Afternoon in the Park

An Afternoon In The Park

By Billiam Corona

Scott’s twelve year-old son, Jake, was sitting on a park bench eating an orange when he found him. Pieces of the peel were discarded on the bench.

Scott was relieved and angry at the same time, but he spoke calmly.

“You know,” said Scott, standing there,”that I’ve been looking for you, and it was scary that I couldn’t find you.

“I’m alright.” answered Jake, looking away.

“I can see that.” Scott countered. “but that’s not really the point. At all.”

“…mm” said Jake. He was chewing orange.

“…because I didn’t know that before. That’s the point.” Scott felt condescending at this, but didn’t know what he would’ve said different.

Jake gave him nothing in return for the clarification.

“Where did you get that orange, anyway?”

Looking straight ahead, Jake held out his arm ending at his index finger toward the convenience store across the street.

“Oh… You know, you shouldn’t spend your money so soon after you got it. You might see something you want more later.”

“You said I could spend it on whatever I wanted.”

“You can. I’m just talking about should.”

“Leave me alone.”

A cold gust of wind blew.

“No.” said Scott. His hands shaking. “not until five o’ clock.” He was trying to sound assertive.

“Whatever.”

Scott sat down at the other end of the bench. Jake shifted uncomfortably. Scott looked at Jake.

“You know, you don’t have to hate me for what I did. You don’t have to.”

Jake wasn’t finishing his orange. He just held it in his hand and shifted in his seat again, very uncomfortable.

“Look,” went Scott. “I’m really sorry… really really sorry, that is… that I accidentally killed your best friend Jimmy.”

“What were you doing dropping a sewing machine off the roof anyway?”

“I already told you that! Many times. It was a gravity experiment. And hey, I also dropped a jelly bean, so there you go there! If luck had gone differently, Jimmy would have been tapped on the head by a tasty treat, instead of crushed horribly by a large chunk of metal. You wouldn’t have complained then, right?” Scott had the vague feeling that he was digging himself deeper into a hole.

“That’s not even a necessary experiment!” countered Jake, tears beginning to form in his eyes. “Newton did that, like, hundreds of years ago. He figured that out already.”

Scott winced upon the delivery of this very strong point. In the back of his mind, Scott could hear the echo of Linda yelling those very words, verbatim, on the night she left with Jake. Now it seemed Jake wasn’t much more to him than an angry message from her. They were a team now: The “Scott is an Idiot” Team.

“I know I didn’t need to…” said Scott in a reassuring voice. “but I wanted-- wanted, mind you, to know for myself. Because it seemed weird, is all.”

A tear left Jake’s eye and began the long roll down his flushed cheek.

“Well, congratulations on your amazing discovery.”

Scott winced again and looked away. That was another Linda line.

“You know,” said Scott, speaking now through a dark sheet of hurt. “Maybe you could come up with your own witty comments from now on, ’cause I’ve heard all these already, and they weren’t from you.” Scott stretched out his arms across the bench back, a brief solace brought on from his liberating statement.

Jake hurled the remainder of the orange at a nearby tree. It thumped, and Jake stood up.

“I’m going to the store.”

“You just got back from the store!”

“Well, I’m going again! Give me some more money.”

Scott forked over another five.

“You stay here, bye.” Jake said, and was gone.

Scott stared straight ahead and listened to the birds. He felt bad about how that conversation went, but didn’t know what he would’ve said differently.