norman

His name is Norman and he spends his afternoons shaking a plastic cup on Lexington Avenue, hoping to attract quarters and dimes and nickels and, maybe, money that doesn’t clink and jangle. Fifteen blocks north, the park, a grand place today in the spring sunlight, teems with all ages, races, nationalities; softballs, Whiffle balls, Frisbees, footballs. People talk, mingle, run, bike, rollerblade, hug, kiss, fondle, far from the jingle of Norman’s cup. He won’t go there, today, never does, in fact, stays here, in front of the City Camera shop. He still has his manners, thinks it would be rude to place himself in that setting, intrude on their afternoon. So, he waits, here, hopes that some of them will walk past, later, happier, feeling luckier, more loved, maybe mistaking him for the Jesus to whom some of them pray, and, if so moved, add to his lot. Most don’t, of course, add, though many pass by Norman, or, more accurately, bypass him. If he had a moment, if they had a moment, he would tell everyone who passes that he wasn’t always like this, not that it would matter. After all, it was a long, long time ago, Vietnam was.