You’re right,” he says finally, but still looking grim. “I do have Beth.”

I smile, relieved, and suddenly we’re back at the park bench where we began our walk. We stop and look at each other for a moment. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” I ask him, trying to pretend I don’t notice his strained expression.

“Not sure,” he says, gesturing his head toward High Holborn. “I was thinking I might go and explore. Walk around a bit. I don’t know London very well.”

I’m confused. “But you’ve lived here your whole life.”

He looks at me strangely. “Yes, but you haven’t,” he responds. He puts a hand on my shoulder and looks down into my eyes. “Research,” he says, a grin pulling at his mouth. I’m still confused; I decide to ignore him.

“Okay, well have a good day Sam,” I say warmly.

“Goodbye, Alice,” he says. “Til next time.” Sam turns and walks toward the road, his shoulders hunched to the cold, his strides long and deliberate, until he disappears from view.

Part One
Part Two