writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

UNION SQUARE PARK

Mel Waldman

    Sometimes I sit in Union Square Park and study the college kids, but my mind drifts off to the past-an imaginary past called the ‘good old days’ which never existed-merely illusory collections of false memories and desperate reconstructions, and when I continue on this private journey, I seem to reach a fork in the road and always, I take the dark road so that eventually I recall the worst moments-days-years of my life, and these recollections compel me to retreat deeper into self-reflection and I am lost in a counterclockwise labyrinth of unbearable pain. But that’s not the worst of it.

    I sit in Union Square Park and remember when I couldn’t be here. But now it’s safe, I suppose, with the muggers, junkies, dealers, and other criminal types gone. (Still, you never know about terrorists. They could be anywhere. And who knows what bodies they inhabit? Remember, you can’t go by appearances. Evil’s everywhere. Just look closely.)

    It’s a dog day afternoon. The sun’s blazing and I’m getting a fine tan. And once again, I drift off to the chimerical past and future, almost in a hypnotic trance. From time to time, I come out of my self-induced spell and study the people in the park. I check them out, and speculate who might be a terrorist, an old fashioned criminal, or a psycho freak. And then I disappear in reverie.

    In the distance, I see a familiar stranger. I don’t recognize him. Yet suddenly, I sweat profusely and am assaulted by a loud, violent noise that covers my head and face and chest. I cry out but no one hears me. My head whirls around in anguish and unreality and I suspect I will faint any moment. The primitive noise is amplified, crushing my skull and chest, for it is my naked heart beating almost at the speed of light, it seems, rushing toward a cliff and then deep into an abyss. A bout of vertigo grips me and I fall into the darkness.
    I forget who or where I am. Yet I know that I do not exist except as an object of his evil perception. Trapped inside his dark visions, I shrink into an alien ball of despair.
    No matter where I hide, he finds me inside this womb of darkness. Before he grabs me, I smell his foul breath. The giant reeks of evil. I smell his scorching hot Scotch exhaled and launched from the twisted mouth of a soulless man.
    He grabs the other. But he never catches me. He beats the other. I am numb. From a distant place, I hear the boy’s shrieks. His pain is intolerable. He does not understand. Nor do I.
    What occurs next is so perverse and evil, it is buried deep inside the other. The memory must never rise to the surface of consciousness. The truth must never be revealed to him or me.
    The giant leaves the boy behind, contaminated by unnatural scents and alien perceptions. I keep him company.
    Later, the woman arrives, after the heinous crimes have been committed, opens the locked door, and sets him free. Yet he will never be free.
    Still, she cleans him up and nurses him back to health. And magically, she fills him up with hope and helps him forget. They laugh together. He is transformed into a true-blue hope-addict. Born again, he rises from his little coffin. He loves his foster mother, his Savior. Wishes she was his real mother who died when he was born. But she’s not flesh and blood, nor is her husband. And he never knew his real father or what happened to him.
    But now, for a short while, he’s happy, especially when she kisses him on his forehead and reveals her eternal love for him. He believes. (I do not. I am far away.)
    It happens again and again. The giant returns. Reeking of Scotch, he commits heinous acts, fueled by a fierce unnatural heat. He violates the other, destroying his body, mind, and soul. (I watch silently.) And always, the woman arrives too late, shooting false hope into the boy’s veins. And nothing more.

    Momentarily, I open my eyes and gaze at the others. It’s a fine day for suicide or homicide. The heat is fierce. If you choose the latter, you can claim temporary insanity due to heat exhaustion.
    My eyes roll across the grass like a big red-white-and-blue ball-punctured and slowly losing air, sluggishly seeking truth and revelation but running out of time. Sweat drips down my brows.
    Nearby, the college kids lie on the grass, or play ball or reinvent the art of seduction, oblivious of the overpowering heat. In the distance, mothers sit in the shade with their babies and toddlers, in the children’s park, glowing triumphantly with infinite expectations.
    Suddenly, I choose my fate, or do I? The heat permeates my skin and then my being, burning a hole in my brain. Still, instinctually a decision is made which indirectly affects the destiny of the people around me.
    From within my scorched brain, a soft distant voice tells me there will be no physical violence today. No flesh will be hurt. Good will triumph over evil at this seething intersection of the space-time continuum. And I simply vanish again, finding comfort in a cool inner space, blocking out the potential violence and heat, forgetting.
    Life is good. I explore a beautiful interior landscape. I’m addicted to hope even though my dreams don’t come true. So far, that’s the worst of it, with all its ramifications, and my flagrant weakness. Yet maybe in some remote way, it’s a strength too, or even an antidote.

    You see, I’m a high-flying hope-addict. And when I fly high, on my personal rollercoaster, recalling magnificent days that never were or imagining a magical future that will change my life, I explode and blast off to a faraway galaxy and there’s this glorious rush and it’s like I’m alive for the very first time, and I never want this feeling to go away, so I recharge my brain with visions of splendor and fly higher and higher, until I’m blissed out on endorphins, electrified with adrenalin overload and absolutely smashed on other esoteric-psychedelic-mystical stuff my enlightened body is spontaneously producing and now for sure, I’m ready to conquer the world, talk to God, and advise Him on the state of the universe and Jesus Christ, He’s got a lot of explaining to do, when suddenly, in all my glory and power, my heart starts beating faster and faster, rushing away from me, and I can’t keep up with it nor catch my breath, even though I’m obviously much stronger than Superman and maybe equal to God, and I think I’m gonna die but I don’t and in one horrific nanosecond, I crash!
    I crash! I fall far toward earth, from outer space and unknown galaxies, and rush across alien universes, approaching earth but apparently intersected by a gaping black hole of despair which devours me, crushing my spirit, and an ancient voice assaults me, shrieking primitive commands of violence. But only for a short while.
    I’m a hope-addict! Got a large empty coffin-Union Square Park- full of hope. I lie in my golden coffin under the sun’s glorious canopy and know that Jesus Christ shall rise again. Hallelujah! Amen! God is good! And I believe! Yes, I believe! Oh, Jesus, I feel it and I believe!



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...