After I left the store I went and sat at the park on an old wooden bench. I sat the box that was covered in a bag next to me while I just admired some of the families there.
I watched as a father chased his little girl across the grass. Her warm smile was followed by giggles as he caught her and spun her around.
I wonder if my dad did that with me..
My father left my mother when I was only 5, since then my mother was just getting by the easiest way possible. Prostitution.
Many times I would be left at the house to fend for myself for days on end. After she had come home one time with a pimp, I decided enough was enough and I left.
That was about 5 years ago.
I could hardly remember what my mother even looked like. Did she have blonde hair like the lady with the newborn baby by the water fountain? Or did she have chestnut brown like the lady near the swing sets? Everything was blurry, I suppose it was because I was so young.
The little girl and her father returned to her mother and his wife. They seemed so happy.
That was something I missed most, happiness. I wasn't sure what it even felt like anymore.
I sat there for what felt like forever but was actually 3 hours. It was then that a park patrol officer came passing by and stopped in front of me.
"Ma'am I am gonna have to to ask you to move," he said to me as he hooked his thumbs in his belt loop.
I looked up at him, "This is a public park,"
"Well there is people who want to sit an you have been here for almost 4 hours."
I wasn't about to move just because I had been there for a while. It was a public place and nobody owned that bench. I remained seated.
"No," I said bluntly.
"Excuse me?"
" I said no."
Right then I felt a gut wrenching feeling his he narrowed his eyes at me.
"Listen here, you have been there for one hour too long. There are families who are sitting on the grass—not voluntarily—but because there's no where to sit," he pointed at a nearby family of four, "this place is open to the public for enjoyment, not a housing space for street rats like you." And with that he grabbed me up by my arm and sent me on my way.
I didn't return to that park...
YOU ARE READING
Street 237
Teen FictionShe never wanted to have to live in a box near an abandoned building, she never asked for that life. London Bryant depends on mother nature's mercy day and night, and on strangers generosity for food and money. But who would care for a stree...
