Not Safe After Dark

He had only gone out to the convenience store for cigarettes, but the park across the intersection looked inviting. It seemed to offer a brief escape from the heat and dirt and noise of the city. Cars whooshed by, radios blasting rock and funk and rap into the hot summer night. Street lights and coloured neons looked smeared and blurry in the humid heat. A walk among the trees by the lake might cool him down a little.

He knew he shouldn’t, knew it was dangerous. What was it the guidebooks always said about big city parks? Not safe after dark. That was it. No matter which park they talked about – Central Park, Golden Gate Park – they were always not safe after dark.

He wondered why. Parks were quiet, peaceful places, a few acres of unspoilt nature in the heart of the city. People took their dogs for walks; children played on swings and teeter-totters. Parks provided retreats for meditation and the contemplation of nature, surely, not playgrounds for the corrupt and the delinquent.

There was more danger, he thought, among the dregs of humanity that haunted the vast urban sex and drug supermarkets like Times Square or the Tenderloin. There you got mugged, beaten up, raped, even murdered, for no good reason at all.

Hoodlums and thugs weren’t into nature; they were happier idling on street corners harassing passers-by, starting fights in strip clubs or rock bars, and selling drugs in garbage-strewn alleys. If they wanted to mug someone, they had more chance downtown, where the crowds were thick and some fool always took a short cut down a dark alley. If they just wanted to scare and hurt people for the fun of it, crowded places like shopping malls guaranteed them both the victims and the audience.

Or so he found himself reasoning as he stood there by the traffic lights. Should he risk it? Over the road, the dark, tangled mass of branches tossed in the hot breeze like billowing black smoke against the starlit sky. A yellowish full moon, surrounded by a halo, gilded the tree tops. The traffic lights changed to green, and after only a moment’s hesitation, he began to cross. Why not? What could possibly happen? The entrance, a long, tree-lined avenue, seemed rolled out like a tongue ready to lick him up and draw him into the park’s dark mouth. Maybe he had a death wish, though he didn’t think so.

Muted wrought-iron street lamps flanked the broad cinder path, which led under a small imitation Arc de Triomphe gate overgrown with weeds and lichen. Beyond that, the branches swayed slowly in the muggy gusts, leaves making a wet, hissing sound. The dimly lit path, he noticed, was lined with statues. He went over to see if he could make out any of the names. Writers: Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson, Wordsworth. What on earth were they doing there?

The avenue ended at a small boating pool. In the water, a child’s yacht with a white sail turned in slow circles. The sight brought a lump to his throat. He didn’t know why, but somewhere, perhaps buried deep in his memories, was just such a feeling of loss or of drifting aimlessly in circles, never arriving. It made him feel suddenly, inexplicably sad.

Beyond the pond the park stretched, rising and falling down to the lake. Here were no broad avenues, only tarmac paths and dirt trails. He took one of the main paths that wound deeper into the woods. He could always take a side path later if he wanted. So far he had seen no one, and the traffic from the main road sounded more and more distant behind him. It was much darker now, away from the dim antique lights of the entrance. Only the jaundiced and haze-shrouded moon shone through the trees and slicked the path with oily gold. But as he walked, he found his eyes soon adjusted. At least he could make out shapes, if not details.

After he had been walking a few minutes, he noticed a playground to his left. There was nobody in it at this time of night, but one of the swings was rocking back and forth gently in the wind, creaking where its chains needed greasing. He felt like sitting on one of the wooden seats and shooting himself high, aiming his feet at the moon. But it would only draw unwelcome attention. Just being here was supposed to be dangerous enough, without asking for trouble. Somewhere, back on the road, he heard the whine of a police siren.

Off to the right, a path wound up the hillside between the trees. He took it. It was some kind of fitness trail. Every so often, he could make out wooden chin bars where the joggers were encouraged to pause and do a few pull-ups. Occasionally, he would hear a scuttling sound in the undergrowth. At first, it scared him, but he figured it was only a harmless squirrel, or a chipmunk running away.

The path straightened out at the top of the short hill, and almost before he knew it he was in a clearing surrounded by trees. He thought he heard a different sound now, a low moan or a sigh. He pulled back quickly behind a tree. In the clearing stood a number of picnic benches, and at one of them he could just make out a couple of human figures. It took him a few seconds to focus clearly in the poor light, but when he realized what was happening, his throat constricted and his heart seemed to start thumping so loudly he was sure they could hear him.

There were two of them. One half-sat on the table edge, hands stretched behind, supporting himself as he arched backwards. The other knelt at his feet, head bowed forward. They seemed to freeze for a moment, as if they had heard him, then the one on the table said something he couldn’t quite catch and the one on his knees continued slowly moving his head forward and back.

He felt sick and dizzy. He clutched onto the tree tightly and tried to control the swimming feeling in his head. He couldn’t afford to faint – not here, not now, with those two so close. After a few deep breaths, he turned as quietly as he could and hurried down a dirt track that forked off in another direction.

After he had covered a good distance as fast as he dare go, he squatted in the ferns at the side of the trail, head in hands, and waited for his heart to still and his breathing to become regular. An insect crawled up his bare arm; he shuddered and brushed it off.

He was beginning to feel really scared now. He had no idea where he was, which direction he was travelling in. Like that yacht back in the pond a million miles away, he could be going in circles. Again he fought back the panic and walked on. Now he cursed his stupidity. Why had he come here? It hadn’t been a good idea at all. He would wander round and round, then end up back where he started. He would collapse with exhaustion and those two men from the picnic table would find him and… Maybe he did have a death wish, after all. He should have taken notice of the guidebooks. He told himself to stop panicking and calm down.

Before he had got much further, he heard voices just off the path over to his left. He paused. Someone was singing an old Neil Young song. Someone else said ‘Shut up,’ then a girl giggled. After that came more singing, then a loud yell. They were drunk; that was it. As if to confirm his suspicions, he heard the sound of a bottle smashing on a road. He decided he had better lie low and keep out of their way. There was no telling what a gang of drunks might do to someone walking alone in the park. So he waited, behind a tree, as their voices faded slowly into the distance. He stayed where he was until he could hear them no longer, then set off again.

When he crested the next hill, he could see the lights of houses to his right and left. The park had narrowed to a kind of deep ravine now, and the path he was on ran parallel to its bottom, about halfway up one side. If he left the path and walked all the way up the side, he would probably soon find himself in someone’s back garden.

He could see the moonlight gleaming on the surface of the narrow stream that flowed along the bottom. Across the other side, he could make out the lights of a police car flashing along a road that skirted the ravine’s edge. The hillside was thickly wooded and the spaces between trees filled with ferns and shrubbery. At least now, he thought, he ought to be able to find his way back to civilization easily enough.

He heard a noise lower down the hillside and realized there was another path, running parallel to his, about fifty yards below, closer to the water. Again, he froze. This sound was far too loud to be a squirrel or a bird; it certainly wasn’t the sound of a small animal running away, but more like a large one coming towards him.

He crouched by the edge of the dirt path and peered down through the bushes. He couldn’t make much out at first, but something was moving through the undergrowth. A few moments later, his heart beating fast again, he saw the eyes, not more than thirty yards away down the slope. What was it? A fox? A wolf? Then he heard the woman’s voice: ‘Jason! Jason! Where are you, boy? Come on.’ And she whistled. So it was a dog! But Jason took no notice of her. It seemed to have caught his scent and was making its way cautiously up the hillside to check him out.

He couldn’t tell from that distance in the dark, but he was worried that it might be a pit bull or a Rottweiler. Surely no woman would go walking alone in the park at night without a vicious dog to guard her? He felt beside him on the path and his hand grasped a large stone, just small enough to hold. The dog came closer. ‘Come on, Jason,’ he whispered. ‘Come on, boy!’ The dog barked and made the last few yards in a dash. He swung the rock hard at its head, and the dog whimpered, then let out a low wail and collapsed.

‘Jason?’ the woman called from below. ‘Jason! Where are you?’ She sounded worried now. He could just about make her out in the faint light. She looked youngish, with long hair tied behind her neck in a ponytail, and she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She called for the dog again, then left the path and started climbing the hill through the shrubbery to the place she’d heard it wail.

Thirty yards. Twenty-five. Twenty. He could see the moonlight glint on her bracelet. Fifteen. He could hear her panting with effort. Ten. She ran the back of her hand over her brow and pushed back a stray tress of hair. ‘Jason?’ Five. He glanced around and listened. Nothing. So close to civilization, yet so far. There was nobody around but him and her.

Four. He held his breath. Three yards. She slipped back but managed to grasp a root and keep her balance. Two. He gripped the rock tight in his hand and felt it sticky and warm with the dog’s blood. She was almost there now. Just a few more steps. One. He gripped the rock tighter, raising his arm. Suddenly he felt himself filled with strange joy and he knew he was grinning like an idiot. So this was why he had come. He didn’t have a death wish, after all. What on earth had those fools who wrote the guidebooks meant? Of course it was safe after dark. Perfectly safe.