The goose bumps came in waves. Partly from the brisk air, but mostly from awe. It was my first true sensation in days. It was real, honest and pure. I was always amazed at how something as discomforting as the cold could be so deeply comforting to the soul. The last remnants of dusk were fading when I lifted my fist, thumb extended. I didn't expect anyone to pick me up- on this side of Milwaukee after dark they rarely did. But the thumb was more an expression of liberation than of desperation. Each time a car passed i was born again; new, fresh and untainted by a boring life of confinement and conformity. I was learning to trust myself, to take comfort in my capabilities of living on the street.
As I trekked, the streets got subtly narrower, the buildings larger and the air thicker. Weedy, gravel strewn shoulders turned into sidewalks and once speeding cars now trudged from stoplight to stoplight. My heart raced. I was entering the city. I passed a street sign that read South Second Street and realized that I was in this exact spot seven hours earlier, en route to my apartment, driving an Audi and wearing loafers with a periwinkle tie. Now I was back, but as the same person only in physical form. I had returned to this street as a man who no longer thought in terms of company policy but survival and instinct, a man who must survive on common sense rather than dollars and cents.
A cop passed, but paid no mind. Horns chirped. Steam rose. The colder air blew in from Lake Michigan and stung my face as I crossed the pavement east to Buffalo street over the Menomonee River towards Lincoln Memorial Park. I knew the cold would likely have thinned the drifters there, filling the shelter beds with emaciated bodies and all too often, crying babies. The weather was not conducive to amorous couples either, which made life a little easier for those willing to brave the temperatures for what was always just one more night.
I stopped at a convenient store near a car wash. The bars on the windows comforted me. Not for their security value, but for the opposite. They reaffirmed me that I was not secure. I was out of my comfort zone and vulnerable, yet only now did I feel truly alive. I retrieved a sports bottle from my pack and filled it up with water from a public restroom. After forcing myself to drink half of it, I refilled it and stepped inside. I bought a pack of cigarettes and three Snickers bars from the portly woman behind the counter, leaving me with less than two dollars. After tucking the candy bars deep in my pack, I stepped out into the night and lit a cigarette. I only smoked on weekends.
The lamps dotting the lake shore were visible now, jutting above the linear rows of oaks and maples which lined the manicured lawns of the park. My backpack was weighing on me and for a brief moment I considered resting for a bit, but decided against it-pain was real and I appreciated that. A chain link fence and a tree lined ravine separated me from the park and the bank of the lake. After a less than subtle scan for police, I ran to the NO PARKING sign across the street and searched the ground. A well worn divot, just to the right of the fence post allowed just enough room for me to slide under. My pack went first. Then, like a fleeing hare, I squeezed through, belly down. I wondered if others were using it too, for it felt bigger than before.
A cautious stride through the dry ravine brought me to the edge of the park. It looked desolate and empty, but I knew better. Donny was out there, I was sure of it.
I crossed a large field of brown grass and followed a walkway towards the lake shore. There were three red lights on the distant lake but they weren't moving . Maybe boats. Probably buoys. The park lights were too bright to see the stars but the air was crisp and dry so I knew they were there. The park was always better in the winter. It was quiet and peaceful with no teenagers throwing footballs or riding skateboards. The baby toting parents were in their warm apartments and townhouses arguing or making love. The winter left in the park only those who had a parasitic relationship with it. Those who, without it, would not survive.
I came to a large cement fountain, drained and unused for the winter. There were public restrooms and benches nearby along with several picnic tables. I sat down and lit a cigarette. Smoking had always been appealing to me and I always felt exotic with a cigarette between my lips. The seductive swirling and dancing of the smoke warned that something was being destroyed, that a physical form was being altered. It was merely a novelty act, however, lasting only until Sunday night, when I myself would change forms, and would usually throw half a pack away.
I watched for Donny, waiting for him to come strolling down the walkway with his humble stride, five gallon bucket in hand. I didn't bring my watch, I never did, but I knew it was getting late and I was starting to worry if Donny had already come and gone. I was considering leaving when I heard a flinty voice behind me.
"Did you bring my damned candy bars?"
I smiled. "Always a kind word." I said while turning to face him. He was silent for a moment.
"Well?" said Donny impatiently.
"Well what? If you held up on your end of the deal, then yes, I did." I waited to open my backpack until I saw him access his notorious bucket. He pulled out a small notepad and flipped through the tattered paper. After finding several pages he was seeking, he tore them out and brought them to my bench.
"Here you go." he said, towering over me in a cloud of freshly exhaled smoke. "These are some of my best ones yet. I wrote 'em twice so you could have your own copy. Feel privileged, they'll be worth something."
"I do," I said while unzipping my backpack. "thanks." I flicked my cigarette and put the poems in the bag, swapping them for the snickers bars. He never let me read them while he was around. He said it made him feel arrogant.
Donny put the candy in the bucket and sat on the other side of the picnic table facing me. He sat in silence, looking out over the park. He was a towering man in his mid forties who spoke with a stringent Wisconsin accent. His canvass coat was tattered and stained around the cuffs with bulging pockets. Although he was thin, his stature was that of a mason, broad and compact and he reminded me of my father without the undertone. Maybe that's why I liked him so much. After several minutes of silence he spoke.
"How come you aren't stayin' in a shelter tonight? It's cold."
I shrugged my shoulders. " I don't know, probably for the same reason you aren't. I hate the damned things."
He smiled but held his gaze on the scene behind me. Sometimes I felt Donny believed one should talk only when he could improve the silence, but other times I wondered if he was simply used to having no one to talk to. Every conversation with him had a slightly uncomfortable yet refreshing sparseness to it that I learned to embrace. I usually let him speak first. He pulled a pair of wool gloves from his coat pocket and worked them over his hands, wriggling his fingers for the final adjustment.
"You staying here tonight?" he asked.
"I suppose. Got nowhere better and it's getting late. I need my beauty sleep you know?" He chuckled and I felt obligated to join him.
He stood up and lifted his bucket. "I'm staying in the dugout if you want to come. Should be empty." He didn't wait for a response, he just started walking. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and followed, as I always did. We walked in silence.
I noticed that Donny's sleeping bag was already laid out when we got to the little league dugout and I realized that he was already settled in before he came to meet me at the fountain. I cleared the floor of sunflower seed shells and gum to lay out my sleeping bag. Like Donny, I wasted no time shimmying in. I lit another cigarette and waited for the familiar wheezy snores that usually come soon after his retirement. No Goodnights or See You In The Mornings were in order. Only sleep. Several minutes passed, but they never came. Instead, through the blackness, he spoke.
"Where do you go during the week?"
I froze halfway through a drag of the GPC.
"I know it's really none of my business, and you're entitled to tell me to screw off, but I've always wondered why you only come around on the weekends."
I searched the recesses of my mind for a a suitable answer, an answer that I had rehearsed many times before, one that would both satisfy his curiosity and convince him that I truly was homeless as I claimed to be. He had caught me off guard and I was panicking. I had no response. For a moment I considered telling him the truth. I considered telling him the real reason I was sleeping in a public park on a Friday night when I could have been getting blitzed in a bar or fast asleep in a warm bed. I considered it, but instead I said nothing. My cigarette burned out before I finally concocted a plausible response about an imaginary family member who lived in nearby Muskego. It was all in vain, for as I prepared for a convincing delivery, a barely audible, wheezy snore escaped Donny's sleeping bag. In a muffled sigh of relief, I gently pulled the fabric over my head, careful not to wake him.
I was ashamed of allowing myself to be caught off guard. I had to be more careful. I knew he would ask again in the morning and I would be ready. I would lie. I couldn't bring myself to tell Donny that the result of his life's misfortunes was no more than my twisted idea of a weekend getaway. He would tell the others and I couldn't deal with that. There was no way I was giving this up. I needed it. I thrived off of it. I would lie for sure.
The wind lulled enough for me to hear the waves breaking on the lake shore as I curled into the fetal position. I started to drift off but caught myself. I wanted a few more minutes with the night. My time was limited and would end too soon. Monday would come and I would drive my import car with heated leather seats and satellite radio back into the realm of Blackberries and weekly expenditure reports. Monday would bring me back to my cubicle where I would catatonically stare at numbers until it was time to go home to frozen dinners and a lullaby of late night television. I needed every minute of reality I could get. At that moment I was living for something. I was experiencing emotion and sensation. Reality in its most carnal state. Existentialism at its best. I absorbed it all as the cars hissed by on the nearby highway. A rogue breeze swept through the dugout, stirring leaves and wrappers, as if to once again remind me of its presence. Yes, I was cold, but as comfortable as one man could get.
As I trekked, the streets got subtly narrower, the buildings larger and the air thicker. Weedy, gravel strewn shoulders turned into sidewalks and once speeding cars now trudged from stoplight to stoplight. My heart raced. I was entering the city. I passed a street sign that read South Second Street and realized that I was in this exact spot seven hours earlier, en route to my apartment, driving an Audi and wearing loafers with a periwinkle tie. Now I was back, but as the same person only in physical form. I had returned to this street as a man who no longer thought in terms of company policy but survival and instinct, a man who must survive on common sense rather than dollars and cents.
A cop passed, but paid no mind. Horns chirped. Steam rose. The colder air blew in from Lake Michigan and stung my face as I crossed the pavement east to Buffalo street over the Menomonee River towards Lincoln Memorial Park. I knew the cold would likely have thinned the drifters there, filling the shelter beds with emaciated bodies and all too often, crying babies. The weather was not conducive to amorous couples either, which made life a little easier for those willing to brave the temperatures for what was always just one more night.
I stopped at a convenient store near a car wash. The bars on the windows comforted me. Not for their security value, but for the opposite. They reaffirmed me that I was not secure. I was out of my comfort zone and vulnerable, yet only now did I feel truly alive. I retrieved a sports bottle from my pack and filled it up with water from a public restroom. After forcing myself to drink half of it, I refilled it and stepped inside. I bought a pack of cigarettes and three Snickers bars from the portly woman behind the counter, leaving me with less than two dollars. After tucking the candy bars deep in my pack, I stepped out into the night and lit a cigarette. I only smoked on weekends.
The lamps dotting the lake shore were visible now, jutting above the linear rows of oaks and maples which lined the manicured lawns of the park. My backpack was weighing on me and for a brief moment I considered resting for a bit, but decided against it-pain was real and I appreciated that. A chain link fence and a tree lined ravine separated me from the park and the bank of the lake. After a less than subtle scan for police, I ran to the NO PARKING sign across the street and searched the ground. A well worn divot, just to the right of the fence post allowed just enough room for me to slide under. My pack went first. Then, like a fleeing hare, I squeezed through, belly down. I wondered if others were using it too, for it felt bigger than before.
A cautious stride through the dry ravine brought me to the edge of the park. It looked desolate and empty, but I knew better. Donny was out there, I was sure of it.
I crossed a large field of brown grass and followed a walkway towards the lake shore. There were three red lights on the distant lake but they weren't moving . Maybe boats. Probably buoys. The park lights were too bright to see the stars but the air was crisp and dry so I knew they were there. The park was always better in the winter. It was quiet and peaceful with no teenagers throwing footballs or riding skateboards. The baby toting parents were in their warm apartments and townhouses arguing or making love. The winter left in the park only those who had a parasitic relationship with it. Those who, without it, would not survive.
I came to a large cement fountain, drained and unused for the winter. There were public restrooms and benches nearby along with several picnic tables. I sat down and lit a cigarette. Smoking had always been appealing to me and I always felt exotic with a cigarette between my lips. The seductive swirling and dancing of the smoke warned that something was being destroyed, that a physical form was being altered. It was merely a novelty act, however, lasting only until Sunday night, when I myself would change forms, and would usually throw half a pack away.
I watched for Donny, waiting for him to come strolling down the walkway with his humble stride, five gallon bucket in hand. I didn't bring my watch, I never did, but I knew it was getting late and I was starting to worry if Donny had already come and gone. I was considering leaving when I heard a flinty voice behind me.
"Did you bring my damned candy bars?"
I smiled. "Always a kind word." I said while turning to face him. He was silent for a moment.
"Well?" said Donny impatiently.
"Well what? If you held up on your end of the deal, then yes, I did." I waited to open my backpack until I saw him access his notorious bucket. He pulled out a small notepad and flipped through the tattered paper. After finding several pages he was seeking, he tore them out and brought them to my bench.
"Here you go." he said, towering over me in a cloud of freshly exhaled smoke. "These are some of my best ones yet. I wrote 'em twice so you could have your own copy. Feel privileged, they'll be worth something."
"I do," I said while unzipping my backpack. "thanks." I flicked my cigarette and put the poems in the bag, swapping them for the snickers bars. He never let me read them while he was around. He said it made him feel arrogant.
Donny put the candy in the bucket and sat on the other side of the picnic table facing me. He sat in silence, looking out over the park. He was a towering man in his mid forties who spoke with a stringent Wisconsin accent. His canvass coat was tattered and stained around the cuffs with bulging pockets. Although he was thin, his stature was that of a mason, broad and compact and he reminded me of my father without the undertone. Maybe that's why I liked him so much. After several minutes of silence he spoke.
"How come you aren't stayin' in a shelter tonight? It's cold."
I shrugged my shoulders. " I don't know, probably for the same reason you aren't. I hate the damned things."
He smiled but held his gaze on the scene behind me. Sometimes I felt Donny believed one should talk only when he could improve the silence, but other times I wondered if he was simply used to having no one to talk to. Every conversation with him had a slightly uncomfortable yet refreshing sparseness to it that I learned to embrace. I usually let him speak first. He pulled a pair of wool gloves from his coat pocket and worked them over his hands, wriggling his fingers for the final adjustment.
"You staying here tonight?" he asked.
"I suppose. Got nowhere better and it's getting late. I need my beauty sleep you know?" He chuckled and I felt obligated to join him.
He stood up and lifted his bucket. "I'm staying in the dugout if you want to come. Should be empty." He didn't wait for a response, he just started walking. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and followed, as I always did. We walked in silence.
I noticed that Donny's sleeping bag was already laid out when we got to the little league dugout and I realized that he was already settled in before he came to meet me at the fountain. I cleared the floor of sunflower seed shells and gum to lay out my sleeping bag. Like Donny, I wasted no time shimmying in. I lit another cigarette and waited for the familiar wheezy snores that usually come soon after his retirement. No Goodnights or See You In The Mornings were in order. Only sleep. Several minutes passed, but they never came. Instead, through the blackness, he spoke.
"Where do you go during the week?"
I froze halfway through a drag of the GPC.
"I know it's really none of my business, and you're entitled to tell me to screw off, but I've always wondered why you only come around on the weekends."
I searched the recesses of my mind for a a suitable answer, an answer that I had rehearsed many times before, one that would both satisfy his curiosity and convince him that I truly was homeless as I claimed to be. He had caught me off guard and I was panicking. I had no response. For a moment I considered telling him the truth. I considered telling him the real reason I was sleeping in a public park on a Friday night when I could have been getting blitzed in a bar or fast asleep in a warm bed. I considered it, but instead I said nothing. My cigarette burned out before I finally concocted a plausible response about an imaginary family member who lived in nearby Muskego. It was all in vain, for as I prepared for a convincing delivery, a barely audible, wheezy snore escaped Donny's sleeping bag. In a muffled sigh of relief, I gently pulled the fabric over my head, careful not to wake him.
I was ashamed of allowing myself to be caught off guard. I had to be more careful. I knew he would ask again in the morning and I would be ready. I would lie. I couldn't bring myself to tell Donny that the result of his life's misfortunes was no more than my twisted idea of a weekend getaway. He would tell the others and I couldn't deal with that. There was no way I was giving this up. I needed it. I thrived off of it. I would lie for sure.
The wind lulled enough for me to hear the waves breaking on the lake shore as I curled into the fetal position. I started to drift off but caught myself. I wanted a few more minutes with the night. My time was limited and would end too soon. Monday would come and I would drive my import car with heated leather seats and satellite radio back into the realm of Blackberries and weekly expenditure reports. Monday would bring me back to my cubicle where I would catatonically stare at numbers until it was time to go home to frozen dinners and a lullaby of late night television. I needed every minute of reality I could get. At that moment I was living for something. I was experiencing emotion and sensation. Reality in its most carnal state. Existentialism at its best. I absorbed it all as the cars hissed by on the nearby highway. A rogue breeze swept through the dugout, stirring leaves and wrappers, as if to once again remind me of its presence. Yes, I was cold, but as comfortable as one man could get.
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