Patty didn’t stand out, nor did she blend in as she walked past gold-trimmed revolving doors of corporations and alleyways with pigeons picking at trash in open dumpsters. She didn’t look too bad, she noted of her reflection in the blackened glass of Jones and Stellar Bank. The second-hand blouse was a little large on her elfin
frame, but she had knotted its length above the waistband of her slacks, and the mark above her left cheekbone hadn’t blossomed into a full blown bruise from the dictionary that fell from its way too high shelf. Her eye was a little puffy, though, but it stretched and smoothed her crow’s feet appearance on the left side of her face. Patty laughed because it reminded her of facelift “after” pictures like those in magazine articles..
The park was four blocks north on Kennedy Avenue then two to the right on St. James, she overheard a dark-skinned woman with plaited hair tell the little boy she was towing along by his wrist. Patty threw her beach bag over her shoulder and began heading that direction herself.
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“Antoine Jackson,” the large woman said, “Will you quit starin’ all over the place and listen to your mama.” The child’s peach-fuzzed head shifted this way and that, from building to person to jingling paper cup to what was left of an old winter glove lying near the base of a streetlamp. His chubby nubs of legs clomped along the pavement in response to his mother’s pace, and froze once when the pair approached a sidewalk grate. “Ya aint gonna fall through, baby. Come on,” the mother said with a tug that jerked the boy’s feet onto the metal plate.
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“Usdat?” the boy said to his mom a few seconds later. Steam sprouted from a manhole cover between parked cars.
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“That’s icky stuff down there. Smells like a trash can. We almost there. Now keep movin’.”
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Patty was bumped as people crossed St. James in both directions herded together in a rigid band. “Shhh,” she said, pulling her bag towards her stomach. “It’s okay. I got you.” Cars made turns between the pedestrians and the mother and child were lost from her view until she reached the park. They were sitting on the granite ledge at the base of a fountain.
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“I wanna go dere. I wanna go dere.” Antoine’s voice carried over the swooshing sound of falling water. He was pointing to a playground filled with sandbox, swings, monkey bars and kids.
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“Okay. Okay. Go, but don’t you get yourself lost,” the mother said. The boy bolted.
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Patty sat on the granite ledge, herself, a few feet away from the pair and a few feet further away from a man leafing through the day’s paper, a large cup from the local coffee house beside him. A woman hunched over a shopping cart filled with bags then stopped beside a trash can and began leafing through its contents. “It’s okay little guys,” Patty said, setting the bag between her loafers, a penny in each shoe. She untwisted a sandwich bag tie from the place where a snap would have normally held it shut, and drew the sides open. “A little fresh air is good for the babies, isn’t it?”
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“Dang kids,” the woman said rummaging through her purse. “Ya got a light?” she asked, turning to Patty with a wrinkled cigarette in hand. “No. Sorry. I don’t even have my purse with me.” Patty held a crooked finger to her lips and tapped her pucker twice. “Got a couple of puppies in here sleeping. Found ‘em in a trash bag at the bottom of a fire escape.”
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“Ah, found a pack of matches,” the woman said. It took her three tries before she finally got her cigarette lit.
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A light wind shifted, misting the women with fountain spray. “It’s a rainbow,” Patty said of its prism effect. The woman ignored her and the man with the newspaper moved so that his back and coffee were now on the other side.
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“That’s smart not bringing a purse witcha,” the woman said inhaling a swirl of menthol smoke.
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“Can’t trust nobody around here.”
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“Well, it wasn’t really my choice. I mean, I left it at home. Forgot it,” Patty said. She twisted herself on the granite, brushing at dirt that wasn’t on her slacks.
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“Antoine, you be nice to that little girl there, ya hear?” the woman hollered to her child playing in the sandbox. She turned towards Patty. “Ooooh, your eye’s red. Ya staying at a shelter like that healing haven place, or the one in the church basement?”
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"No. Dictionary at the library did this. I’ve been taking the babies in with me,” Patty said, running her hand down the side of her bag then patting it. “I’m just glad it didn’t hit one of them.”
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“I been to the healing haven one twice and the one in the basement, too. I can’t remember what they call that one, but most everyone there is crazy. Them people belong in some nut house, or somethin’.” The woman’s thick neck bulged as she shook her head from side to side and flapped her forearms up and down like she were trying to fly. “When I was pregnant with him,” the woman went on while pointing at her son who was racing another boy towards the only vacant swing, “His daddy got me right here.” She mocked pushing back a sleeve on her right arm and extended it, made a fist, then drew it back below the logo on her t-shirt.
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“He punched you in your stomach while you were pregnant?”
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“Uh, huh.”
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Patty was misted again by falling water and turned, towards waves in the shallow pool blurring pennies in various stages of tarnish. “Easy, guys, easy.” The woman patted the side of her bag then adjusted its straps to one side.
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“Come on, Anotoine. Come on over here. We gotta be going.” The woman waved towards the boy.
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“Hasn’t his dad ever been arrested?”
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“Oh, yeah. After this last time, he was. Called the police and he in jail now.” The woman got up and started walking towards the play area. “Come on, Antoine. We’s goin’ now,” she called to the boy and grabbed him around his wrist. They walked towards the crosswalk at Kennedy and St. James, the child’s feet clomping, trying to keep pace.
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Patty reached in the pool and scooped up a handful of coins. She pulled the old pennies from her loafers and replaced them with bright wet new ones then dropped the remaining in her bag. “Mamma’s gonna buy you boys some milk now,” she said consoling two balled up socks in the bottom of her bag.
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