PARADE (part 11)

The cat looks better in the morning.

My mother and I smile and stare at the cat as we sip our coffee.

We make plans.
My mother leaves tomorrow and we need to finish up my taxes.
(For the last two years, I've failed to do my taxes). 

But I've got to get out of the apartment. I haven't left it in days.

I list the possibilities: Central Park, the MOMA, Battery or Bryant Park.

She picks Bryant Park, but then she goes back to the taxes. 

"Daylight mother" I tell her. "We don't want to miss the daylight."

Finally I use passive aggression, a family tradition.

"I'm going alone, will you get my coat and bag for me?"

"Let me get my bag," she says.

__________________________

We sit by a stone banister overlooking the bright green lawn.

The park is packed (like a state fair).

Everyone looks great, monied and fashionable.

Swanky business types.

Self conscious men who know they're dressed too well.

There is one well dressed man directly in front of us, his head near his knees.

He holds a cup of ice water in each hand.

A tour guide leads a group of bird watcher's.
The guide stops in front of me and points to a bird beneath me in the dusty brush.

_________________

My mother calls someone on her cellphone.

"Everyone is drunk and no one seems to care" she tells someone.

"Just ONE person" I interrupt, "and I'd guess he's hung-over not drunk." 

"Charlie says he hungover, that he's not drunk."

I spot the film-maker Michael Moore.

"Mom, there's Michael Moore!"

"Oh! Charlie says there's Michael Moore. Oh, there he is! in an orange baseball cap!

Michael Moore floats by disheveled and heavy. Tourists grab for their digital cameras.

In fact, everyone is taking pictures, myself included.

What will humanity do with all these digital images, I wonder (faintly)?

How will the trillions of jpegs be sorted, dated, and rated in significance? 

My mother circles the park but I stay put.

I listen to two young men talking at a nearby table.

I assume they're boyfriends,
but as I listen, I hear the bigger one telling the skinnier one that... 

"G-d's will is not always so clear." 

(and)

"Here are some simple ways to help the congregation" 

(and)

"As much as I think I know you, I feel like you're holding back, you're not presenting yourself, your TRUE self.  You want to seem gregarious and outgoing, but I'm not buying it, that's not really who you are. I'm not sure if YOU know who you really are."

The skinnier one looks away and nods. His placid expression hiding tricky feelings.

_________________

Mom is back. She tells me half the women are wearing very high heels, and the other half are wearing flats. She says she used to be an expert at wearing heels.

"I could run. Dance. I could HOP in high heels. But then I went to a party at the Bickley's."

(The Bickley Estate in New Canaan. The Bickley Estate is owned by Harry Connick Junior now).

"Someone was loading my drinks and I fell in a hole. So after that, I never let anyone load my drinks and I never wore high heels."
______

The park restores me. It's time to meet Susan. Susan's brother died today (of cancer) and she wants to be with friends.

"Did you talk to Susan? Should we go out to dinner? I'll pay!" Mom says.

We can't get a cab so we take a pedicab home.

The pedicab driver bikes down on 42nd street with gusto and strength. He sweats.
We zip down the bus lane, past commuters, past tourists, past police horses and shiny limousines.

I feel exposed and giddy.
I'm in a parade.

At Times Square, we barely make a light.

"I thought that we'd all end up in the Metropolitan section of the Times. All three of us squashed!" My mother says. But I'm wearing my bike helmet (I wear it everywhere) and so (I quickly realize)  I would be the sole survivor.

I consider taking it off.

We bike through the nadir of Time Square, through the neon razzmatazz.

Two blocks from home, Mom has the pedicab stop at a liquor store. She needs her nightly thimble of Grey Goose and she's out. I go the rest of the way by myself.