He walks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Watching for a moment, he appears hypnotized. Watch him too long, he’ll hypnotize the viewer, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
He keeps the same pace. He seems to pace off his course. He walks a certain number of feet along the sidewalk one way before turning and walking the same number of paces the other way.
Then, he turns and walks the path again.
He seems penned in by the cracks in the sidewalk. He seems imprisoned by the lines in his face.
He can walk further. Sometimes, he does. He’ll walk around the block. He’ll circle several blocks. Sometimes, when he returns, he breaks into a run, a sideways trot, a hunched-over, rubber-band gait. Even during the run, his face remains pinched, downcast, eyeing his feet passing along the cement and asphalt below.
But mostly, he sticks to his path within the confines of a few yards of sidewalk, back and forth ...
He smokes a cigarette during these walks. Or maybe, he walks to smoke his cigarette. His feet move a certain number of paces. The cigarette burns between two fingers. The arm extends. He flits any ash off the end of the cigarette. His arm rises. He takes a quick drag. He exhales smoke. His arm and the smoke return to his side. A few steps later, the cigarette travels the same motions.
Part of the pacing, the out and up and down of the cigarette are part of the man’s locomotion. Smoke drifting away like steam from a cartoon robot. His movements crisp as if smoking a cigarette were a military act — a soldier moving his rifle in formation.
Everything well contained from the number of steps to the thoughts motivating those steps. He seems willfully trapped in this route, in this concentrated automation of mind and body.
Until, you see him on a bicycle ...
Then, he is no longer a man on a sidewalk. He is like a boy on a bicycle. His legs pump the pedals. He leans into the handlebars. He speeds along the sidewalk breaking the force field that keeps him in the back-and-forth barriers of his pacing.
He’s walked the line for so long. On the bike, he colors outside of the lines, like using every color in the box. He pedals down side streets. His head and shoulders pushing past the handlebars. His eyes no longer downcast but glowing like rising suns. A smile shatters the lines of his face.
He is free.
For a few minutes, he is free.
At least, until he returns, the bike put away, and he steps outside for a smoke along his stretch of sidewalk, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, while the bike rests safely waiting ...
Dean Poling is The Valdosta Daily Times assistant managing editor. His book, “Waiting for Willie,” a novel, is on sale at The Valdosta Daily Times’ 201 N. Troup St. offices.
Dean Poling
Sidewalk hypnosis
- Dean Poling
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Roosevelt Marshall
Roosevelt Marshall of Valdosta passed this life Dec. 14, 2010. Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. at Union Cathedral with Bishop Wade S. McCrae, Pastor officiating. Burial will follow in Sunset Hill Cemetery. Final rites are entrusted to Harrington Funeral Home.
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Alice W. Johnson
Alice W. Johnson, 55, of Valdosta died on Monday, Oct. 11, 2010 at the Langdale Hospice House following a lengthy illness. Services for Alice W. Johnson will be held at 4 p.m. today, Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010 in the chapel of the Carson McLane Funeral Home with the Rev. Jay Watkins officiating. The burial will follow in the Riverview Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Langdale Hospice 2263 Pineview Drive, Valdosta Ga. 31602 or to the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge, 2121 SW 16th Street Gainesville, Florida 32608. Condolences to the family may be conveyed online at www.mclanefuneralservices.com. — Carson McLane Funeral Home
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Independent radio station changes man’s life
After years in construction, Cody Fender left building structures from the ground up to building the kingdom of God out of thin air.
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Crofts launched Labor Day Gospel Sing
Given his involvement with the Labor Day Gospel Sing, many Valdostans probably think Brother Benny Daniels started the event which is now in its 22nd year.
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America’s Last Freak!
And so it came to pass that a traveling carnival re-instituted a long-lost American tradition: The freak show.
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A city of trees
Much will be written and said about the architecture of the new Lowndes County Judicial Complex.
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Talking to yourself on the phone
He was elbow-deep in the guts of a copying machine. No one else stood with him. And he was just talking away.
Not under his breath either. He talked like nobody’s business. -
Forget an overpass, 84 needs a leapover
A recent event could well hold the answers to resolving a long-term problem and teaching a new generation that just because something looks easy doesn’t mean it is.
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Sign of the voting times
Maybe we need a new way to elect our leaders.
Less than 18 percent of Lowndes County’s registered voters participated in Tuesday’s primary election. That sounds like a mandate of an apathetic populace that wants to do things differently. -
Wiregrass, um, Technical something or other
There’s nothing really wrong with the new technical school name of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College. But that’s quite a mouthful for folks used to calling its tech school the two-syllable Val-Tech.
- More Dean Poling Headlines
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Roosevelt Marshall
