It’s a lovely morning. I’m in the park after taking Stella through her routine(s) and sipping my coffee, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a half-naked man and three clueless police officers.
I first noticed him walking toward a fountain, kind of twitching and twerking and jerking his body. He stumbled over a bump in the sidewalk but managed to twerk things around and maintain his balance as he headed to the Starbucks counter. The woman taking orders took one look at him and shut the window. Quick assessment and correct decision on her part.
Now the half naked tweaker starts knocking on and then pounding on the window. Three police officers on bicycles swarm out of nowhere. One from the right – one from the left – one dead center. A triangle trap. The tweaker has no awareness of them as he slowly backs away from the window, trips again on a space in between cement slabs and pebbles and plops down on his half exposed rumpus.
It’s here that I should add a description of said tweaker’s appearance. He’s shirtless, exposing a lean and cut torso. Not an ounce of fat anywhere. Mid-twenties. Blonde curly yet not disheveled hair. Dirty socks highlighted by a few gauges and dried blood. He’s wearing jeans that are ripped at both knees, crotch and derrière. Not about to make assumptions on any of that other than his lean and cut torso I wish I could borrow for just one day in my lengthy life. Just one. Oh plus the courage to expose it in public. In short, the young man looks like Brad Pitt if Brad Pitt was high on crystal meth stumbling aimlessly around a park in Philadelphia with no definitive destination.
So that’s the tweaker.
Now let’s turn to the three police offers on bicycles that keep a bit of distance from the tweaker. They get off their bikes and ask questions, but I’m not close enough to hear any of them. Probably asking if he’s alright … which he clearly is not. Where is he headed? Where does he live? Nothing relevant like so what are you riding today?
Then Mister T kind of stumbles right through them and sits then lays out on a bench near the grassy part of the park and folds his arms across his (again) perfect torso. He appears to be sun bathing and relaxing sans a few arbitrary twerks or twitches every few seconds. The police don’t know what to do and I don’t know the law enough to know if there’s anything they can do. He’s not violent. If anything his signs of struggle are self-induced. He’s not yelling or even speaking for that matter, or even aware of the world around him. He’s truly the center of his universe. It’s just spinning faster than everybody else’s.
I wish something else happened but nothing did. Bored, I took a picture and went home reminded of a poem by William S. Burroughs that was similar but with a whole lot more action called Scandal at the Jungle Hilton. Listen to it sometime. If you’ve never listened to anything by Burroughs drop what you’re doing. He’s worth it. The scene in the park was perhaps life imitating art but on a scaled down version. Burroughs’ stories make this one seem rather mundane.
But every story needs a good ending. It’s what you learn in school. As to not leave you dangling, before I got to my building I saw this and offer no explanation but I started humming …
you’re gonna make it after all.