A Story About Time
I walked by his shop every day for years, but never noticed him. In your daily routine you lose sight of the details. You pass by the same buildings, the same trees, the same windows, the same doors, and they all blur together. They all look the same. The pavement feels the same, and you go on with your life, from moment to moment. Back to the same movements, just trying to etch out a living in this world. Then one day it all shakes up, things seem to shift, and you look up from the ground. Sometimes there is a catalyst, and sometimes it is just the world telling you to breathe in the air and smell the fucking garbage that is around you.
The small grey doors led to a basement that seemed to wander endlessly to the back of the building. It was dimly lit, and everything had a sepia tone to it, almost as if on purpose. Mainly, it was a shop for clocks, watches, cuckoos and all sorts of other time telling devices. Each day I would walk by the small opening on 78th street and see the man in the same seat, hunched the same way, tinkering. He never looked up. It was as if he was a statue, frozen in time. Frozen in that position, one foot on the bottom rung of his wood bench, the other firmly planted on the uneven floor. He had a loupe permanently holstered to his right eye as he stared deeply into the movement of each time piece on his workbench.
I never thought much about the old man. I was always too busy with my days to be concerned about the plights of others. It was the New York cliche… go go go until the city burns you up. Maybe you come out on top, but usually the wealthiest in this city lead quiet lives of a soulless destitution. And the rest of us walk by staring up into their skyscrapers, wondering, curious about what life looks like 100 stories up? I don’t need to dive into another diatribe or monologue about the beast that is New York City. Everyone and their moms have written about this mystical, magical concrete fluff-cake of illusions. The problem is the city’s history. The problem is that you can’t kill an idea. That is what New York City has taught me. It is an idea more than a place. The expectation and image we have of this city whether for good or ill, will never match the reality of its day-to-day life. I feel almost institutionalized by its borders. Almost as if this city has programmed my mind to believe its life is the only reality. You are bound to the city’s rules. You are bound to its pace, its attitude. And eventually you struggle to function when you leave, struggle to understand how others live on the other side of the Hudson.
There is a subtle kindness people have when all are miserable together. Misery loves company. There is a kinship among residents who understand the struggle. The struggle is comforting, it is homely, almost loving in a way. Other than the mutual understanding of frustration and annoyance in everyday life, the city is just a mass popularity contest that you could never fathom. A big dick measuring contest among bank accounts and an identity crisis’ where those with money try to pretend, and those without, pretend along with them. But I digress…
Each day I returned from work, eyes tired, head down, listening to whatever shuffle put on my headphones. I would stare at my feet as they patted the concrete, one step at a time. The motions of routine at war with my need for spontaneity. It was a time in my life when anywhere I was never felt right. You know the feeling, when you wake up and nothing is okay. “Forever a malcontent,” I would say. There is always something wrong and as much as you try and change your attitude, like your mother taught you, you still come home and drown yourself in bourbon and bong rips until you can finally pass out, only to wake up unrested and unfulfilled from jerking off three times the night before. And this was such, and such was life. Wake up work, come home, eat, smoke, drink, masturbate, wake up and do it again. Then you get to the weekend. As you sit in your friends cramped one-bedroom apartment, sweating because the air conditioning broke and no one can get in touch with the Albanian super, you realize your friends are just drinking, eating, fucking and sleeping. So, the one thing that was dragging you through your miserable routine existence, the weekend, turns out to be nothing that you wanted. You sit on the couch drinking beer number 9 while everyone tells the same stories from college, about how drunk someone was, how stupid someone looked, how embarrassing that moment was. You disappear to the bathroom to do a key bump because maybe if you numb yourself a little more, life around you would be a tad more interesting. Then you wake up on Monday upset from your lack of productivity but needing a bowl pack to fix the miserable hangover and you realize you are back at work. Over and over again, time eats away at your days, inevitable and infinite, the one thing you can’t fight and then one day you wake up and are old, single, poor and exhausted, walking by the same old man on his bench hidden in his antique store. Rinse and repeat.
It was a Tuesday. All important moments in life happen on a Tuesday. He didn’t want to be bothered. Many old folks don’t like to be bothered. They were able to focus on one task at a time, while we move in a frantic pace, creating in a frenzy, with three screens in front of us, bopping from thought to thought, always working, never finished, continuing 50 conversations at once, none of them of substance.
“God damn it,” The old man shouted. “Fuck, where did I put that screw?” His hands shook furiously. His veins spiraled around his protruding tendons. Muddy Waters played on an old cassette player in the background of the dust filled store. The man crept from workbench to counter to workbench, rotating bezels, repairing tourbillons, polishing case backs, replacing batteries, oiling escapements. His benches worn down with rounded edges on every side. His hands have graced everything from Rolex Submariners, IWC Big Pilots, Panerai Luminor’s, Patek Philippe Grand Complications, Lange Datograph’s, Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso’s, Cartier Tank’s down to your regular Timex. He was a master of his craft, of his time, yet he was no longer needed in this too big world. The big stores overtaking his janky shop. The basement storefront had a constant ticking emanating from each crack in its brick. Captain Hook would have had an anxiety attack at the bombardment of ticks and tocks.
The old man was obsessed with time. He was obsessed with how it only moved forward. He was determined for the clocks to never stop. He died a little bit inside every time a clock clicked its last tick as if it was another rose petal falling as the Beast looked on. Like a field medic he was determined to save all watches, desk clocks, grandfather clocks and cuckoo clocks in the world from ending their perpetual forward movement.
The bags under his eyes hung so low they pulled him to the ground. His eyes were moist with tears, not because of sadness or elation, but because they naturally sprung leaks at his age. He walked with a hunch, causing him to look much smaller than he was in his youth. The smell of decaying flesh, moldy cardboard and mice shit fumigated the small row house basement.
I don’t know why I walked in that day. As if I was being driven by some power unknown to me. As I entered, I realized the array of things which filled the small shop.
There were trinkets, what-yah-doodles, whichy-whatsee’s, gears, gizmos, old paintings of old people, ratted ancient Victorian frames, gold chains, brass candlestick holders, and silver plates. Hanging from the ceiling, which resembled a garage door, were bicycle parts, half destroyed chandeliers and sconces that intermittently dangled into the path of even the shortest of humans who dared to enter what was a very uninviting scene.
In the back by his work bench sat old whiskey bottles and vermouth, no tumbler as the man skipped the step and made a Manhattan in his mouth instead of the glass. Insistent on not wasting time with such an inconvenience. He did not drink classy. He drank to live.
His sharp German accent did not express how long he lived in America, moving here as a young boy fleeing Nazi Germany where his mother told him, “Elias, the world is more than this… there is always time to come back, but for now the time is to move forward.” These words echoed in his head long after his mother Hilda, was captured at the border trying to steal bread for her son. Most of Elias’ memory of the next few months were a blur as the lost boy made his way to NYC in 1942 and never looked back.
“I’m looking for a watch sir.” I said, afraid to enter more than a couple of feet into the shop
“Why?”
Interesting response… “Why does someone need a watch?” He said.
“Umm, to tell time sir…Well, I have been starting to collect watches.”
“I am sorry, can’t sell to you.” He said tersely.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t understand… why do you like watches?”
“I like the design of them, wearing one…I think it says a lot about someone by the type of watch they wear.”
“Close, but no. You cannot have these watches.”
“Whatever.”
Just as I walked away, Elias said in his broken English, “How old are you Sport?
“26…”
“When you were born, I had already been in business for 37 years. I have fixed an infinite amount watches and clocks. Time…well, it is all I know.”
“Infinite isn’t a number but…”
“It is if you think big enough…But a watch, a clock, that is all we have. They say when you strip us away of all materials, what we have is time. If all our friends died, family gone, house gone, clothes gone, job gone, birth certificate, you guessed it, gone. Then what is left? Time.
“Never understood a birth certificate, obviously I was born. I am right here… We just live in a world with fake lines in the sand. Sorry, I digress.”
“Time.” He mumbled to himself, never looking up. He spoke in a way that made you feel the words; you didn’t hear them. “It keeps moving. It is the one part of my life I have no control over. I have always said that I will never worry about what I cannot control. I cannot control time, but it is my biggest worry. I am obsessed with its exactness, with its ability to make decisions for you. I love the artistry around showing time. The finality of our world is a daunting concept, but if one truly believes in time, then things can live on forever. That’s why I love time. As long as the clocks in this world continue to move and that sun rises the next day, everything has a chance. A chance at a new beginning or a chance to keep the past alive. I don’t suggest anyone take up my similar obsession, I just feel explaining why I am the way I am. I hover over my watches, constantly checking the time, a slave to the circle.”
“Well on that inspirational note I am going to pretend to be encouraged by what you are telling me.”
“Come on kid, just go buy an Apple watch.”
“I don’t want one.”
Elias peered up through the tops of his oversized glasses. It was the first time he looked me in the eye.
“I want a mechanical watch, something with a story.” I continued.
“Your generation can’t have one, you don’t understand.”
“Excuse me sir,” I said, now feeling attacked for being born into a generation I hated, a decision, which I had no part of. “Sir, my generation isn’t that bad.” Knowing damn well we sucked.
“You guys are stuck in all your fancy gadgets, wasting this planet, wasting your time. You all waddle through life, looking down. I see you out there, passing by every day, staring at your phones, lost. You all look so lost. You have lost the beauty of life, the romance in the little things. You are all walking corpses only concerned about other’s opinions. It is disgusting. You don’t deserve the art my generation created. You don’t appreciate the time you have. I do. Because I am running out of it. Time is wasted on the young.”
Elias looked away from me now, back down to the weathered wooden floor, kicking his feet.
“Don’t you see kid,” he continued. “I am trapped by each hand on the face of these clocks, these watches. They tell me when to get up, when to get to work, when to take a shit. They used to tell me when to get my kids from school, when to put turkey in the oven during Thanksgiving. See kid, I never had free will. I never was able to make my own choices…I have always been stuck. I have always been caught between what I want to do and what I must do. I suppose this is what all people go through. I suppose we all have desires we never fulfill. And eventually you won’t have any more chances because you ran out of time.”
“I don’t know if you mean that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. It just seems sad.”
“I have lived too long to believe in happily ever after’s.”
“It’s not about a happily ever after, it’s about happiness in the moment.”
“I don’t get it.”
“What about instead of worrying about the store, and your kids, and your health, what about just being happy that you did it, happy in the moment. Didn’t you live the American dream? Your parents left Europe, you worked your way from the streets of Bay Ridge, to owning your own business in Manhattan. Men from all around the world with their million-dollar timepieces came to you. You came from nothing started a business and raised a family. You were loved.”
He looked at his feet and then raised his head slightly as if to stare at something, but nothing was in his line of sight. It was an empty stare.
“Yeah kid… were…” He continued, “We get a certain amount of time. No more, no less. You don’t get to choose how long you get either. Whatever is before our time, and whatever is after. I have a heart that no longer breathes the way a child’s does. My eyes have long lost the lustful gaze I used to give this world. They are beaten and I am broken.”
It was hard to look at someone and understand their pain, wish to change it, but also know you were completely inept at completing such a task. Sometimes you aren’t meant to save everyone you meet. It was evident he was going to believe what he wanted to believe. I always have a slight tinge of envy whenever I encounter a stubborn person. I wish I could have that conviction in any part of my life instead of floating on the thoughts and whims of others.
“You ever think about taking a break?” I asked.
“Of course, I think about dying all the time.”
“That is not exactly what I mean.”
Ignoring me, Elias continued… “Death kid, that is the only equalizer.”
“Why do things need to be equal?”
“They don’t, but fair. I am a fan of the world being fair, and fair doesn’t always mean equal, you see what I mean?”
“Not really.”
“Good.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, now I think we are all lost.”
There was a pause in the conversation. My brow sweat now forming full droplets in the hot repair shop. Elias now tinkering with a balance wheel on a “Red” Rolex Submariner ref 1680. His distant stare gave way to a mischievous smirk hidden behind his maze-like wrinkles. The longer I stood there speaking with Elias, the quicker he aged. Like Bilbo after he no longer had the ring, in the matter of minutes the man whose lively eyes caught my attention from the street was reduced to a common beggar from the streets of Agrabah.
The next day I returned, and he was gone. The shop doors closed and locked. The following day the same. He had left or died. But what is the difference anyway? It was all the same for him.
There isn’t a day I do not think about Elias. It was a short-lived single-serving relationship. One of those life dancing lessons. In hindsight, he doesn’t even feel real. As if he was a sentient sent just for me. As we travel through life and use up our time, people will come and go, some may pass as swiftly as a fart in the wind, others stick to you like a virus. What matters is the time we give them because time stops for no one. Do not lose track of time, do not waste it, because when you do, you can become like Elias. A man on a hunt. A great hunt. The Great Hunt for Lost Time.
