Alligator Park (3 page)

“But you’re wrong,” he says.
“Science is, and always has been, shaped by ideology... and power. You well
know how common it is for researchers to tweak data to fit conclusions.”

“Is that what you
think I did?”

“No, not at all.” 

I stare at my drink, take
another sip. I was so convinced Logan would fix everything I couldn’t even
imagine something like this happening.
Logan takes my
hand, squeezes it gently
.

“I tried everything. Dean
Haas won’t budge. I attempted to reason with her. She wouldn’t have any of it.
She even threatened my job when I pushed her.”

I feel myself getting mad,
pull my hand back.

“So in the end it’s just
about money,” I say.

“We’re talking a half a
billion dollars. For a university, that’s not just money, that’s survival.”

The margarita is really
making my head spin. I get up, search the complementary snack bar for some
appetizers to fill the void in my stomach and absorb some of the alcohol.
Nothing left. Out of desperation I ask the bartender for a menu. He tells me
the kitchen is closed for the night. I retreat to the table, join Logan. Reality
sets in.

“So what you’re saying is I
have to start over?”

Logan avoids eye contact,
rubs his chin. I hate it when he does that. He musters up the courage, stares
right at me.

“What I’m saying is... it’s
done.”

“What?”

“Dean Haas fired you from the
grad assistant job.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Right now you’re too hot to
handle. They don’t want anything to jeopardize that half a billion dollars.”

I’m stunned; I don’t know
what to say.

“I’m sorry. Maybe you can get
that restaurant job back.”

I stare at the wall
emotionless. Logan gets up.

“I have to go. The snow’s
getting deep.”

“Call me when you get home,”
I say.

“I don’t think that’s a good
idea,” he responds.

Is he snubbing me? In my time
of need, when I am most vulnerable, he is snubbing me?

He quickly leaves the table,
walks out the door without turning to say goodbye, or wave, or anything. This
is what I get for totally believing in someone, giving him all my trust? I
think about all those years of working with him, he telling me over and over,
“I’m here for you.”

It’s clear now... it was all
bullshit. 

I gulp down the last of my margarita,
gather my things, and then slip out the front door. Another couple of inches had
fallen. News reports had warned this would be the snowfall of the decade and it
was turning out to be true. The gale-force gusts drive the snow sideways
forcing me to shield my face. The street is deserted except for a handful of
students in ski parkas and wool hats engaged in snowball fights. I cross the
street trying to avoid them. A lone woman is always an easy target, even if
they are only being playful.

Up ahead I see the black-iron
gates that mark the entrance to the University. They’re closed. It’s unusual to
see the gates closed, except for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day
when both faculty and students return to their families turning the university
into a ghost town. But tonight is not a holiday, and they’re closed, creating a
pervasive air extraordinaire to this massive storm. I approach the gates
wondering if they are locked. I lean against them, trying to get a glimpse of
what’s behind, and then, unexpectedly, they move away from me letting out a
loud squeal as they open to full width. Good, they’re not locked, I think to
myself.

The campus is dark and foreboding
illuminated only by ancient gas lamps. Not a soul in sight. I contemplate the options,
cutting through to save time, or going around which takes twenty minutes
longer. As freshmen, we were often warned not to travel alone on campus late at
night. There had been a couple of robberies and rapes during this past year,
but who in their right mind would be out on a miserable night like this? I’m
cold and tired and hungry and maybe even a little drunk. Another twenty minutes
of this would be unbearable. I make up my mind; I’ll take the chance.

I trudge through the gates and
toward the dark unoccupied classrooms. Shadows appear to jump out at me causing
me to skip a heartbeat each time it happens. But it’s soon obvious the place is
deserted. The workmen have long since given up clearing the sidewalk allowing
two-foot drifts to build up in places. I attempt to step over the drifts, but they’re
too high and snow drops into the tops of my boots making my feet wet and cold.
I press on, lowering my head to avoid the frigid wind that bites at my face.

As I pass by the red-brick
colonial buildings, memories fly through my mind about all the good times I’ve
had over the last ten years. The late-night cramming, the term papers rushed to
meet a deadline, the lectures, the final exams, and the parties. Oh yes, the
parties. I don’t think anyone in civilian life has ever been able to top a
college party. They are the best; I would miss them.

But most of all I’d miss my involvement
with
the swimming
team. It’s been my passion since I was a junior.
I started swimming
regularly in the university’s heated pool during my freshmen year to escape the
stresses of university life. One day, the swimming coach called to me and said
I had a natural talent and should consider joining the team. She said that with
regular training I would be able to compete with the best. I never won any
awards, but I loved the competitive spirit and more importantly, it was fun. And
now, by events beyond my control, my life is being upended and all of this is
being taken away from me.

The alcohol in the margarita
is taking its toll and I begin feeling depressed.
Up
ahead I see a lone gaslight twinkling through the relentless snowfall. It’s right
next to the bench with the life-sized statue of old Ben on it and adds a
certain warmth to the cold chill of the dark and deserted campus. The light
beckons me, guiding me to my secret place of contemplation.
The snow is now accumulating at a rate of several
inches per hour and there is more than a foot on the bench. I push the snow onto
the ground and clear myself a place to sit. I look around at the buildings and
landmarks I know so well. I would miss Ben if I had to leave this place.

Leave this place? The reality
of my situation wells up inside of me; I have no job, no sponsorship, and no
future at this university. Technically I’m not even allowed to sit on this
bench. Should I go and see old Sid, beg for my job back? I’m pretty sure he
would take me back at the restaurant, but I’d also get a daily lecture about
how I should be thinking about my future and not going backwards; and he’d be
right.

Thoughts go round and round
in my mind—What will I do? How will I live?—until I can’t stand it any longer. But
the one thing that eats at me the most is how Logan, the man I loved and
trusted and would do anything for, abandoned me in my most vulnerable hour. How
could he do this? How could I be so wrong about him all this time?

My depression overwhelms me and
I explode into loud sobs. On any other night my sense of propriety would have provoked
me to conceal my sense of self-pity lest some passerby encounter me in this
wretched state. But not tonight. It’s cold and dark and deserted and this
miserable weather has erected a wall of isolation around me inducing me to
relinquish propriety to the wind. But even should some hapless individual pass
this way and happen upon me by chance, quite frankly, tonight I really don’t give
a damn.

Then, out of the corner of my
eye, I perceive something strange. Almost imperceptibly, the snow piled up on a
nearby bench appears to move. I gasp. Was it my imagination? The snow is coming
down quite hard, and blowing into my eyes, so perhaps it was an illusion. It
moves again causing clumps of snow to fall to the ground.

And then I see it, a person,
lying on the bench, snugly encased in a snow-covered sleeping bag. A white blanket
had been pulled up over their head and was now covered with an inch of snow. The
person sits up and pulls off the blanket. My eyes are drawn to a red bandana
and black eyepatch. It’s the homeless man, the same man I see from time to time
feeding pigeons.

“Now-now Miss,” he says. “It
can’t be all that bad.”

My mind is in complete
shambles. I don’t know whether to apologize or rebuke him for scaring me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Didn’t realize
you were sleeping.”

“Quite all right Miss. What
more could a lonely man want than to wake up to a pretty face?”

I stand up.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Please Miss, don’t go.”

I hesitate.

“It’s all right. We’re just a
couple of souls caught up in this crazy world, and trying to make sense of it. Please...
have a seat... keep a lonely man company.”

I sit down again, next to old
Ben. The homeless man slips out of the sleeping bag and then proceeds to roll
it up, shaking it a couple of times to clear off the snow.

He reaches under his bench,
retrieves a shopping bag and then removes a Thermos bottle and a Styrofoam cup.
He unscrews the Thermos, pours coffee into the cup, and brings it over to me. I
recoil against the seatback, hold up my hands, and shake my head no. I wasn’t
about to drink out of some old dirty cup.

“Please Miss, the cup’s brand
new. Never been used. And the coffee, well, it’s from Sid’s.”

“You know Sid?” I say.

“We all know Sid,’ he
answers. “He takes good care of us homeless folks. We line up at the back door,
right before they close the restaurant, and they fill up our Thermos for free. They
also give us whatever food they can spare. Nice folks they are, the folks at
Sid’s.”

If the coffee is from Sid’s,
how could I turn it down? I take the cup and sip the coffee. Oh how good it
tastes. I feel the warmth go down my throat.

“Sometimes they give us a slice
of this strange blue pie. The color is... kind of like your hair,” he adds.

I feel the urge to blurt out that
the strange blue pie was created by me, but I restrain myself. I’m just not in
the mood to answer the inevitable questions that would follow. Funny thing is,
in the half dozen times I’ve crossed paths with Sid since leaving the
restaurant, he never once mentioned this. I’m not surprised though. Sid was the
type of guy who was always looking for ways to help people and didn’t want anyone
to know he was doing it.

The homeless man retrieves a
ceramic cup from the bag.  It has an image of Ben Franklin on it, a souvenir
from one of the many gift shops in the area. He holds it up, proudly shows it
to me.

“They done throw’d this one out.
Just because of this little chip.”

He points to a dime-sized
chip-out on the cup, and then proceeds to pour coffee into it.

“Of course, I washed it twice,”
he adds. “Never know what you can catch, I mean, drinking from a cup that’s been
in a trash can.” 

The thought of drinking from
a cup that’s been in a dirty trash can skeeves me. But in reality, it’s not
much different than buying a cup from a thrift shop. Who knows where those cups
have been? And I do that all the time.

The homeless man sips from
the cup.

“I’d offer you something to
eat, but I’m done finished everything I had.” he says.

I quietly sip the coffee
secretly hoping he doesn’t ask me any questions. Then I’d feel obligated to answer.

“Seems like I’m doing all the
talking. By the way, name’s Will.”

I stare into the cup
pretending I didn’t hear him. Will waits patiently for me to respond, but I
don’t.

“Well Miss, if I was to
guess, I’d have to say no one would be out on a miserable night like this
unless theyz either a fool or had something real heavy on their minds. And I
got a hunch you ain’t no fool.”

“The coffee’s good,” I say,
trying to change the subject.

“Nothing like a cup of warm
coffee to warm a heart on a cold night like this,” he says.

I gaze at Will, wondering,
how he came to be what he is. He sits there on the snow-covered bench wearing a
pair of worn-out boots and a blanket wrapped around him. His ears are tucked
under the red bandana, shielding them from the chill. The black eye-patch gives
him a threatening look, like he lost his eye in a gang fight or something. His
nose and cheeks are red from the cold, but he doesn’t complain. I know he must
be suffering, but there he is, eking out a smile with those parched lips, just
happy he has someone to share the moment with. My heart softens.

“I got fired,” I say.

“People get fired all the
time. There’ll be another job.”

“No, you don’t understand. It
wasn’t just an ordinary job. I was doing research... so I could graduate.”

“Well I’m sure your folks
will help you out.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“They’re not around anymore. They died in a car accident... when I was ten.”

“I’m sorry. Were you
adopted?”

“No, my grandparents took me
in, raised me. But now... they’re gone too.”

“Any brothers or sisters?” he
asks.

“No, it’s just me,” I
respond.

“Well I wouldn’t be too
concerned. I bet there are lots of jobs for an intelligent girl like you.”

“I got reduced tuition with
that job. Do you have any idea how much it costs to go here?”

“No,” he says.

“Either you’re rich, or you have
a scholarship. And right now, I have neither. I really needed that job.”

“I bet if you thought real
hard, you’d find a way to get your job back.”

“There’s only one way I could
get my job back. I’d have to prove Dean Haas is wrong. And that would be
impossible,” I blurt out.

“When I was in Iraq, my
commander used to say, ‘Nothing is impossible, if a fella puts his mind to it’.
And he was right.”

“Iraq? You’re a soldier?”

“Forty ninth division. Nine
years of living on K-Rations and getting shot at.”

“I bet you were happy to get
out,” I say.

“No Miss. I was damn proud
being a soldier. Expected to spend my entire career in the military. Then I got
injured. They sent me back here, said there was jobs waiting for us. Well, I
still waiting for that job.”

The wind picks up. I fold my
arms, shiver.

“Here Miss, take my blanket.
I can see you’re cold,” he says, holding out the blanket.

“No, that’s okay. I have to
go now,” I say, standing up.

“My brother lives in Florida,”
he says, totally ignoring the fact I’m about to leave. “Tells me to come stay
with him. Always says how warm it is in Florida.”

“So why don’t you go?”

“’cause I’m the one he always
looked up to when we was kids. What would he think if he saw me like this?”

“Don’t you get anything from
the government?”

“Yeah, Social Security. But
it’s almost nothing. Goes on food before the next check arrives so there’s
never nothing left over for rent.”

I finish the coffee, toss the
cup in the trash. I reach into my purse to retrieve a one-dollar bill. As I tug
on it, a ten note is dragged along with it. I separate the bills, and then
catch a glimpse of Will sitting there on the bench. The parched lips, still in
a smile, and the bloodshot eye fill me with compassion. I hand Will the ten.