Tomorrow, I’m going to say something.
The new day hasn’t begun well, and that’s not entirely a surprise. The organic Vitamin-C-and-Zinc tablets in the yellow jars are selling themselves, but my mind is otherwise occupied. The sun is brighter today – none of the half fog / half overcast sky that sullied yesterday – so I ought to be in brighter spirits. My mood so often follows the weather outside the window: bright when it’s bright, grey when it’s grey. But I’ve spent the morning grey when it’s orange, troubled, as I knew I would be, from the moment I awoke, by the memory of the boy.
Memory allows the space for analysis, and in the scope of such analysis I recognize that there are a few features about this child that should, just possibly, not have me in quite such a state over his present circumstances. He’s never looked entirely in top form, not on all the many occasions I’ve seen him. That’s the first reality that sinks in. He’s never been one of those made-up children that urban parents produce as if from a factory or mail-order supply. The kind sculpted out of name-brand ‘playwear’ that’s stain-, wrinkle- and pleasure-resistant, trained to hold their autographed football rather than throw it, ‘because the grass is so dirty, Junior, and leaves marks.’ The boy is rougher than that. A little out of place for the middle of San Francisco, as if the Midwestern prairies had lost one of their member in this peninsular metropolis; and this child, who would have looked at home on an Oklahoma farmstead, had found himself wandering through the cultured greenery a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley. Out of his environment, caught askance out of time, with a body and a posture not quite sure what to make of this different jungle. The kind of boy who inserts himself into a tyre swing and kicks until his feet are above his head and the arcs so high the rope goes slack when it crests. Who sits in the muddiest patch of the field, just to sense what it’s like to feel the liquid sludge seep over his ankles. Who’s never owned a ball, because balls cost money; but has also never wanted one, because he’s always had access to sticks, and sticks are so easily horses, and rocket ships, and swords and sceptres.
But children don’t wander alone from Little House on the Prairie to the Inner Sunset, I know this full well. The fact that he’s not an Abercrombie Child doesn’t mean he’s not from around here. Not everyone in the City on the Bay is rolling in start-up fortunes and Union Square attire, and it’s possible to be poor and haggard in the city. Perhaps more normal than I generally appreciate. It’s the glitter that catches the eye, they say. Beneath it there’s usually a lot more glue and bare cardboard than we care to notice.
I’m stuck in these memories, such as they are. Second day running he’s done that to me. And in the mix of them, I find myself calling back to the most unlikely of things; the one feature that really nags at my attention. To my puzzlement it’s not the blood, not even the bruise. Instead, what troubles me is the fact that he’s never looked me squarely in the face. I’ve often thought this peculiar, even penned it into one of the poems in my notebook. Kids normally look at everything. From the moment their eyes first open children are absorbing the universe, striving to interpret it. Relishing every sight – which to young eyes are usually new sights, never before seen – and adding them to the canvas of their experience of life. What sort of child doesn’t fit this bill?
But this child, this one unique, odd child, has never so much as lifted his eyes up to mine, though I’ve always sat in what is quite clearly his field of vision. Day after day, and not so much as a passing glance or a corner of his eye caught out of a corner of mine. But he’s never had a bloodied arm before, either, or black marks.
My thoughts drift, and I wonder who takes care of him when he leaves the water’s edge, when he makes his way home. Who touches his face and speaks soothing words to him? And why haven’t they bandaged the broken skin?
Every boy deserves soothing words when he’s done himself harm. Soothing words, a bandage, and the love that makes blood a little less terrifying.
LUNCHTIME
With thoughts like these occupying my internal attention, work before lunch sits in my mind like a kind of haze. I’m fairly certain I sold a good stock of pills to several people, at least enough to keep my manager smiling. But I did it all while staring out the glass storefront at the bright sunshine of this new day, only physically present in the little shop. The higher part of me was somewhere else. I was anxious. Anxious to get back to the park and settle my internal bets about the boy’s welfare. I wanted to see if he would be there again. If he was, I wanted to survey his condition; and assuming that it still contained any troubling elements, I was resolved to speak. I had even prepped my remarks in advance so as to be fully prepared for the encounter.
Hi kid. My name is Dylan. I usually sit over there around lunchtime. I would point back towards my bench. I saw you hurt your arms. Are your parents around? Can we get them to take a look at it?
During the night I’d determined this was probably a good approach. Casual, not too confrontational. Caring, I hoped, without being creepy.
But they’re only plans. Burns once wrote a poem about plans – something to do with mice and men. One every poet has to learn. I forget it now, but the gist sticks with me. Plan and plan and plan, and eventually something will come along to best your intentions. So lunchtime has come, and I’m resolved to put my own into immediate action before Burns’s mice have the chance.
I walk towards the park with unusual haste, each foot planted before the next with a few extra inches in my stride. I don’t have the full hour today that I had yesterday – apparently Michael’s new hire has become proficient enough on the till that more extended training isn’t required, so it’s to be my usual forty-five minutes and I want to make the most of it. Today, unlike most days, I actually have things to do.
My ID is already in my hand as I approach the ticket window and hold it up for Anna. She’s the one who works Fridays, whose hair is dyed a hazard-cone orange with roots that are almost black, gelled into little spikes that give her head the overall appearance of a badly spray-painted cactus. There are three slashes boldly shaved at angles through her left eyebrow, which I’m vaguely certain is a signal of something, but I have no idea what (perhaps she’s in a gang? though this seems unlikely. I’m not sure how many gang members have day jobs taking tickets in botanical gardens). Her grey T-shirt says BACK OFF in enormous lettering, and she’s affixed her Welcome to the Botanical Gardens, My Name is Anna and I’m Happy To Help You badge just above the final F of OFF.
Anna glances at my ID with relative detachment. She’s not so much interested in the name, Dylan Aaronsen, or the photograph that is obviously me. Her real interest is in the zip code provided at the end of my address – proof I’m a resident, which she then notes down on a sheet of paper that for some reason charts the number of daily visitors from each zip code in the region. I’ve often tried to imagine why this could be of interest to anyone; but I’ve also taken an oddly irrational pleasure in seeing more tick-marks by my own suburban zip code (94131) than by many others. On other days, I’ve entertained the idea that this says something rare and telling about what kind of people we are in Diamond Heights. The kind of people who like plants more than the Union Square elitists of 94108 and the Mission hippies of 94110. I’ve never seen a single mark next to the zip codes that lie along the beaches. That’s telling, too. Let them have their sand. We 94131’ers like our nature, and enough to travel a good hike to get it.
But today my mind is on other things. I at last step into the gardens, my ID returned to my wallet, and start to walk with purpose. These grounds normally cause me such delight, but today they are simply an avenue towards a destination.
Five