City Park

I am sitting on a park bench waiting for my client.

I am keeping my girlfriend at arm's length with apologetic text messages. My client said he would be here ten minutes ago. I'm starting to think I might bail, though that would probably be a net loss. If a client has a good experience he tells no one and if he has a bad experience he tells everyone. This is good quality product here in my left pocket. A police officer saunters past. I contemplatively turn the page of my book. The police officer looks away over the park to the city skyline. My book is called "Junky". My client is a junky who works in an office building not too far from here. On his lunch break he walks through this park. Today he will sit next to me and say a few words about the weather before surreptitiously giving me some cash. My cellphone vibrates again. It is my girlfriend. She is pissed off. She is sitting with her parents in a cafe only five minutes walk from here. I was worried I might encounter them in the park so I hung around the grandstand until she told me they were at the cafe. Now they are sitting there with coffees, trying to pretend that I'm not fifteen minutes late. Every now and again my girlfriend reaches into her bag to send me another scathing message. Two children are playing on the grass. A boy and a girl. They are rolling over and over down the hill.

I wish my client would arrive.