I turn around, lit storm clouds eclipsing the top of Empire State, start out the park way I came in. What’s this? Feel sick, stomach cramp and cold head sweat and chills, rest against a lamppost, try to close the umbrella, can’t, try, too weak to and it drops out of my hand, I didn’t let it go, wind drifts it a few feet off the ground a few feet, lets it go, rolls on its rib tips along the path several cycles, off it to I-can’t-see-where when I hear its handle hit up against a tree trunk — if that’s it. My nose itches and I close my eyes, open my mouth, suck in air, can’t sneeze. Cramps, chills, sweat and weakness are gone. Feet freezing, shoes and probably socks steeped through, turned-up cuffs caught some snow. I empty them. Strange night. Helene, my divisiveness, this weather, my seventeen-second flu. Jogger. Sloshing past in tank top, cap and shorts adding his or her part to it. Wouldn’t be surprised to look up and see the sky full of stars and unfettered moon. Un what? Where these words come from sometimes? I suppose I meant of clouds and unfetid might be better. Must have picked it up from one of the hundred or so Hasenai love poems I went over the last two days.
I look up, grateful to be well again. Snow that stops right before my eyes, a last flake, which I blow at to keep aloft. Then rain. I go after the umbrella. For the use it’ll give me after the time I find it, weighed against how much wetter I’ll get during the search, it’ll be worth it. But must have been blown farther in or annexed in neutral territory, since it’s not where I thought I heard it land. “Anyone around here—” No, nobody would say for a variety of reasons. It was a cheap umbrella, bought in front of a subway kiosk during a torrential downpour, May waiting inside for me to rescue her and bring her home partly dry, better or different days. Oh dear, so many women, so many girls, such a long life with them and most times just servicing for us while being one of their boys. I don’t know, but got about a dollar thirty-five a year use out of it and May’s great smile and approbation for being a sport. But get home and to bed or at least to a—
“Pardon,” gray beard, man says, hand out, no hat, also soaked and unseasonably clothed and by the sound his feet make against the water running off the path, though I don’t want to look, barefoot.
“Sorry but I already have with my last change to that guy on the bench there and I’m feeling a bit sick besides.”
“A dollar would help.” Oh would it my answer looks. “Thought it being around Thanksgiving time—” Sympathy my head shakes. “What’s a buck these days anyway and I’m awfully hard up.” A buck’s something to me my finger points. “No problem,” and as if it isn’t raining and hasn’t been and sleeted and snowed, walks into the park, is barefoot but on the other just a sock, stops at a trashcan, picks around, I don’t want to watch anymore but my mind walking away with me sees him digging deeper till out leaps a rat with cocked teeth.
Pay phone at the corner. Now I can say with some authority as they say why most of the street booths have been removed and can assume that all will be replaced with these reasonably soon. Only enough cover under this one for one’s head and hands and I run to it, thinking I have to have a dime or its nickel equivalent somewhere, but don’t. Do a dollar as a woman passes, plus the napkin with pâté. “Excuse me,” wrapping the napkin tighter and putting it in my side coat pocket, “but can you change a dollar bill for me?”
“No,” keeps going.
“It’s very important. My child in the hospital. I have to see about him. We’re split, my wife and I, and my kid who lives with her got hit—”
Has slowed down, stops, pauses, turns around, starts back.
“By a bicycle.”
“I’m sorry. A bike might sound like a comical thing to get hit with but I know it can be bad. I bet it was going the wrong way.”
“No, my son was, but the bike was going very fast and never stopped.”
“Hit and run? That could also be a joke if nobody had been hurt.” She’s dressed right for the rain, sleet and snow though all have stopped. Feels inside the quilted coat pockets while I look around for a trashcan nearby for the pâté, unsnaps a pocket off the coat and shakes it out into her palm. Keys, coins, candy or antacid mint and three tissue-wads roll out. “Didn’t think I did and I seem to have lost my little koala bear keyring. Here’s a dime.” Throws the mints into the street and turns the pocket inside out and back again. “Darn. In fact take both dimes in case the phone company bungles your first call or you need to talk more.”
“Take the dollar.”
