There was a dead bird in the fountain, but it barely looked like a bird anymore. The tips of its wings rippled with the current of the water, which flowed around its swollen body down an embankment and into a lower level where tired urban bikers dipped their feet. I used to come to this fountain when I was in high school and sit and will people to talk to me. Sometimes I would come with friends and we would laugh and listen to the live jazz that Temple students always played by the Southeast entrance of the park. Other times I would come by myself, seeking respite from my suburban angst, and sit on the fountain with my knees under my chin, smoking cigarettes I’d bought at the train station (the only place that didn’t ID me) and making hopeful eye contact with any person who showed a vague bit of interest in my presence. Mostly I spoke with people I’d never see again–a 300 pound black woman who, upon seeing my friends snapping pictures of each other, insisted we take some modeling poses of her; some trustafarians with expensive bikes; a man named Tom with a British accent who worked at the UN and with whom I fell instantly in love. Once I met a boy who I ended up kissing by the LOVE sculpture that same night. We dated for a few weeks before I left for Paris, but when I came back it was understood that something had changed in me and there was no point in seeing each other anymore.
Today I went to the park because I yearned for the presence of strangers. I’ve spent most days since I got home writing and reading and watching TV in my mother’s living room. Today with the sun out I ached for contact with people I don’t know. This happens when I get lonely. There’s a freedom in conversations with strangers that you lose when you talk with people you care about. With friends, words mean something, gestures mean more–everything counts. Sometimes I grow tired of keeping score.
In the park I sat and read 100 pages of The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer before moving into the air conditioning of the bookstore on Walnut street. There was an attractive older man in the cafe intensely reading every article of the Philadelpha Inquirer, and I couldn’t help but stare. How could I not be attracted to someone who thinks every single piece of the news is worth reading? He looked up at me and smiled, and I looked shyly back to my book. “What am I doing?” I thought to myself. “What is the best that can happen–I accept a date, again, with someone twice my age? We go to dinner and we kiss in the dark and then I move to California?” I looked over again and he was reabsorbed in the newspaper. This back and forth continued a few times, and I felt electrified by his gaze. I wanted to talk to him but something rose in me that kept me glued to my seat. Eventually I gave him one last smile, closed my book and walked back out to the park.
In the fountain, the dead bird still floated angelically, its tiny bones rattled by the water. I thought of using a piece of paper to scoop it out of the fountain, but I was scared, and didn’t crave the stares in the same way I did at 15. So I left it to float, the 6 o’clock sun reflecting off of its feathers.
