Turn of Mind

The air is balmy and tropical, but the lake water frigid. How it numbs your feet and ankles. Still, there are others who would not be dissuaded. You see heads just above the water, arms reaching up and slicing through the water, a long line of heads attached to shoulders and arms. Bursts of water from the feet, those tiny motors.

The park is nearly as bright as day—the automatic streetlights haven’t switched on. Celebratory howls emanate from the zoo. All the benches are occupied, the pavements crowded. And dogs everywhere, running, rolling, chasing balls and Frisbees, frolicking in the shallow waves. The fish continue to jump and splash.

Ma’am? A young man is running up behind you. He is holding something in his hand.

You forgot your shoes! He is out of breath. He stops and holds out a pair of new- looking white sneakers. He has the look of someone who expects gratitude, so you try to infuse your voice with warmth.

Why, thank you, you say. He is still extending the shoes, so you take them, but the minute he turns his back, you drop them on the grass. Who needs shoes on a night like this? Encumbrances. They just separate your flesh from this goodly sphere, the earth.

To your right you see a young couple vacate a bench. You sit down, not because you’re tired but because you want to watch the parade.

And what a parade! Musicians: drummers and horn players and trombonists. You have to strain to hear them because the crickets are so loud. Then come the entertainers, the tumblers and acrobats and men on unicycles and women on stilts, all dressed in the most outlandish costumes.

Some are naked. You have to laugh at the men’s fully extended penises, aroused by the night air and the proximity of so much beauty. You are almost aroused yourself.

You think of your young man. He is late. He is always late. You are always waiting. Your father says that a woman who waits must contain all and lack nothing. You think he was quoting, but you were never able to discover what. He is full of surprises, your father. Barely an eighth-grade education, yet he would correct your college English papers.

But your young man, your beautiful young man. He wears green to match his eyes. He is not stupid, but he is not smart enough to hide his vanity. You discovered foundation makeup in his locker, yet not for a moment did you think he was cheating. Not that he wasn’t capable of that. But he was so full of guile as to be guileless.

But you? Hook you up to a polygraph and you would flunk every question. Did you love him? Yes. No. You would have been tagged a liar for either answer. Sometimes. Maybe. Only when hooked to a machine calibrated to detect ambivalence would you pass.

After the entertainers, the animals. But such animals! Not any that God created. Fabulous creatures with the heads of lions with large child faces mounted on them. A herd of cats, goose-stepping in the moonlight.

You are reminded of the wonderful and terrible books of your childhood. There was one where a boy was given the power to read into the hearts and souls of creatures by feeling the shape of their hands. Thus the hands of kings and courtiers often felt like the appendages of cloven beasts, and the hands of honest workers were soft like those of the highest royalty.

The idea that you couldn’t tell the nature of the creatures around you, human or otherwise, without such a gift was terrifying. In bed you would hold your own hand to determine what you were. Human or beast?

Across the path from your bench is a low stone wall separating the grass of the park from the sand of a narrow beach. There is writing on it. A sacred script. Thick strokes in black paint outlined in red. Punctuated by a face that grins. It is sending a message. But what is it?

The parade is over. People are leaving for other festivities. The dogs have vanished, the children lifted onto shoulders and taken to bed. Silence descends. You close your eyes to revel in it.

You wake up with a start. There is a hand on your arm, moving down it. You are startled to see it is still night, but a night so bright that you could read by it. The hand belongs to a stranger, a youngish man, not clean, wearing a fisherman’s hat and an army coat. Seeing that you are awake, he withdraws his hand.

I was just wondering, do you have any money I could borrow, he says.

Normally you would just say no. You give your time and money to the clinic. But things are different tonight. Your sense of well-being. The beauty that surrounds you. You wonder what you would feel if you took his hand.

You look for your purse. But there is nothing. You check your pockets in case you brought only your wallet or stuck your driver’s license and a credit card in a pocket. Nothing. The man watches as you go through your contortions.

Probably you shouldn’t have been sleeping here, he says. Probably someone got here before me, someone not so nice.

He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his coat and offers you one. When you refuse, he lights one himself and settles back on the bench.

When I saw you there, I thought, Now what’s a nice lady like that doing in Lincoln Park in the middle of the night? he says. It was a real strange sight. But where are your shoes?

You look down. Your feet are bare and dirty. There is some dried blood on the side of your ankle. You reach down and pluck out a piece of glass. The hem of your pants is muddied.

Someone’s been paddling, says the man. I can’t say I blame you. It’s certainly the night for it.

You notice that it’s no longer quite as quiet. Although the crickets have subsided, and the hum of traffic from afar has dwindled, there are other noises. You notice that the two of you aren’t alone. The field surrounding you is dotted with dark shapes, people rolling up carts, unfurling blankets. A man and woman struggle with a mass of material that turns into a small tent. An encampment is forming.

The man continues to talk as he smokes.