1. The Season Ends

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    November 1, 2014 by admin

    Although the temperature never broke the 60 degree mark, I went to the park anyway. I wore a long-sleeved thermal shirt under my aloha shirt to keep warm. At the 72nd St. entrance, not far from the marathon finish line, stood a large electronic scoreboard; since yesterday, even more fences were strung up. At Strawberry Fields, I stopped to take a good look at the leafless, skeletal chestnut tree; oxblood-colored growing tips gave me hope that it might live one more year.

    The acrobats occupied the western stairs; the saxophonist played at the edge of the fountain. At my spot on the path, only a few people walked by. I sang to the robins feeding on the red berry clusters of mulberry fruit. They swooped in, singly or in pairs, the branches bouncing under their weight, then swooped out again over the lake to the north.

    On the lake, a rowboat attendant was roping boats together in preparation for winter. When he had about 20 boats on the line, he tried to pull them away, first with long slow stokes of the oars, then with a frenzied whirlwind. But they were too heavy, so he rowed himself back to shore and glumly untied half of them before trying again.

    I felt the cold, no matter how hard I played and danced around. After 40 minutes, a tall, thin man gave me my first 50 cents. A short time later, a woman with a warm smile gave me a dollar, saying, “Have a lovely day.”

    I exchanged a smile with the Buddhist beggar as he walked, cellphone to his ear. Another tall, thin man, in a trench coat, stopped and opened his wallet. He pulled out a fiver, thought better of it, then tossed in 2 quarters.

    I chatted with 2 young men from Argentina who gave me a dollar. “The exchange rate,” one said by way of apology. Yet another tall, thin man gave me yet another 50 cents. A retired schoolteacher named Josh, who had lived on Oahu for 9 years, stopped to chat. The longer we talked, the colder I got, until finally I told him I had to go home. “Let me give you something for your time,” he said, folding up a single and laying it in my case.

    Exiting the park, I walked under a stinky ginkgo tree, and out onto Central Park West. Barring unusually warm weather in November or December, today’s $4.50 would be my last of the season.

    Aloha, New York.

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