So right after that last post, I decided to start reading my book. I only had it open for a few minutes when an older African-American woman came up and asked me where those helicopters were coming from – for some reason the sky seemed to be full of them. I pointed out the heliport across the water. She asked if she could join me, and as soon as I said “Sure,” she sat down beside me on the bench. I wasn’t really sure what to make of this, but a couple of hours later she got up and went her own way. In those two hours she talked, and I listened (chiming in occasionally) about her dog (Snowball) that her son had taken from their Jersey City home and had let loose in the streets of Newark, just because. She told me how dogs could sense evil. She wondered if it was okay if she helped her son with his Walk-a-thon (some people had told her that it was wrong to help him raise money). She told me about another dog she had when she was little. She had a crib for her doll babies, but she used to let him sleep in it – she’d even dress him up in her clothes. Later someone in the neighborhood poisoned him. She said she likes to explore, to go places, she’s not content sitting still. As we watched the ferries come and go, she mentioned that she wanted to take her youngest son out on it for a ride. She doesn’t think anyone got out of the World Trade Centers alive. She believes they’ve come a long way with cancer, because when she was little you could see the cancer when people had it, you could see holes in their flesh from where it was eating them alive. At some point in the middle of all these dozen or so stories, I put my book away.
I’m not really sure how to describe those two or so hours… Eventually she decided it was time to go. “I’m Cookie, it was nice talking to you.” I introduced myself and returned the compliment. Then as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone.
