Yet when Goody Bathtub and I join forces we inevitably end up at the intersection of “WTF?” and “Beyond Strange.”
Instead, we make an unordinary evening, a night filled with so many aberrations you’re certain it isn’t real, that a rare quality surrounds only tonight. You’re wrong. It will happen again.
We took our dumplings and sesame pancake-sandwich (“panwich,” henceforth) to the long, narrow Sara D. Roosevelt park area. We identified an empty bench as suitable and dined on it al fresco.
To our right, a man with a baseball cap stiffly leaned over his bench, his left leg resting across the bench's dark green slats and his right planted firmly on the ground. “Asleep?” I asked GB. She shrugged. “Dead,” I nodded. Later, a scruffy, duffle-bag carrying man wearing a Gatorade tshirt stood beside Dead Guy and somehow injected life into him. Dead Guy sprung up from his supine position and engaged Gatorade in conversation (about the contents of Gatorade's bag, no doubt). Aha, his name was actually “Rip van Winkle;” we corrected ourselves.
Not to be outdone, a Chuck Norris-clone wearing a black cowboy hat and tattered Red Sox tshirt occupied a nearby bench. An open rolling suitcase lay splayed before him on the pavement. He burrowed through, a squirrel searching for nuts, resituating every shirt and pair of jeans.
“Is that his suitcase?” I asked aloud. Rip van Winkle remained asleep.
“I’m not so sure,” said GB, already overwhelmed by the ambiguously homeless lot around us, and, of course, her scrumptious dumplings.
“I don’t think so. Maybe they belong to whoever he killed.”
He kept searching, touching, handling the plain clothes as though they weren't for his body. A few times he stood and paced in a circle, holding a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. Plotting his next move: Do I take the clothes? Do I wear them? Should I leave them here for someone to find? But what about the fingerprints?
I turned toward him between panwich bites and then, suddenly, a large water bottle hurtled in my direction. I saw the flick of his wrist the moment he released it, at me, to kill me. When his water bottle missed its mark (me), he called out, “I didn’t mean to almost hit ya!” I turned back to GB and finished my panwich in silence--for fear that I'd be permanently silenced. (JK!)
But then the king of the evening came along. Mr. Kung Fu, a forty-ish Hispanic man, wore a biker’s outfit—bright yellow tight-fitting top with equally snug biker’s shorts—and slung a messenger’s bag over his shoulder, parked his bike. And if Mr. Kung Fu sounds impressive, his bike trumps his personal presentation: a mountain bike bound in lime green tape and—as a subtle accent—a flickering red brake light fixed just below the bike seat. Mr. Kung Fu was a serious biker.
“What time is it?” he asked, though his cell phone dangled obviously on his chest.
“7:40,” said GB.
“Do you speak French?”
Mumbles in French
We shrugged at each other. “Uh, no,” I said.
“You’re both so beautiful. So beautiful,” he said, turning slightly to conceal his impish smile.
“Thanks.” We both laughed. The implicit question--Who the fuck is this guy?--was the source of the laughter.
“Such beautiful smiles!” He pointed to his cheeks and pressed in, detonating something somewhere, I imagine.
“Ha, ha. Yeah thanks. We’re both models,” I said. A cool look in his direction.
Face lit up. “Really? I can so believe it!”
“I’m just kidding. We’re not models.”
“Oh but you could be. Do you mind if I stay here? Do you want me to leave?”
“You should do whatever you feel like doing.” I did all the talking as GB maintained a supportive silence. I’d really like you to leave, but will you really leave if I tell you to?
“Muchos gracias.”
“De nada.”
“So you speak Spanish.”
“I don’t.”
People walk by unfazed. They thought GB and I were best buds with the colorful Mr. Kung Fu. Or they didn’t think.
“See this? Do you like this?” Pointed to his leg and made a muscle.
“Your calf muscle?” I asked.
“No, the color.”
“Of your skin?”
“Yes.”
“You know, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. Like Michael Jackson says.”
“Mike Tyson?” Confused look.
“No, Michael Jackson. He died recently.”
“Oh right.” Silence. “Do you think those kids were his?”
GB looked at each other. “No.”
Quick pause, but then he too took to burrowing through his own bag.
“Do you want a cigarette?” He pulled three empty boxes of Marlboro Reds from his messenger bag.
“No thanks.” GB shook her head.
“Hey, do you mind if I sit here?” Motioned to the bench adjacent to our cozy dining area. “I won’t touch you or anything,” he continued.
But he almost touched GB when he reached out and told her she was very beautiful.
“You must know that you’re so very beautiful. Those eyes. Do you see those eyes?” He wanted my opinion.
“Yes, I’ve seen her eyes.”
“They are so wonderful. They’re like this.” He motioned to his own face with an unspecific gesture.
“Yes, just like that.”
“Thailand, China, Singapore, the Phillippines…” He rattled off a list of Asian (or Asian-seeming, perhaps) countries, hoping very hard that GB would nod her head to one of them.
"Do you like her?" he asked me.
Confusion across my face.
"We like each other," said GB.
“Are you married?”
“Yes, I am,” she said, without batting an eye.
“He must be a very lucky guy.”
“He is,” she said.
“I think I could fight him.”
“Maybe you could. I doubt it though,” I said.
He gnarled the fingers of his right hand into a claw. “I know Kung Fu.”
“Is that right?” I asked.
“Yes. I am sure I can beat him. You should tell him that I’m protecting you.”
“I will do that,” GB said and looked at me with her special eyes.
“Well, I think we’re gonna get going now.” I said.
“No, I can leave.”
“No, really. We’re leaving.”
And we left.
As we exited the park, we turned and watched Mr. Kung Fu steer his bike toward some guys who appeared to be his friends. But maybe he thought they, too, wore pretty eyes and sweet facial expressions.
