Tracking Time

Twenty-seven

Pee Wee James had no watch and didn't look at the clock in the precinct when he was released by the police. All he knew was that the sun was high in a sky so blue it hurt his eyes. He looked down at his feet as he shuffled out onto the sidewalk. He was trying to figure things out. He had no actual memory of how long he had been at the station or what he had told the Chinese cop or the other guy-maybe it was two guys-who talked to him before letting him go.

He was sure he hadn't told them anything about the game with the two kids-a twenty a day for a long time. Pee Wee wanted a dog, and that was enough to take care of a dog for sure. He thought about that twenty a lot. He was torn between getting the twenty from the kids, or dealing separately with the guy in the cave. If he helped the guy, maybe he'd get a bigger reward, enough to go down south where it was warmer.

Pee Wee wondered if the man was still there. Those kids were so high they didn't even think to gag him, didn't tie him up. He'd watched the whole thing and knew if the jogger came to, he might be able to crawl out. Pee Wee had slept in that cave out of the rain himself, more than once. In AA they always said it was important to have a goal. Pee Wee James had a goal. He was going to check to see if the guy was still there, make sure he was okay.

Central Park was a strange place. The paths were black at night, and not even Captain Reginald knew everything. The boss of the park traveled off-road in his Jeep three, four times a day, making the rounds. When he saw Pee Wee in the playgrounds, looking through the garbage cans for the leftovers the nannies left behind, the captain always moved him along. But not even the captain knew he didn't leave the park to sleep somewhere else as he was supposed to.

And no one knew about the cave that used to be a runoff for water from the rowboat lake a hundred years ago when the park was built and the lake was higher, covering everything that was now swamp. It had been several hundred feet larger at this end, and at least six feet higher. But Pee Wee was a historian. He knew about the iron gate over the cave and the foliage that covered it.

When he left the police station, he made his way to Eighth Avenue. During the morning, he'd eaten two sandwiches and drunk several cups of coffee. He'd washed up in the public men's room of the precinct, and all in all he was pretty pleased with himself-happy with his new clothes, the pair of sneaks that fit him pretty well, the socks, khaki pants, black T-shirt, and white sweatshirt with a green palm tree on it and " Florida " spread wide across the front. Best of all, he'd gotten a quilted maroon jacket that looked waterproof and would prove useful when the season changed. But he had a mother of a hangover, was not entirely clear about what was going on. He was getting the shakes, too.

The weather was warm and dry. Pee Wee was not surprised that no one from the cops offered to drive him back to his home in the park. In fact, the plainclothes officer who let him go gave him five dollars and discouraged him from returning there. He was used to it. Words had no impact on him. Cops had been accusing him of everything under the sun for decades now, and they were always wrong. He'd heard it all a hundred times, but he was one of the good guys.

In the last fifteen years he'd lost his job, his wife, his home, his children, and everything else that had kept him going since his war days. He'd been in police custody more times than he could count. For several years, he'd lived in flophouses and a mission down on the Bowery. After that he'd scrounged around the Port Authority bus station over on the West Side, sleeping intermittently in shelters and on the street. He didn't like the shelters. Too many bad people, too much AIDS, too many rules. After ten years, he'd drifted back down to Alphabet City on the Lower East Side.

In each location, he'd cycled through his days getting drunk, being drunk, sleeping it off, begging, drinking more. From time to time he was disorderly and bellicose. When he was sober and when he was drunk, he saw himself as a helper, the only one who'd pull a knife on a raper or mediate a brawl. He'd been a killer of Cong in ' Nam, knew how to fight. And like then, he was still one of the good guys, misunderstood and a little down on his luck.

In his war days and the early years afterward, Pee Wee had gone through periods where he'd do weed and alcohol, cocaine, and whatever substances were popular on the street. But that was back when he was trying to keep up with life. After he lost his home, he went for the cheapest thing. He'd become a pure old wino, too broke and disorganized for anything else. He'd long since completed his descent.

Now he was thinking about the five in his hands and the twenty on the come. For several hours he wandered around the Disneyland of the new Times Square, looking for haunts that no longer existed. He bought some Thunderbird with the five the cop had given him, drank it, then walked north toward the park. He didn't get very far and lost track of time early on.

By nine at night he was dozing pleasantly among acquaintances on the corner of Ninth and Fifty-seventh Street. There, a wide, three-foot brick garden wall provided good seating and a place to sleep it off. In winter in the wide open space of the almost park someone always made a fire in an old oil drum. In summer, spring, and fall there were farmers' markets. In all seasons there was a gathering of homeless right across the street from the D'Agostino supermarket.

Pee Wee was roused from a comfortable drunk by a fight going on around him. Guys were arguing, yelling. He was lying on the brick wall when one of them wanted his space, or something. One minute he was sleeping and the next he was picked up. He was punched, knocked down, and his head smashed hard into the pavement. It happened in a few seconds, and he went out cold for a while. When he woke up there were cops standing around. One of them was trying to wake him up.

"Hey, fellow, you okay?"

"Course, ah'm okay. Whadya think?" Cops were talking the way cops always talked. Through bleary eyes, Pee Wee saw people standing around. A girl cop stood over him, big as a trailer in her uniform. An even bigger guy was talking to another cop.

"This gentleman here says you hit him," the woman said.

"Hit a cop, are you crazy?" Pee Wee had no idea what was going on.

"No, no, you and your pals here were fighting."

"Not me, no." Pee Wee realized he was flat on his back.

"He says you took his sandwich. He tried to get it back and you slugged him."

Pee Wee had no memory of any such thing. That was a ridiculous, an outrageous accusation. He sat up and began the struggle to get to his feet.

"Hey, wait a minute. Looks like you got quite a crack on the head there." The cop tried to restrain him.

"Nahh, thash crazy." Pee Wee didn't like being restrained. He brushed the hands away and stumbled to his feet. The cops were having a conference, a regular convention there with a crowd around him. Everybody was pretty quiet now. It almost made him laugh.

Yeah, now he remembered. Two guys were fighting, but not him. Yelling. He had nothing to do with it. He took off, dizzy and a little disoriented, a common enough condition for him. The convention was over. Nobody stopped him. He walked north on Ninth, then east on Sixtieth, didn't want to run into Lincoln Center. He felt pretty good, almost high as he headed slowly toward the park. It took him more than two hours to go a mile to the place where he lived between two boulders by the lake. He kept his possessions there, including several quilts, and a tarp that he pulled over his head when it rained or snowed. People were talking to him in his head. Different stories were playing there from different times in his life. Over the years the social workers and church people had encouraged him to have goals. He'd gone to AA at more than one point in his life.

"You have to have goals to maintain sober living," they all said.

He had goals. Plenty of them. And could maintain sober living anytime he wanted. In fact, he was sober a lot of the time. Almost all the time. His goal was he wanted a dog to help him beg, to protect him, and to keep him warm in winter. That was his first goal. He had others.

He hit the park. He remembered the cops there looking for somebody. He couldn't remember who. Then after a while he remembered. He couldn't remember when the cops had been there. He forgot he was looking for the girl and the kids with the twenties. The park was quiet now. Even the birds had settled down for the night. Inside the park, he stumbled along the path toward his place. He saw a large rat and some guys in an unmarked car who might be cops. Where was the kid with the money? The cops drove by and were gone. Pee Wee stopped behind a leafy shrub to take a piss, still thinking about getting another twenty.

He remembered the guy in the cave. Pee Wee was a responsible member of society. He didn't want the guy to be hungry or uncomfortable. He'd take him some water from the lake, give him a blanket. What the hell. He felt a little dizzy and sat down in the dirt for a moment. He forgot what he was doing, blacked out. Sometime later, he got up and stumbled on, the twenty back in his mind. He knew he had to do something, but he'd forgotten what.