“No tits is no conversation.”

Ok so three men on my mind today. The guy in Madison Square Park in the mid 1990s, an old guy, an old guy asshole, roaming between benches, caught up in his own story, his own drama. I didn’t want him ripping into the conversation my cousin and I were having, so I told him to leave us be, stop interrupting. Like he was an annoying sibling or cranky grampa. (New York can be so intimate that you talk to people you don’t know like they are family.) Glancing at my chest he let out a yell, “No tits is no conversation!” He was such an asshole but also so funny.

Guy number two from recycling station works at plastics, metals and paper. He’s old, but the thing is now I am older than I was back in the park. He’s old, we wouldn’t be, like, married, he could be my dad. Today a bear dashed behind the Salvation Army donation box and into the woods, and the man’s eyes met mine with the glee of a boy.

Lastly, Dad. An aide called from his place to tell me he’d thrown a plant at another resident. But what made me think of him today was the bear story, and how my dad would have gotten emotional hearing it. He’d have feelings about the way the bear brought a connection between me and the guy. I would get awkward with his feelings. Then he’d cut through the awkwardness by pissing me off. “Oh you should write about that!” or “The bear was checking your recycling.” He might even have drawn a picture of it with a black felt tip.

Back to the assault. The aide says it’s his dementia, so does the psych person who called next. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing, throwing the pot at the lady. We’ll give him a plastic plate and fork. Keep it safe.” I don’t tell them he’s always been this way, that he slipped my bassinet under the kitchen table if I cried too loud, and decades later popped his girlfriend’s grandkid on the top of the head with a beer bottle.

Later I text my sister, told her he’d be separated from the resident. She texted right back, “They are separating him from other residents?” Annoyed I answered, “No, they are separating him from the person he whacked.” Annoyed because my sister doesn’t read my texts closely enough.

Maybe she’s right, maybe she didn’t misread it or maybe she did and it doesn’t matter, maybe they are making him sit alone and that’s something I really can’t think about.