Songs In A Minor

Chapter 15

He pulled outside of Central Park right next to the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir.

“$10.” He said. I paid him the fair and got out the car. Very few people were in the park this late at night. It was probably 10:30 at night. 

I pulled my shoes off and strolled to the bench closest to the lake. I sat down and pulled my knees into my chest. Sure my thighs and butt cheeks were visible, but really who’s going to see it? The hobo, who’s pulling grass out the ground to use as a blanket?

I sat there and thought about everything and nothing. 

A homeless woman came by pulling a cart filled with miscellaneous things, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t miscellaneous to her. Her dark black skin glistened in the moon light, and her face round like a mango.

“Hey you.” She called out. I thought maybe she was calling one of her hobo friends when she came up to me. 

“Girl, what are you doing out here wearing that? Its 65 degrees.” She chided me.

“Thinking.” I responded tersely. She came to sit next to me like I invited her. 

“About?” She asked. I glanced at her, with irritation evident in my eyes.

“Listen lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t really want to talk to a complete stranger about my problems okay. So, you can just get wherever you’re going.” I told her. Her eyebrows came together. 

“Well, missy. I’ll have you know, this is my bench. I lay here every night.” She responded.

“Oh, well I’m sorry.” I told her getting up from the bench. I picked up my shoes and walked barefoot. 

“Girl, get back here.” She said. I looked at her, and contemplated whether I should or not. I strolled back to the bench. She went through her cart and handed me a dirty blanket riddled with holes. I thanked her, but shook my head no to that death trap. She shrugged her shoulders.

“If you wanna stay you can, but make some room for me.” She said, lying down on the bench.

“Oh no miss, I have somewhere to go home to.” I told her. She looked at me, skepticism written all over her face. 

“If you have a home, why aren’t you there?” She asked. I looked down and played with the hem of my dress. I shrugged my shoulders. 

“I just have a lot of things going on right now, and being home would just make them surface.” I told her.

“Oh, so you’re running away from your problems.” She questioned, reading me perfectly. I shrugged my shoulders. 

“Your problems are going to haunt you some time or another. It makes sense to take them on now, rather than later because the quicker you face your problems, then quicker you can get past them.” She advised. I nodded my head in agreement. 

“See I knew for a while, that the day would come that I would be living on the streets as a bum. Scavenging for food, spending  nights in the park, but the way I look at it, every day that I’m out here, is another day closer to getting my life back in order.” She explained.

“It gets better. This isn’t the worst thing that happened to me. I’ll get back on my feet.” She assured me. We kept quiet for a few minutes letting the crickets compose their symphony.

“What are you doing out here in the Big Apple, if you don’t mind me asking?” She inquired. 

“I’m a student at Juilliard.” I answered. She moved back as if to say “Get the hell outta here.”

“What kind of problems could you have?” She asked.

“It’s not that simple.” I told her. We kept talking and by the end she had a thorough understanding of my life story. Sometimes I had to ask myself, “Wait, am I really taking advice from a homeless person?” and every single time the answer would be yes. 

“You hungry?” I asked her as I stood up to leave. Her eyes looked up to me with excitement.

“I know a 24-hour pizza place a few blocks down.” I told her. 

“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that.” She said. 

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. C’mon.” I insisted. She got up reluctantly and I lead the way to the pizza place. 

Pauly’s World Famous New York- Style Pizza hung on the door in neon lights. I opened the door. She came in trying to pull her cart through the threshold. 

“Just leave it outside. You can watch it from in here.” I told her. 

“What do you want?” I asked. 

“Whatever you want to buy, it’s your money.” She said.

“You like peperoni?” I asked. She nodded. 

I went up to the counter. “Let me get 3 peperoni pies to go please.” I told the man. He pressed some numbers into the keypad and the number 41.95 flashed as my total. I pulled out my debit card, and let the man swipe it. 

We waited about half an hour and we took out pizzas outside. “Here” I said handing her two of the boxes. Her eyes went wide. 

“Look. I can’t take these from you.” She stated. 

“But you will I just paid for them.” I told her. She reluctantly took them.

“Thank you so much.” She said. A wide smile grew on her face. 

“It’s no problem.” I told her. I hailed a taxi, and one came to a stop right in front of me. 

“I’ll see you around.” She nodded, and stared in glee at the boxes of pizza.