by S. G. Browne
If only I’d been smart enough to figure this out before I decided to screw it all up.
While I’ve never been to Paris, I’m guessing it’s the only city in the world that’s a more romantic place to spend Valentine’s Day than Manhattan. In addition to all of the restaurants, nightclubs, and museums that offer the opportunity to ignite or rekindle your love, you can canoodle at the top of the Empire State Building, hold hands while ice skating at Rockefeller Center, go window-shopping at Tiffany’s, take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, and, of course, go for a stroll through Central Park.
If you have someone to romance, that is. If you didn’t screw up your relationship and aren’t single and pathetic and lonely.
It’s been more than two months since I’ve seen Sophie, and my hopes that we can reconcile dim with each passing day. Still, that doesn’t keep me from imagining various scenarios where I sweep her off her feet with roses or poetry or a steady job with benefits.
For the past five years I’ve spent Valentine’s Day with Sophie. But this year, rather than canoodling, skating, or strolling, I’m panhandling at the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, sitting near the arcade with a sign that says:
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE . . . AND CHOCOLATE
I know I’m recycling one of my other panhandling signs and substituting chocolate for Ben & Jerry’s, but my creativity has waned of late. Besides, what better way is there to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with love and chocolate?
So far my take for the day is pretty good. The near-record winter temperatures help, but it’s a lot easier to make money when your targets are men and women drunk with love, who tend to lose their inhibitions when it comes to emptying their pockets. Especially if they’re trying to impress their dates.
Twenty feet away from me, Marcus the Magnificent, the reigning magician of Central Park, performs tricks for the sweethearts and passersby, many of whom have stopped to enjoy his show. He’s already done his coin and card tricks. Now he’s doing his Professor’s Nightmare rope trick, soon to be followed by his Rainbow Handkerchief trick, and he’ll eventually work his way up to his grand finale, where he makes everyone’s money disappear. As usual, he has his spectators enthralled and manages to elicit laughter and the occasional ooh and aah.
Marcus can sometimes be a bit of an asshat, but when it comes to putting on a good show, he knows how to bring it.
On the opposite side of the Terrace, a bearded homeless man in dirty khakis, a sweatshirt, a yellow rain slicker, and a wool ski cap sits on a bench watching the magic show and eating a hot dog. I suppose he could be an eccentric millionaire who doesn’t give a shit about fashion, but from the looks of it I’m guessing he’s homeless. Could be he’s been at it a while or maybe this is his new reality, but becoming homeless isn’t something that just happens to strangers and people who are screwups or mentally ill. It can happen to anyone. And it happens more often than you’d think.
You need a lot of money to survive in this world, at least in the United States, and most definitely in New York City, where the rent alone on a one-bedroom apartment could feed an entire village in Ethiopia for a week. But no matter whether you’re living in a city or on a tree-lined suburban street or on a quiet piece of property out in the sticks, no one is immune to life-altering financial hardship.
All it takes is an accident or an illness, getting divorced or downsized, losing all of your life savings due to bad advice or a bad investment and the next thing you know, you can’t pay your bills. Your insurance costs pile up. You get behind on your mortgage or you can’t cover your rent. Before you know it, you’ve lost everything and instead of trying to figure out which bills to pay, you’re trying to figure out where you’re going to live.
I watch the homeless guy with bad fashion sense and wonder what his story is, how long he’s been on the street, and if there’s some way I can help him—not by inviting him to sleep on the couch at Charlie’s but maybe by sharing my Valentine’s Day bounty with him or teaching him some basic panhandling skills.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been living by the mantra WWSD: What would Sophie do? It helps me feel like I’m still doing something useful without accessing my superpower, which I’ve managed to keep subdued for the past several weeks using a combination of meditation and self-control, and by avoiding clinical trials that involve medications for sleep disorders. It’s the new me. I don’t know if it’s much of an improvement, but it feels like I’m pointed in the right direction.
Just think of me as a new superhero. Captain Panhandler, defender of the homeless and champion of slackers. Able to make awesome cardboard signs with a single Sharpie.
In a way I’m channeling my own version of Sophie, only without the yellow chiffon skirt and fairy wings.
I’m about to get up and go spread my proverbial pixie dust when a sexy redhead approaches me, dressed in the color of Valentine’s Day and temporarily distracting me from my noble purpose. She’s wearing a form-hugging red silk sweater, a short red skirt, red tights, and red midcalf boots. She stops a few feet away and looks down at me over the top of her red sunglasses.
“I like your sign,” she says.
“Thanks.” It’s all I can think of to say. One word, six letters, one syllable. It’s as if her breasts have short-circuited my brain.
I once heard that a man’s level of intelligence drops significantly when he’s talking to an attractive woman. If that’s the case, then I just went back to remedial school.
“How’s business?” she asks.
“Not bad,” I say, attempting to raise my IQ. “Love is a pretty easy sell, especially on Valentine’s Day.”
I gesture toward the couples sharing personal space with one another, walking past and sitting by the fountain, getting all googly-eyed and schmoopie-pied.
“I prefer chocolate myself,” she says.
“So I take it no moon has hit your eye like a big pizza pie.”
“Not yet,” she says, then she opens her red handbag and tosses a twenty-dollar bill into my hat. “But you know what they say: In true love, destiny awaits.”
I just stare at her, unable to even offer up a thank you for the Andrew Jackson.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she says, then walks over and sits down next to the homeless guy with the hot dog and starts talking to him.
I pull out my wallet and remove the fortune I received at the Buddhist temple. I already know what the fortune says, but I still have to check it, just to be sure. Then I glance over at the redhead as she sits with the homeless man, who spreads his arms in a grand gesture like he’s making a point about something. A moment later he starts laughing like the redhead said something hilarious. The redhead never once glances over at me or gives any indication that she’s aware of the connection between her words and the fortune I keep in my wallet.
In true love, destiny awaits.
I read the fortune once more before returning it to my wallet. While I still have my doubts about the whole destiny thing, considering how well it’s worked out so far, I can’t help but think that someone or something is trying to make sure I get the message that I’m supposed to be with Sophie. It’s not like I need a whole lot of convincing, but at this point, it’s not up to me. It’s up to Sophie. And I don’t think she’s getting the same cosmic memo.
I continue panhandling, scoring some pocket change and singles, with the odd fiver thrown in, when the redhead walks away from the homeless guy and saunters past me.
“Thanks for the donation,” I say.
She gives me a smile and a wink before she disappears into the shadows of the Bethesda Arcade.
When I look back, the homeless guy has abandoned his bench and is walking across the terrace in the direction of Strawberry Fields. Before he can get away, I grab my hat and my earnings and run after him.
“Hey!” I call out. “Hold up!”
He turns around and watches me approach with a look that’s a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.
>
“I wanted to give you this,” I say, and hand him the twenty bucks Red Hot gave me.
“Why?” he says.
I shrug. “I just thought you looked like you could use the help.”
For a second, I think I’m mistaken. He’s just some slob who needs a shave and a bath. Then his face brightens a little, a wry smile touching his lips as he takes the money. “Thanks.”
This is followed by that awkward silence that always occurs whenever you give a twenty to a stranger in Central Park.
“Hey,” I say. “Do you know how to pick a pitch?”
A week and a half later, on my way to check a few homeless shelters for Vic before heading to Central Park to take advantage of the continuing warm spell, I run into Sophie.
This isn’t one of those figurative moments when we cross paths or metaphorically bump into one another at a local cafe or on some street corner. I actually run into Sophie coming out of Charlie’s apartment and knock her on her ass.
At first I don’t realize it’s her. I just think I’ve knocked over some woman in a sweatshirt and shorts who was unfortunate enough to get in my way. But when I reach down to apologize and help her up off the sidewalk, she looks up at me and our eyes meet. That’s when I realize all of the daydreaming I’ve done over the past several months about what I would say to Sophie when I saw her again hasn’t prepared me for this moment at all.
“Hi,” I say, helping her up.
The excitement and awkwardness of being around her again make it hard enough for me to get out a simple greeting, so I hope the fact that I don’t say her name isn’t weird. I say it about five seconds later just in case, which probably makes me sound like I have brain damage.
“Sophie.”
She brushes herself off, then gives me a look as if she doesn’t recognize me. Her reaction probably has something to do with the fact that my hair has gone completely gray and I haven’t shaved in a couple of weeks.
I half expect her to ask me who I am. Instead she says, “Hi, Lloyd.”
In all my imagined permutations of this moment, I always pictured myself saying something suave or romantic like You look beautiful or You have no idea how much I’ve missed you or But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? What comes out instead is:
“How are you?” I say.
So much for suave and romantic.
“Good. Things have been good,” she says. “How are you?”
Telling her that I’m lost and struggling to keep myself together on a daily basis sounds too desperate, so I go with the gold standard response.
“Good,” I say.
I can tell by her expression that she doesn’t believe me. Probably because I look like I should be taking Centrum Silver.
“How are the boys?” she asks.
This doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to discuss details of my friends burning to death or disappearing with retrograde amnesia, so I tell her they’re fine.
“Are you still at Charlie’s?” she asks, motioning to his apartment building.
I nod. “The landlord thinks I’m Charlie’s stepbrother, so he’s only charging me an extra two hundred a month to stay there until Charlie gets out of the hospital.”
She doesn’t ask me how I’m earning the money to pay for Charlie’s rent, and I don’t tell her. We both know how that discussion would play out.
“How’s Charlie doing?” she asks.
“He’s still in a coma.”
She nods and bites her lower lip and says. “I’m sorry.”
Fortunately the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act provides for Charlie to continue to receive treatment—at least until he regains consciousness and is able to take care of himself or has someone who can take care of him.
Sophie and I stand and stare at each other, neither of us speaking or probably knowing where to go from here, people and traffic moving past, the two of us sharing the same three feet of space but standing on opposite sides of a relationship chasm.
I’m trying to come up with the perfect thing to say, something sweet and poignant that will lift me up and carry me across the divide to Sophie, like a hot-air balloon built for two.
“I should be going,” she says.
And my hot-air balloon deflates and plummets into the abyss.
“Sure,” I say, with a forced smile. “It was good to see you.”
“You too,” she says, and walks away.
I watch her go, thinking I should call out to her, ask her if she’d like to get together sometime for a cup of organic tea or fair-trade coffee. My treat. Instead I watch her go, unable to find the courage, and I realize it’s probably for the best. She deserves someone better than me. Someone who can treat her with honesty and respect and who has the ability to earn a living without taking experimental drugs or wearing a rectal probe.
So much for my destiny.
After running into Sophie I’m feeling maudlin, so I decide to feed that feeling and head down Canal Street to Sara D. Roosevelt Park, past the bench where Randy, Charlie, Vic, Isaac, and I first gathered to test out our superpowers. I stop and look around, remembering how Vic made the douche-bag smoker with the cell phone throw up; then I cut over to Bowery and stand in front of the Royal Jewelry Center and reminisce about our first unofficial foray as superheroes.
I remember the smell of vomit like it was yesterday.
Because I’m feeling awash in nostalgia and sentimentality, I follow Bowery to Fourth Avenue until I reach Union Square, where I stop at a flower stand and buy a red carnation and pay my respects to Randy before heading up Broadway to Madison Square Park. With the early-afternoon sun shining and the mercury threatening to top out in the mid-sixties, the lines at Shake Shack are longer than normal for the last week of February, but I’m not interested in ordering a ShackBurger or any cheese fries.
This is the last place I remember feeling good about my life. I had a girlfriend and a purpose and a group of friends who were at the top of their superhero game. Destiny had come calling and I’d embraced it and made it my own. But when your girlfriend breaks up with you and kicks you out and your friends end up dead, comatose, or missing, or become depressive, obese, pizza-eating hermits, the idea of destiny doesn’t seem like much of a comfort anymore.
I leave Madison Square Park and walk along Fifth Avenue past the Empire State Building, stopping at a nearby Starbucks to order a double latte. While I’m waiting for my drink, I look around and notice a couple of people reading the New York Post. On the cover is the headline:
SUPER POOPER . . .
HEROES ABANDON MANHATTAN
° ° °
For the most part I’ve managed to stay away from reading the papers or watching the news. I don’t want or need the media’s shame heaped on to my preexisting guilt. But every now and then I see a headline or hear a story that makes me feel like I’ve abandoned the people I’d once wanted to help.
In addition to the headlines and stories about us, I’m aware that while there haven’t been any more reports of Mr. Blank’s memory shenanigans, Illusion Man continues to terrorize New York City, branching out into Queens and the Bronx and Brooklyn, leaving no borough safe from his hallucinogenic reach.
The thirty-something guy holding up a copy of the New York Post catches me staring at him.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was just reading your paper.”
He checks the front page as if he can’t remember what the headline said, then opens the paper back up. “Politicians. Professional athletes. Superheroes. They’re all disappointing,” he says. “I guess you can’t count on anybody these days, right?”
Once my latte is ready, I head back outside and continue up Fifth Avenue, planning to cut through Bryant Park to reminisce about some of the good times we had fighting crime there, when I notice emergency vehicles on the street in front of the New York Public Library. An ambulance and a fire engine and a single NYPD cruiser are on the scene as traffic backs up from what looks like an accid
ent involving a couple of taxis.
A crowd has gathered on the sidewalk, so I stop and ask a few people on the outskirts what happened.
“Some homeless guy ran out into the middle of the street and got nailed by a cab,” a guy says. “Caused this whole fuckin’ mess.”
I’m not in the mood to rubberneck, so I leave the gawkers and the chaos of the accident behind and continue on my way, when I see Isaac sitting at the top of the library steps, holding a Starbucks container and watching everyone with that odd little smirk of his.
I stop and stare at him, not sure what I should do. It’s been three months since I last saw Isaac and I don’t know how to feel about seeing him now. On the one hand, he’s a friendly face and someone I’ve known for nearly five years of my life. Maybe not as well as Charlie or Randy or Frank, but still a friend. On the other hand . . .
Isaac sees me and holds up a single hand in a stillborn wave and says, “Hey Lloyd,” as if there’s nothing wrong. As if he didn’t abandon us on Thanksgiving in the hospital where Charlie was in a coma and never called to see what happened to everyone.
On the other hand . . . I obviously still have some unresolved issues about Isaac.
I can’t decide if I should ignore him and keep walking or return his greeting. Eventually I do neither and sit down on the steps next to him a few feet away—the two of us drinking our coffee, not saying anything, the promising blue sky above us a contrast to the aftermath of the accident on Fifth Avenue.
“You’ve gone gray,” Isaac says, breaking the silence.
I shrug and hope he doesn’t say anything about how it makes me look distinguished.
“Charlie’s still in a coma,” I say. “In case you were wondering.”
Isaac just nods and drinks his coffee, the silence settling over us once more as the lifeless body is loaded into the ambulance.
“And Randy and Blaine are dead,” I say.
