GRATING SPACE

Summer has squeezed all the blue flowers from the rubber trees in the park and as I walk and squish the remaining petals left lying on the asphalt path I think of the sky, swollen with fall, and the prospect of God raining down all around me, composed of tiny water droplets, like the universe is made of an infinite number of falling particles, which inexplicably swerve, creating something new.

There are two types of dogs that roam this park — ugly and owned. It’s never difficult to tell the difference. A man with one on his leash nonchalants as his mutt shits until a bird swoops in and pecks the canine’s ass at great speed, then zips up into an adjacent tree. The people of Buenos Aires are proud of their dogs, protective of their feelings and well-beings, and this man, whose shirt is unbuttoned three-quarters of the way down his fat torso, becomes infuriated by this arrogant avian, who would be so bold to attack his pet while he stood by its side. The porteño does not bother to comfort his startled dog, who now is too distracted to resume pooping — he picks up a stick, furious eyes on the bird, and throws it tomahawk style towards the bird’s perch, before which it becomes tangled and stops, cockeyed, resting in a gathering of branches. The man huffs, threatens the bird with by what he surely must know looks like a bird-fight breast puffing, becomes fatigued with frustration, and rambles along, his jogging dog in tow.

A limp-limbed businessman naps on the bench, his briefcase stolen hours ago. A grandfather sits down next to me on a fountain ledge and says something I can’t understand about resting. “Yes, grandpa, you go ahead and rest.” A yellow dog careens in from the distance and jumps up between us. It’s grandpa’s, and sits in silence with him. An enthusiastic marketing boy tries to sell me a bag of cologne. A frisbee hits me in the back of the head. A hippie follows close behind and says he’s sorry.

I cannot simply sit and look for long out into the park like the old man and his dog. I’m sure one day I will be able to — with lots of practice. I hope this comes before I am too aged to be able to do much else. My temperament is moving away from the realm of the pure, rude energy of my youth but is nowhere near a mature, contemplative existence. I find myself in the middle ground between the two, unable to conjure either on a whim, but still fully functional in situations that require either. Old Man Martin — that’s what the young punks call me. Pipsqueak kid, say all the old men.

Fuck you both.

I stay on the ledge until the sun sets behind all the tall gray apartment complexes, westward across the slums. Hours later, I feel a wetness on my hand, which I have propped behind me to support my bad back. It’s one of the first of thousands of slugs that have emerged from the fountain’s innards that I let climb into my clothes to suck the blood straight out of my skin. I let them in my mouth and on my eyes, and in the morning my body, shrink-dried to only a few inches long, mixes in with the twigs in the wind.