Down in the Park

In the world there is a city. It likes to think of itself as the greatest city in the world. And in this city there is a park. Not its greatest park, but it has a long fine carpet of grass. All around the grass are people speaking all the great languages of this world. […]

In the world there is a city. It likes to think of itself as the greatest city in the world. And in this city there is a park. Not its greatest park, but it has a long fine carpet of grass. All around the grass are people speaking all the great languages of this world. They are___ and ___ and ___. And nothing that you think of.

Around these people around the grass are buildings pointing into a perfect September sky.

A lone brown leaf whirligigs down,

down,

down into the middle of the grass.

Within feet, there is a mother who can’t find her son. His brothers laugh as her voice gets higher. In only minutes, the boy’s back in her arms. There was nothing lost and nothing gained and the boy will never remember this moment. There is a man with his tie sideways, legs splayed. A woman with her eyes squeezed tight against the sun. Beggars begging. A man sips light brown liquid from a soda bottle. It could be whiskey. It could be warm tea. 

A Girl sits down and pushes her hands into her hair. She is not having her prettiest day—having to wake at 5:30 to wait tables in a neighborhood she can’t afford to live in. But she is very pretty in the way that young women always are.

In her lap there is a script—she is memorizing lines for a part in a play. This Girl is trying to become Lydia, a woman who is sad and defeated—a state she has never known. Back in Ohio, the Girl had been treasured. Her father loves her. And her mother told her: “go, make something of your dreams.”

She opens the script. Marks up the white space with notes in green. She writes: I feel that Lydia’s body will sag when her husband leaves her …

The Girl tries to recall what she knows about pain. And mostly, she comes up short. Except. Once she had gone to a dance with an older boy. And after a few sips of vodka in the back of the gym she began to giggle and he to lean in. He touched her–too roughly–and then went off with his friends. She swallowed a sob. Smoothed down her skirt. In that moment, she told herself: this will not be my life.

She found her friend who was flirting with the new boy. She would eventually lose it to this new boy and eventually lose this friend and date the boy on and off all through college. She’d see him at Christmas if she went back home. But she might end up staying in the city with the director of the play in her hands.

The Girl turns to the next page of the script. She reads:

…The kitchen is dark. There is a spotlight over the table. Paul eats from a tray of cold cuts. Lydia grips the edge of the table.

Lydia

Don’t you see me?

Paul stares at the door. Lydia leans toward him. (The Girl writes: Lydia is invisible. But she crosses this out, pressing hard. Lydia wants to be known.)

Lydia

Please look at me.

Paul gets up from the table. Walks to the door. Lydia stands. (No, she sways, the Girl writes.)

Paul

You could come too but you’d have to change.

Lydia

Into what?

Paul shakes his head as he walks out the door. Lydia sinks into her chair.    

The Girl shivers as a breeze ripples through the park. Voices get loud. Get soft and softer still. Louder and louder.  A woman tells her friend to dress sexy for her man. A baby squeals. Beggars beg. A glass bottle rolls off a table. Shatters. A little boy kicks dust at a pigeon again and again and again. The pigeon flaps its wings and flies off. Somewhere west.

A young man in Ohio pauses at a jeweler’s window. He reads the sign: There are 100 days left til Christmas.

Downtown, the director rewrites the last scene of the play. Lydia says: Paul, I’ll change.

The Girl makes one last note: What is the cost of staying? She puts down her pen. Closes the script. Combs back her hair.

She rises.