Park Bench Voyeurism By: Sarah Rovito

Nobody tells you when you’re getting old that it’s happening. You just wake up one day and WHAM, like a baseball bat to the chest, you can’t catch your breath after walking across the room. You can’t stand up or sit down or walk up steps or take a shit without an ache or a pain or a pill or ten. The younger years were good, I suppose, but now I have nothing to do but sit around and wait to die. I choose to do my sitting and waiting in the park. In the park I get to see the things that remind me that I’m not sorry I’m going to die. I go to the park to see the wretched; the ones who remind me to welcome death. When, at times, I feel sorry that I never had kids or a family, I just go to the park, and am quickly reminded that its better this way. The world has gone to shit. In my day we had romance and humor and simplicity. Oh, to be young forever.
Today begins like most. Some coffee in a chipped mug, oatmeal, and a fistful of pills. Glue my teeth in, put on a sweater, pants, and comfortable shoes that everyone sixty-five years and over is required to wear. I’m seventeen years past that deadline. I put some slices of bread in a baggie and tuck it carefully in my pocket. Leave the house without locking the door. Maybe someone will come in while I’m gone and steal my life out from under me. One can only hope.
I get to the park early enough that I have my choice of benches to sit on, at least, of the ones not occupied by those who have bedded here for the night. I choose one close enough to the lake but also somewhat near the entrance. I like to see who comes and goes. I settle in and take a look around. It is early enough to catch the morning joggers, all covered in spandex and sweat, running their workouts. I sit with my hands in my pockets and watch two of these fit young people as they run past each other. He strong and steady, she slender and swift. As they pass, their eyes meet, and for a split second they are all the other one sees. They pass and the moment is over. But it is ok because they will pass each other once more on the other side of the lake and the park can fill with eye contact and lust and sweat all over again. A one night stand lurks just around the corner.
It is the end of May and the breeze that dances across my bald head is warm. Warm enough that I’m glad I didn’t wear a hat, but cool enough that I’m glad I wore a sweater. I watch a woman walk into the park through the main entrance. The woman is smartly dressed in a sharp, black skirt, just shy of being called mini, a dark purple blouse, pantyhose, and pumps. She walks to the other side of the path towards the grove of Beech trees. She checks her watch, fondles her luscious, dark hair, and looks about her. If only my measly manhood had not died those many years ago I would be enjoying Ms. Purple Shirt quite thoroughly. I reach my hand into my pocket and over to where my member lay limp against my leg. Nothing! Not even a tingle or a twitch. A man enters the grove and interrupts my fantasies as he approaches Ms. Purple Shirt. She reaches between her C-cups and pulls out a roll of cash. This she discretely places in the man’s hand and likewise receives something in her own, which she nests down comfortably in her cleavage. They barely exchange a glance and walk on. This does not shock me. Nothing that happens in the park shocks me, not even coke-head executives.
It is the quiet period in the park now. The bullying kids and their whimpering victims are in school. Oh, to be young again. The drug-dependent business people are in their museum-like offices snorting their coke. Oh, to be numbed by money. The bums are begging out on the sidewalks in front of the coffee shops and bookstores. Oh, to have no shame. The joggers are off cleaning their houses or buying groceries or having their affairs. Oh, to be emotionally detached. Right now it is just me and the ducks and the bread in my pocket to bring us together. I walk to the edge of the lake and pull out my baggie. They gather around me and flock at my feet. There are so many that I imagine if I fell down right here, it would be like falling on a feather bed, except with breaking bones and blood from all the ducks I would crush.
The bread is gone, and I limp and hobble back to my bench and spend the next few minutes trying to catch my breath. I look around and spot a group of pre-teens strolling through the West entrance. I eye them suspiciously, knowing they should be in school, and eager to see what they are up to. The obvious leader of the group is a medium-sized boy in jeans made for a man three times his size, a camouflage print t-shirt, and gym shoes that are untied. The others include two non-descript little thugs who think they’re too good for the American education system, a boy much younger than the rest who has a deep scar above his left eye, and a girl, pretty, slender, and sly-looking. Damn kids. They enter into the shelter provided by the grove of Beeches. I suppose they do not see me, or rather, know that I am of little importance, and proceed with their business as if I were not here. With the little scar-faced boy as the lookout, the other boys first take turns kissing the girl on the mouth, to which she responds with little giggles and wipes her lips on her sleeve after each one. I drink this sight in with disgusted glee. The boys then take turns greedily thrusting their hands up the girl’s shirt, to which she responds with painful scowls as they squeeze and pinch her newly-developed shame. She then stealthily slides her dainty hand down the front of each of their over-sized pants for about five seconds each, to which they respond with nervous glances as she briefly touches their small, preteen pride. When this awkward display is over she readily accepts a five-dollar bill from each participant, even the little lookout who got none of the action. She strolls out the main entrance of the park and leaves them to go back where they came from through the West entrance, avoiding eye contact with each other. This does not shock me. Nothing that happens in the park shocks me, not even adolescent prostitution.
It is lunchtime. I get up off my bench and walk out through the main entrance and head to the corner.
“Morning, Charlie,” I say.
“Well hello there, Maxwell,” answers the ancient and rickety black hotdog vendor.
“Just one today,” I say, “Mustard and relish.”
“Very nice, very nice. There you are,” he replies with his usual joviality. Charlie is a happy man. Apparently Charlie doesn’t spend much time in the park. Oh, to be blissfully ignorant.
I hand Charlie a dollar and a quarter and take my hotdog back into the park, and back to my bench. When I walk through the main entrance I see a young woman in a heavy jacket quickly leaving through the West entrance. I can only see her from the back, but her hair is long and greasy and her head is hanging low. Oh, what beautiful sin have I missed? I eat my hotdog in about three bites, and wash it down with a handful of pills. I sit with my hands in my lap for awhile, and watch a mother who has just entered the park with her toddler; I honestly can’t tell if it’s a boy child or a girl child. The woman sits down on a bench, maybe three away from mine, and proceeds to make phone call after phone call after phone call. All the while the child is wandering around aimlessly looking for some form of entertainment. The lake, the child decides, seems to be the best choice. As the child totters along the water’s edge the mother animatedly converses about the smutty novel she is reading. The child, about three or four years old, slips in a slick of mud and falls in the shallow murky water at the edge of the lake. The ducks do not appreciate this and explode upwards in an eruption of chaos and quacking. The mother hangs up her cell phone and trots her overweight ass over to her genderless child, yanks it by the arm, and scolds it for getting wet and muddy. They leave the park, the child in tears, the mother in a layer of fat, annoyance, and dissatisfaction with life. If only she’d chosen a career over children. This does not shock me. Nothing that happens in the park shocks me, not even horrible parents and their struggling-to-not-disappoint-them children.
It is late afternoon when the bums begin to return to the park. They would hate to be left without a bench to sleep on. I do not make eye contact with them. I come here to see the wretched, not the hopeless. The park is for them at night and for me in the day. We do not meet. I begin to ready myself for my walk home and my evening alone with my aches and pains. Sitting on a park bench all day can really hurt a body. But I am a voyeur, and I would much rather watch the world around me crumble than watch the walls at home crack. Two-bedroom condos are boring places and my war vet checks don’t allow me to afford a TV. As I stand to leave, I spy a bum dressed in filthy, dark pants, a shirt that was once white, a coat, even though it’s warm outside, and a tangled mass of hair that probably hasn’t been washed in decades. There are no shoes on this man’s feet, only socks. He rises from his bench, leaving his trash bag of shit to hold his place for him and heads over to the grove of Beech trees. This is not unusual; he’s probably just going to take a piss. But he soon emerges with a wiggling bundle in his arms. He looks around inquisitively for the mother of this new-found baby. Oh, to be abandoned under a Beech tree. But I know the mother is long gone. Hurried out the West entrance with head hanging low when I went to get my lunch. The bum goes to his bench, reaches in his trash bag and removes a package cup of applesauce he probably scored at the food bank. This he spoons into the child’s mouth with his finger. This shocks me. Nothing that happens in the park shocks me, except this. This is an unabashed act of kindness. This is selflessness. This is love. This is good in the world.
At home that night as I groan and grumble and ease myself into bed, I can’t help but think that somewhere in the park down the street there is a bum and a baby sleeping on a park bench. I pull myself out from under my covers. It is around 3 a.m. I get dressed and take a fistful of pills. I walk out to my little garage and find my ax. I walk to the park in the chilly, dewy night and enter the grove of Beech trees. I have seen good in the world. I swing my ax hard against a Beech tree. I will not stand to see any more evil. I swing my ax again. I have seen good in the world. These trees are a dwelling of evil. I have seen good in the world. I swing my ax again and my arm begins to ache. I can not catch my breath and I see spots. I swing my ax again and fall to the ground and leave this partially good world and it’s partially cut down Beech trees.