Retrospect: the late-night guy

Self-tutoring about people from the past: the tutor reflects….

One premise that continues to fascinate me is that of people who recur in the same scenario, whether it’s days, weeks, or months since you last saw them. In my late teens I recall one such person who only “occurred” late at night.

Often, on nice summer nights, my friends and I would be out late, avoiding going home. We’d look up at the stars, talk about anything, and loiter on the road like it was our personal living room. At that hour, in that place, virtually no-one drove by – maybe a car every 20 minutes. Yet, there were houses all around.

If we stayed out until around 12:30am, a guy would show up on a bicycle. He always approached along the same road, coming up the hill from the west. I don’t think he had a light on his bike, nor did he wear a helmet.

The guy might have been in his mid twenties – which seemed old to me, since I was 17. He had the heft of a person who’s become an adult and no longer does PE. He wasn’t badly overweight, but big enough that he was an unlikely bike rider. Yet, if he drove, I never knew of it.

This guy reminded me of someone from the 70s, even though we were in the late 80s. For one thing, he wore a jean jacket. He wore 70s-style glasses. The bike itself was a ten-speed like I recalled from the late 70s. His jean jacket and jeans were faded. He always dressed the same.

This was in Victoria: back then, people you’d meet there often didn’t give names, or ask yours. Such was the case with him: he never who asked who we were, nor we, him. Nonetheless, we became familiar, whoever, he was. He would “occur” between 12:30 and 1am any night we were in that vicinity, in the summer.

He had other idiosyncrasies: one was that he rode the bicycle very slowly, so that he weaved to and fro. I can’t recall his losing balance, but he rode awkwardly slow, perhaps no faster than walking. I always wondered, therefore, why he rode the bike. Next, he approached from beyond where the road was lit, so he always seemed to appear “out of nowhere.” For another thing, once he was among us, he’d start an in-depth conversation – you could never predict what about – in which he assumed we could match his depth.

Eventually my life changed and I wasn’t out at that time. Yet, recalling how consistently he appeared, it’s tempting to wonder if somehow he still does, to someone or no-one at all, on that old street.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.