Innocence lost and found

He sat in a chair he found at a yard sale back in the day when he loved picking through other people's trash. There wasn’t anything wrong with the chair, but in the beachside communities, people sometimes trashed things

because they got sick of it. Twenty-five years later, he's still sitting on it.

Alongside the chair was a small table that his son found somewhere in someones trash like father like son, he sanded it and painted it using a mixture of paints he found in the shed, Don’t exactly know what color it was, but he loved it just the same. Twenty-five years later, the little table keeps doing its job holding remotes and countless bottles of beer. There were burn spots pretty much all over it from the old guy falling asleep and dropping a lit cigarette on the top.

He doesn't get out much these days, but when he does, he rides an old bicycle he found in the trash. It took a bit of fixing but turned out ok. It was a girls' bike, and sometimes kids mocked him as he rode past, calling him names and jumping out in front of him trying to make him fall. On nice days he would pack a sandwich and ride his bike the eight miles to his sons' house. He never called him to tell him he was coming. He just figured if he was there ok, if not ok too. At least he got out of the house.

On days he was home, the old man had to hear a long talk about riding that old bike all that way and how after they had a visit, he would put the bike in his truck and drive him home. That was ok because he was pretty tired after eight miles on the old bike that sometimes required him to stop and tighten something and more than once fix a flat tire. Those rides home were mostly silent except for the routine questions like did he get enough to eat, and did he send out the bills for the month? He supposed that talk was ok, better than silence.

His son took the bike to the shed and came inside to say good-bye. The old man was already in his chair, smoking a cigarette. He rolled himself. “You're going to burn the place down one of these days, you know”? He smiled and thanked his son for the ride. Shaking his head the son closed the door behind him as the old man listened to the sound of his truck fade into the night. It's funny how a young boy who once picked trash and made him a gift he has kept for twenty-five years can somehow forget those moments. As for him, his heart melts a little bit more every time he looks at that cigarette and beer-stained gift that will someday be thrown in the trash, hopefully, to be rescued by a child whose innocence and love knew no boundaries.

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