Harvard Summer Review: An Afternoon in the Park

1999 Harvard Summer School Writing Program

An Afternoon in the Park

Henry Coven took the thick turkey sandwich and baby carrots from the paper bag next to him on the park bench. He was sick of his parents' friends and their petty questions: Where are you going to school, Henry? What do you want to do after college? Do you have a girlfriend, champ? All he wanted was to be with real people, away from the black-tie parties, and polo shirts, and gold watches, and endless dinners with family friends acquired during his father's tennis days. He had come to the park by Washington Monument--an island of trees and grass inside a block of city sidewalk--to feel some inkling of the community he had lived in for 17 years.

Henry took a bite of the sandwich and set it down again on the paper bag. He flipped the pages of the New Yorker magazine on his lap. Looking to his right, Henry saw a black man engaged in lively conversation with a white man--both in dusty work clothes--on the next bench over. He turned his nose again towards the magazine, poking a stubby finger between his eyes to adjust his glasses. Without turning his eyes from the magazine, Henry removed a baby carrot from the plastic bag next to his sandwich. He chewed it slowly while turning pages with his other hand.

He heard feet scraping the pavement and glanced up at a dirty man in a soiled T-shirt and canvas pants with a backpack strapped to his shoulders. The man was addressing an unseen audience as he watched his own feet measure steps on the sidewalk. He paid no attention to his surroundings, gesturing with a grubby palm for emphasis in his monologue. Henry could not tell how old he was, but guessed around 50 from the scraggly beard and gray hair dashed with red that cascaded around his small features. He had dirt in the cracks of his callused fingers, and in his face and hair, and wore a look of such painful helplessness that it seemed fits of tears would overtake him with the slightest suggestion of his misfortune. The man seemed to know pain, and Henry envied this depth of emotion.

As the man talked, a woman in a loose summer dress passed between him and Henry. The stroke of brilliant flowers on her dress must have caught the man's eye, for he turned his head wistfully, as if he imagined her lips brushing his face. Henry fixed on the woman's forehead, shining from the early-spring Baltimore heat. When he was six, he had seen a short Asian man whose bald head shone with sweat and remembered thinking it the most beautiful thing in the world, like a perfect sphere or an undisturbed lake.

Henry looked back down at the magazine. The woman's flowered dress nearly brushed his blue jeans as she passed him, but he pretended not to notice. The man was muttering to himself again, and Henry strained to hear what he was saying. Beginning to feel comfortable in the park, Henry considered striking up a conversation with him. But the thought made Henry nervous. And when the man's voice rose, Henry stared at the magazine as if he didn't hear him.

When he looked up again, the man was walking directly towards him, so Henry tried to smile casually and said a quick "Hi." But he immediately realized his mistake, for the man started and looked dazedly around him. His face flushed a deep red, and he shook as if he were having a seizure. Blinking and twitching, and with legs stiff like scissors blades, the man charged at Henry's bench, stopping only inches from his feet. Bending at the waist, he brought his dirt-stained face down to Henry's, wrinkling his eyes and tilting his head as if he were confused about something. Henry closed the magazine.

"Are you my friend?" the man queried breathily, contorting his features. Henry saw his black teeth and inhaled deeply to calm himself. The man's breath smelled like excrement.

Henry stuttered: "I-I'm sorry . . . I don't think I understood--"

"Are you my friend? Would you give me everything you have?"

Henry couldn't help thinking he didn't agree with this definition of "friend." "But I didn't--"

"Would you give me your foooood?"

"You can have some if you want." Henry groped to his left and held up a shaking plastic bag of baby carrots, terrified the man might reach his grimy hand in and take one. But he only squinted more intensely. Henry put the carrots down again on the bench.

The man growled unsteadily: "Would you give me your paper?"

His voice cracked and squeaked a crescendo on "paper."

Henry looked down at the magazine's emboldened title.

"Do you think I don't know how to read because of my clothes? Because I don't sleep in a bed? Do you think I've never heard of that fancy paper?" The man removed one of the straps of his backpack with a spasm of his shoulder, swinging the bag in front of him. He tore open the zippered pouch with both hands and began to tug at something inside the bag. Henry was about to scream for the men on the next bench when the man ripped the object free and sent a flutter of pages towards Henry. A magazine slapped the back of the bench to Henry's right and landed next to him on the seat. Henry recognized the bold lettering of a faded edition of the New Yorker.

"I'm sorry," Henry said. The mist of anxiety in his chest had turned to hot wax and oozed into his stomach. A breeze swished the trees and felt cool on his forehead. Looking down, Henry noticed the uneven stains under his arms. The men to his right had stopped talking and he felt their eyes, probably as they laughed and passed jokes between them.

The man swung the backpack over his shoulder again. "You're sorry? You know you were wrong?" He acted curious. "What are you going to do later? Are you going home? Are you going to eat dinner with your mother? Play the piano?"

Henry hesitated and shook his head, not understanding.

"You have a nice mother, don't you? She's very pretty, isn't she?" The man's voice inflected to a high whine. "And your father, what does he do?"

"Uh . . . He's a--He does legal work," Henry answered.

"A lawyer? So daddy's a lawyer? It's okay. I've heard of lawyers before. I've even met a few. Your mommy must be so nice. She's so pretty, isn't she? She picks you up at school in that nice car your daddy bought her, doesn't she?"

Henry remembered when he was a child riding back home late at night with his parents, and his father would look ahead sternly at the wheel, barking about how disappointing the evening was, and why had Henry ruined it being so sensitive about his weight, and Henry would lay his head between his mother's back and her seat to protect him from the dark.

"You kids always have a pretty mommy. She takes good care of you. Feeds you well." Henry looked down and scratched his nose. "I'd like to see her--get her to tell me a bedtime story." The man laughed. He was gazing off behind Henry's head now. "I've seen too many pampered boys. I used to go to school with them. I used to work for them. I ate with them." The man was agitated. "I would even joke with them. You all walk around smiling like everyone's your friend. You want me to sit down with you and talk like I'm your friend. You can sob on my shoulder and I'll pat your little head like your mommy. And when I turn around, you're gonna break up laughing, and you can go home and tell your pretty mommy all about the crazy man you met in the park and she'll hold you some more, and tell you she loves you, and kiss your little head. Are you my friend?" The man looked at Henry, his voice escalating. "Are you my friend?"

"I'm sorry."

"Then don't ever say 'hi' to me when you see me on the street," the man erupted, emphasizing the "ever" the way Henry's father did when he punished him as a child and the words "Don't ever do that again" seethed through his teeth with breath and spit.

Henry fought the pain in his throat. "I'm sorry, sir," he resigned. He could tell the man wanted to yell more, to bleed him without touching him, and he stared at Henry with his dry lips parted as if he had struggled, sought, and lost the words, and was reeling in darkness like Henry. And he slowly stepped back, allowing the warm light to pass between them, with a look half surprised and half pitiful, as if he wanted a delicate hand to touch his dirty face. He turned away from Henry and walked towards the corner.

Henry saw the filthy back of the man's leg through a tear in his pants just below where the backpack rested. Henry turned his head, but quickly averted his eyes when they met with the men on the bench to his right. Pressing and gripping his blue jeans, Henry dried his sweaty hand. He nibbled baby carrots. He flipped through the pages of the New Yorker on his lap, settling on a story with a glossy photo of a man in a gray business suit glowing at him off the page. Trying to read, his mind raced. His cheeks were bright red and hot, and he was sweating from embarrassment. Henry looked up and saw the man pacing dizzily. He felt nauseated.

Shutting his eyes, he remembered the woman's flowered dress brushing his knee. He felt her breath on his neck and wanted to breathe close to her face, to breathe with her soft features. He tried to recall her face, but only remembered her forehead shining at him.

Opening his eyes, Henry Coven winced from the keen light of the afternoon sun. He closed his magazine and repacked his lunch. And leaving the man's old magazine on the bench, he walked to the curb to hail a cab.

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