Davis

I walked past Davis, sitting in the shade of a small tree in his front yard, sipping from a plastic bottle of some kind of juice. He reached out a hand to shake mine -- long fingers, some of them permanently bent at the top knuckle. A dry, firm palm. His eyes look a little clouded and they are light -- like crescent moons. He nodded and told me that he has lived in his house for 40 years. I told him I had come from the farmers market and he repeated that, dreamily, with the emphasis on the third syllable -- "farmers market -- just the way Hank says it. I am always amazed and pleased by the kind of courtly affability he exudes -- I never seem to get used to it. It makes a woman of a certain age feel good.