City Park Fiasco

City Park Golf Course (and the tracks which run through it)

Howard and I walked a mile, to get to where 

Rt. 10 passes by City Park.

My plan was to play my guitar and my harmonica in the median, where cars stop at the red light before turning onto the Interstate. I was hoping to have people throw me money, or offer a ride.

I had a sign which read "West, In General"

Howard's Inane Questions were bothering me, even more than usual, on this particular afternoon. 

His habit of watching everything I do, in dumb wonder, was annoying me, also, exacerbated by the nervousness which I had over venturing into the unknown. I went to a dumpster and got a piece of white cardboard, as he watched. I opened my backpack. His eyes followed my hand, as I pulled out a magic marker.

...Go ahead Howard, ask me if I'm going to make a sign; I know you want to...

"Are you going to make a sign?"

"No, Howard. Former first lady Pat Nixon is going to make the sign; she'll be here soon. I'm just getting the cardboard and the marker ready for her..what do you think!?!"

I had enough questions of my own, running through my mind:

Would the on-ramp even have a stop light, or would there be turning lanes with yield signs, so that cars would only slow a bit before entering the ramp?

Would a cop show up immediately and tell me that I couldn't stand there and play my guitar and harmonica with my case open and a sign displayed?

Would there be a store anywhere within walking distance, so that if I got some cash, we could run to it?

Would we be able to sleep in the nearby City Park, if we failed to get a ride, so that I could jump out on the ramp early in the morning and play some more (I have found that people on their ways to work are more likely to appreciate someone who is "out there" at the crack of dawn; working)

All these questions in my head, and then I had to field Howards inane ones, on top of them.

When we were almost to the ramp, there was a road to the left. "Is this where it dog-legs to the left?" he asked.

"No, it dog-legged back there, where we made an almost right angle. Didn't you notice?"

"Oh..."

He hadn't noticed.
Sometimes I Feel Like... 

Howard sat by a tree, where I thought (hoped that) he was going to take out a book and read, while I tried to play.

He didn't take out a book. 

His eyes followed my hands as I took my nylon cord out of my backpack. Then, to my pocket, as I took my little knife out and cut a length of it, enough to make a crude guitar strap. Then, watched intently as I tied it onto my guitar.

He's going to ask me if I'm making a strap and I'm going to go ballistic on him...

The turning lanes veered off onto the ramp with only yield signs, as I had feared, but I was able to stand where the cars not taking the Interstate, rather proceeding straight, had to stop at a light.

I strapped on the harmonica and guitar, set up the sign and started playing a Bob Dylan song.

Howard had lied down, rested his head in his hand and was watching me. Staring would be a more apt word. His gaze was frozen upon me. No bird flying past, no tree or flower or cloud or lake seemed to compete with me for his attention.

The very first vehicle leaving the highway tooted its horn as it drove behind me. A young guy held out a dollar for me.

Then, I hit a cold spell which lasted about 20 minutes. 

A lot of cars stopped well short of me waiting for the light to change and then sped past; as if suspecting that the guitar and harp were merely decoys and that I was planning upon jacking their (mostly expensive) cars. I had seen this plenty of times before. It is the guy in a pickup truck, who is on his way home from work and has already smoked a joint, who is most likely to throw a five or ten dollar bill. The rich people stay behind their tinted windows, which never come open.

I have learned to be patient.

At one point a cop rode past but didn't turn around and come back. That was a good sign, at least.

During the 20 minutes or so when nobody threw me any traveling money, I tried to stay optimistic. I could feel Howards gaze boring into me. Every time I glanced over I saw that he hadn't moved an inch. He was looking at me as if thinking "Nobody's giving you anything."

Maybe they think that you're holding me out here at rifle point, or something...your intense stare is kind of freaky, Howard...

Finally, a guy in a red car threw a dollar out his window, which fluttered in the currents it made, because he hadn't slowed much.

Then a young lady stopped in the lane behind me and gave me three bucks.

Five dollars in about an hour.

I had to use "the restroom" by then, which I had decided would be a patch of woods across the road in front of me.

I packed my stuff away and disappeared behind the trees. Howard was already half way across the road by the time I emerged.

"Are you going to continue to play?"

I told him that I really hadn't decided that; I like to do things spontaneously. I stopped short of telling him that the whole experience would easier on my without his incessant hounding.

We decided to walk to the nearest store, which turned out to be less than a mile away, where we bought food and beer, sat down and ate and drank, and returned to the park as the sun was going down.

Playing the ramps is definitely not a night time operation, for reasons which become obvious after observing how paranoid a lot of the people in the cars act in broad daylight. We decided to find a spot on the City Park Golf Course to sleep.

The Paper Did Mention Storms...

Then, it started raining.

We moved to under a little roof which was just a bit larger than the size of a picnic table, which I had seen on the way back from the store.

A full-blown violent thunderstorm then commenced, with incredibly bright and dazzling lightning, thunder, and high winds. The lightning was actually very beautiful, but it was hard to find a spot under the canopy where the rain wasn't blowing in horizontally and landing.

I sat up on the leeward side, wrapping a plastic bag around myself and my stuff.

Howard stubbornly remained prone, trying to sleep until a small river of water began to invade us, as we were on a slight slope.

We wound up squashed into the only relatively dry corner, on a bank of that creek, where I eventually managed to fall asleep, curled up inside the plastic bag, using my backpack as a pillow, despite having to listen to Howard complain that "This isn't a very good spot."

At about 4 a.m. I woke up. The rain had just about stopped. Howard was gone.

The gist of his complaints seemed to imply that I had somehow gotten us into the mess that we were in. He said that we were "better off" back in Scotlandville, where we could have found protection against that storm. "You're playing isn't panning out; and nobody's giving us a ride..."

"One hour of trying isn't a very reliable test of that, Howard."

I asked him if, in the newspaper that he reads every single morning, he happened to have gazed at the weather, especially since he knew that we were going to be trying to sleep in a park that night.

"Well, I knew they were calling for thunderstorms, but..."

"But what, Howard?"

Howard Makes A DecisionI realized, as I was walking the mile back to campus, (where I knew that I would find him at the Jack-In-The-Box, eating a $2.99 breakfast, with a cup of coffee from the Circle K next door, and reading a newspaper...He'll return to the familiar...) that, for one thing, he is a "load," but, secondly: he had actually made a decision, for the first time since I've known him. Wow.
No, I hadn't had an extra plastic bag; didn't bring one; and if I had any dry clothes, I was going to put them on myself...I'm not his caretaker.
He had decided -at around 4 in the morning, laying there in soaking wet blankets with the wind howling and the rain just letting up- to do something to improve his situation. I was almost proud of him.
Thinking For Both
Being free of the distraction of him and his questions as I walked, it was easier to think and I was able to come up with a tentative plan of action: I'll play my way out of this mess.
I'll go back to the convenience store in Scotlandville, where they allowed and even encouraged me to play out front and play as many hours as I can to keep myself in strings and stay afloat -maybe after a night or two across from the Varsity Theater to come up with the bus fare to get there.
The plan doesn't make any provisions for Howard. I'm not going to just abandon him, I'll talk to him first. 
He can stay around the campus and wear a path between his sleeping spot, the Circle K, the Jack-In-The-Box and the library, with his brain in neutral and, as Alex in California once postulated, he'll probably find someone else to follow around expecting him to do the thinking for both of them.