The Feast
It would take Brian two hours to walk to Little Italy from home, so I took my time packing up in my office. I'd worn jeans for Casual Friday so I didn't have to change out of my work clothes. I missed the excuse to eat up some time. I got on my bike and considered stopping somewhere else, get in a few extra miles for the day, maybe hit a coffee shop or bar, but indecision held sway and I biked straight to Tony Brush park, our designated rendezvous. The bike rack was at the back of the park, along Random Road. That was fine as Mayfield was already thick with the throng of Feasters.
It was cold wherever the breeze blew or the sun didn't shine, so I found myself a seat in direct sunlight and sat down to read some Dostoevsky. I found "The Eternal Husband" had less husband-ing and more eternity than hoped for.
Families filled the park, kids running, parents walking. Groups of teens squatting in the grass to eat gyros. From somewhere close but out of sight - presumably Holy Rosary Church - a man read rosary prayers over a loudspeaker, reminding us all that The Feast of the Assumption is actually a Catholic festival, and not an excuse to eat cannoli. Well, not JUST an excuse to eat cannoli.
Bored, I moved to a spot in the grass I hoped was more sheltered from the wind and got out my laptop to write. I had a short story I had tasked myself to revise, but instead I wrote an absurd stream-of-consciousness narrative about writing a story. "I'm going to tell myself a story, and if I like it, I will tell it to you. I'll change it first. It helps to have something to hold onto. The first word has to drop in like a seed pearl. 'Husband' is the first word of the story. I will write what I secretly hoped 'The Eternal Husband' would be. Who is this husband?"
And on and on like that until I had over a thousand words and I saw it was five minutes to seven, and Brian would surely be about to arrive. I looked up, thinking about where to move to be better able to be seen by him when he entered the park, only to see him four feet away, smiling at me.
We wandered the festival and picked food at random from the booths. We ate on a stone curb, our feet on the brick street, surrounded by cheese music and fluttering bits of napkins. Then we went for round two. The booths were staffed with children and the elderly and everyone in-between. Families. The pre-teen boy poured a ladle of red sauce on our fried cheese with careful precision. The young man at the meatball stand asked us where we were from, and when we said, oh, we walked here, he might have been disappointed, but he acted apologetic for asking, "I see people I know, but a lot of folks, they come from all over. I had a couple just now came all the way from Youngstown!"
We got ride tickets. I watched the salt-and-pepper-shaker ride. Its blue and white cars felt somehow naval in their curves and flat paint. It could have been considered an antique.
We rode the ferris wheel, a venerable beast who has attended far more of these festivals than we have. It jerked to the left every time it stopped or started, and rocked backward, too. Our little car swung wildly, but we hoped it was a well-maintained, even loved, machine.
Brian cooed at the kiddie rocket car ride from our seats on the ferris wheel, so we crossed the game-of-chance gauntlet to look at it more closely. Four sparkly 1980s future cars, one matte grey knockoff Dumbo, and the most frightening insect thing shared the same center spindle. The insect thing was either supposed to be Jimminy Cricket or a bee in a top hat or perhaps a friendly roach. It was a sickly yellow and had mismatched light-up eyes. I wished I had a camera to capture its fascinating ugliness.
Our appetites for food and adventure sated, Brian and I walked back to the park to collect my bike, which we walked home like an obedient pet. On Murry Hill Road we stopped for a drink at the Murry Hill Market, no longer feeling cold now that we were exercising. They had Sac Sac, a brand of fruit beverage my husband likes to get from Asian groceries. Sac Sac Grape!
An hour later we were halfway home, pausing to rest on Lee Road. The sky overhead was turquoise and strange piano music wafted from the Subway on the corner. Sac Sac Grape tasted like wild grapes, tart and slippery-sweet. Young people walked by, absorbed in their own conversations. It was exquisite.