Wicker Park

The fountain is empty except for some dead leaves, but the sun is bearing down upon the benches circling the park's centerpiece. I find a seat just beyond the shade beside a man with a bag of chips and a book. Looking around, my eyes will pass over some people, whose days will continue on unnoticed by me. Other participants in this scene I will notice for no particular reason.

For instance, a tan dark-haired woman sits reading in the sunlight. She wears a red coat and a red headband in her short wavy hair. It's the same haircut my mom wore in the early 90's. There are deep lines in her face, but they're not the fine lines that hang off the sagging skin of an old woman. They're tight crevasses in firm skin that has been aged by weather; they sit on her face like valleys in a dessert. A younger man and woman who are holding hands come and greet her. Hugs are exchanged and a brown paper bag is pulled from a satchel as all three settle back on the bench. 

Some people will impose themselves into my conscious coincidentally. Some people will impose their existence onto everyone else around the fountain shamelessly. Some people are noteworthy quite by accident.

A couple sits in silence. She sits on a bench holding a book open, but she is looking across the fountain. Her eyes are hid behind dark sunglasses. He is squatting on the curb beside her. His hands are folded and his face is drawn. They don't speak or look at one another.

"Colin! Colin, no!" A little boy turns and waddles back toward his mother. She has interrupted his game, but her only instructions are to stay close so it resumes shortly. His high voice chirps and chatters unintelligibly as he totters around, a puffy coat threatening to topple beneath stubby legs.

A crowd of poorly clad people, several in wheelchairs, are making a ruckus on the two benches closest to the park building. At first I find their noise unnerving, but as I look I am subdued. Laughter and  loud shouts of joy carry around the fount.


My attention is drawn to a gangly boy walking along the rim of the fountain. His khakis are dirt-stained but he is clean. He stops after a while and turns around. Dad is right behind him, walking the rim of the fountain like a tight rope, and he continues forward. Dad's jeans have holes and his T-shirt is faded. There's a dog leash in his hand, on the end of which a shaggy brown dog trots beside him. "Dad, how are you balancing like that?" "Walter is helping me," Dad declares as he totters on the fountain rim and his son jumps into the empty bowl. They make it around the rim before a woman in a long coat sits on the edge of the fountain, talking to two men.

Across the fountain, the trio with the lady in the red coat sit in silence, each with a book in their lap. Heads are bowed identically in the sunlight.

Colin really can't resist following Dad, Walter, and Son around the fountain as they take off on a race. He giggles, tottering after until his mother calls him back. Dad walks around the people sitting on the edge, but then he is back on the fountain rim. Dad isn't young. His hair has grey flecks but his demeanor is youthful. He calls for his aged dog to hurry along as he races Son back to the starting point.

Son jumps into the bowl to get around the woman on the edge, and though she looks at him they do not speak as he passes her.

The ruckus by the building rises again as there is an animated discussion about a marriage. A woman in a leather jacket gets up to make a point and someone else takes her seat as the group reorganizes like a flock of geese squawking as they bumble past one another.

Mom and Sisters show up as Dad sits on the ground on the fountain, Walter on one side, Son on the other. "Boys only!" He insists as Sisters start talking simultaneously. Son and Sisters take off on a race. The woman with the long coat hesitantly gets up from her seat on the edge as the children jump in the bowl to go around her. But before long they are on foot, breaking their self-made rules as they race on level pavement to reach Mom, Dad, and Walter first.

There is some loud laughing debate about who has won and the woman in the long coat looks over with her two companions. There is a teasing note carried on the wind toward me and the three burst into mean laughter. I decide I don't like them. They are dressed in recycled clothes with unshaven faces and messy hair. In another place they may have been friends with Mom and Dad and Walter. There is no Burberry or Prada on Mom or Dad. Dad wears sunglasses and I suspect he doesn't quite feel his age, but his children, wife, and dog look happy. The three who laugh don't seem to share smiles of joy. Their humor is at someone else's expense. They are old enough to be parents, but I wonder what their occupations are: weekend busker? resident snob? smelly bar local?

Colin is racing himself in circles around the fountain now. I hear him scream "winnnninnnnng" as he passes.

Across from me the man and woman with the books rise. They say goodbye to the woman in the red jacket. I wonder where the brown paper bag went.

Dad Mom Walter Son and Sisters take their leave to get pizza. Quiet follows their absence and the woman in the long coat and her friends are happily seated on the edge of the fountain again. Now, with the exception of the noisy group by the building who are finding great amusement in regaling tales of "the guy you play chess with, yeah him, his wife," it is quiet. We all stay seated on our respective benches. A jogger passes through, and a richly dressed family with heels and Jersey accents walk through, but there are no permanent interruptions to our solitude. We can all sit in our cloud of hipster ignorance and continue believing our single, childless lives are deserving of this solitude.