Friday, January 4, 2008 | by nathan

What, Indeed?

I walked to Buy For Less yesterday to get a couple bananas, because, though I brought my lunch with me to work, I neglected to bring anything to snack on. The store’s only a block or so away, and it’s my favorite kind of weather outside: sunny and cold. I bundled up and went out.

I walked in the store just as the strains of one of my favorite songs came over the loudspeakers. I started grooving along, singing to myself inside my own head.

I looked up from my preoccupation with choosing decent bananas to see two elderly men enter the store. Both looked to be in their late sixties, but were clearly severe biker Nazis: the sides of their head were shaved, but in the back long, braided ponytails fell past their shoulders. The shaved sides of their heads sported severe tribal and angry-looking tattoos. Not the kind of people you’d want to piss off, clearly.

Except they were in their sixties, ravaged by age, and one of them, I noticed, was walking with a cane. The other, a faithful friend, was helping him to walk, as even with the cane he was having a great deal of trouble. And I watched as between these two biker Nazis there was exhibited a very tender kind of care and reliance, almost sweet and touching. It was so out of place, so against my stereotypes and preconceptions. It was like watching two pigs dance the Polka.

What’s love got to do with it, indeed.