never opens. Mandy’s Candy—you’d know it if you saw it. I walk by but don't see anyone outside. Maybe my friends are staying in tonight.
At last I see the sharp gates of the park and the smell of shit mingled with beer and skunk welcomes me like an old friend. The tall maples and elms shadow the block, and I feel my weight lighten as I step inside and notice a heavily-armed cop beside a garbage pail—Officer Giles is his name. I’ve known him for years. He's always shown me respect, never asked me to turn my eye-cam off or kicked me out the park. If a story breaks, he’ll let me shoot to my heart’s content. Giles is a fan of my Page.
I’m one step closer to seeing my rats, when my ear-wire rings and I already know it's my friend Wheelie Will.
“Hey, Robby,” he hisses. “There's action near the river. I just got word. On the southwest corner of 4th and C, some kids are wilding.”
“I'm heading over.”
“Be careful, Robby. Some of them might have guns.”
I'm not afraid of guns. I hurry down the block toward the scene, past short stubby trees planted by the city, past a pipe/tattoo/dildo boutique, past a tenement like an old fungal nail.
I hear hoots and howls of young kids, victorious yelps dispersing the night, construction boots pounding the pavement. They don't rob, these kids, they pounce and slice and dice like the gangs of old except back then they fought over drug turf, heritage, music. Now I don't know. Many came from the projects by the river, one of the few remnants of public housing. Sirens electrify the skyline, but they're heading north, away from the action. My eye-cam saves the scene: the wine-bar that was once a community garden, the homeless man passed out atop a Mercedes.
Many came from the projects by the river, one of the few remnants of public housing. Sirens electrify the skyline, but they're heading north, away from the action. My eye-cam saves the scene: the wine-bar that was once a community garden, the homeless man passed out atop a Mercedes.
Up ahead I see a man hunched over beneath a bus-canopy. He's spitting and I zoom in on the puddle below him—blood, vomit, glass. I hear more joyful yelps from some kid. “My motherfucking city,” he yells. “That's who—my!”
I recognize the man; he smells like he shat his pants. “Marky?”
He nods. Blood streaks the side of his face; his right eye is swollen shut. I film all this. How long has he been here, where the fuck is EMT? I say 911 into my ear-wire, it dials, and I prepare to bark commands.
“No ambulance,” Marky says, staggering to his feet, glass cracking beneath. “I'm not going.”
“Let me help you,” I say, pulling from my backpack some first-aid supplies—water, gauze, disinfectant. But Marky pushes me off and I almost trip onto the glass chips. Sometimes he's homeless, sometimes employed—at one point, Marky was a science teacher in the public school system. He was always unstable: I would see him circling the park or talking to himself in the library.
“Just leave me alone,” he says, his voice suddenly high-pitched, his curled hand outstretched. 14
“You need a little first-aid, man. I'm not gonna call anybody.”
He screams and faces my eye-cam, gritting his teeth, spit flying from the corner of his mouth. Just the sort of reality that excites my viewership.
“I'm gonna leave it right here,” I say, gently placing the first-aid on the bench beneath the canopy. “It's what you need.”