Before the developer
The Gypsies would camp there in the summers
There in the woods that would become
The Village
Now the restaurants and shops
Even places that sell only tea
Flourish
But other travelers have come
I have watched them for fifteen years
I saw one of them only this morning
On my Sunday walk
It was the forty something guy with the skinned back hair
Straight hair in a pony tail
The one who is always clean shaven
I wonder if he shaves in a creek
Sometimes he has his woman with him
Much older than him
She is fat and grotesque
Clutching her big plastic bag
The clean shaven man is always smiling
The grotesque one is always frowning
Maybe why she doesn’t get to come all the time
They are some of them
The Villagers
At the Rite Aid there is another one
On the inside
The woman with the high pitched whiney voice
The one that wears a lot of makeup
And hangs at the blood pressure machine
She walks pitching forward
Like she has a big steel plate inside her forehead
And she is being pulled by some very strong invisible magnet
She is there every day
I think she “gets a check”
On the outside are two more
The chubby boy who always wears the Carolina sweatshirt
Opting for a Carolina t shirt in warm weather
I have never seen him speak
The other one patrolling outside
The disheveled woman with the wire rimmed glasses
She wanders around the village
Daily
She never seems to stop anywhere
Meandering
Gotta be drawin’ a check
Then there is the clean cut guy
Looks thirty five
Clean jeans
Nice shirt
Short haircut
An air of expediency about him
He too is a villager
Sometimes he even gets to downtown
Fayetteville Street
Had his customary yellow pad with him
Maybe a law student who had a nervous breakdown
He talks
Always is talking to someone when I see him
Someday I want to hear
The reigning king of the Villagers is the black man
The one that covers the area from the cigar store on Hillsborough Street
To the Village
And all points between
He is the king, not because of any coronation
Other than the one I have bestowed on him
But because of his tenure
I have seen him almost daily for twenty years
He used to be robust
Always smiling as he walked
I know he can talk
I heard him in the McDonald’s one day
He said “small coffee and cup of ice”,
Smiling through the stub of a cigar clenched in his teeth.
He is much slimmer now
No more smiling
Gone are nice clothes and the Fedora
Long gone is the confident stride
Now he is hatless
And shuffles
The check at the first of the month
Gone by the tenth
So saith the tobacconist
There are others
That come and go
But the core
The Villagers
Are always around
In the hot summers
The Villagers
Along with the itinerants
Start to gather about a quarter to ten
On Clark
The library opens at ten
The cool, cool library
Where one can hang
If you behave
And don’t mess with the security guys
Respite from the searing heat
A break from the norm
I will see them again tomorrow
The loyal ones
The Villagers