Page 35 - The Myth and the Moment

Afternoon

too many times and it stops snapping back. So don’t bend it: don’t let
yourself get so panicked you can’t recover. Just sit on it. Ho-ho-ho!
Dream on. There’s the green; go team, rah-rah-rah!
First trash can into the park: not a likely candidate, but have a look.
Almost full, Styrofoam cups and burger boxes pushing out through
the wire. No papers. Am I playing a hunch or being logical? Or acting
out a delusion to keep my sanity? Later for analysis. Whole families
out here: lifted bodily from equatorial villages and dropped in
MacArthur Park on a Sunday morning (no, it’s afternoon). All of
them simultaneously eating, drinking, smoking, talking, walking, a
choreography of dust motes. Next garbage can: big crushed-up pile
of newspapers on top, a discarded ground cover for a picnic lunch or
a serious snooze. So go through them, get under them.
“Back off, buster.”
“What!?”
Old bum with a shopping cart.
“That’s mine.”
Has a stick with a nail stuck through the end. Pointing at me. No,
at the trash can. Must be his turf, his scavenging domain. Aagh! That
smell! I’ve never been so close to one of these guys, never talked to
them.
“You mean this stuff? Sure, sure, you can have it all. I’m just
looking for something of mine that might have been thrown in here.
I’ll be done in a minute.”
“No. You back off.”
“Now, wait a minute. I’m being reasonable, so you can be
reasonable, too, damn it. You don’t have a license to fish through
garbage cans in this city, and neither do I. We’ll both accomplish our
goals if we co-operate, don’t you see? Look, I’m obviously not after
the same things you are: see, my hands are empty; I don’t carry a
bunch of shopping bags around with me.”
Uh-oh. The stick is not wavering. I’m dealing with a dog whose
fangs are bared.
“Back off.”
One scratch and I’ve got tetanus. If he bites me it’s rabies. Slowly,
slowly, slowly now: not backing off exactly, but edging off sideways,
hands at sides, palms open. The universal gesture of harmlessness.
“Okay. Okay. It’s all yours.”

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