I am Interviewed By the Police

Checking the weather radar before you leave home is always a good thing to do. We had a big storm blow through last Saturday night and when went to bed the radar was a solid green mass of rain across the whole area, but when I punched it up at 4:45am, everything was clear. So I was a little surprised when I reached the park's Merchant Gate by how dark it was. There was a layer of fog oozing through the trees and the roadway was pitch black.

The streetlights were out. It was just after 5:30am and I did see one runner go by as I came down the sidewalk towards the road, but he had disappeared by the time I reached the curb. "What the hell." I said and pressed the start button on my watch. I headed up the hill, eastward, towards the Seventh Avenue exit and the Boathouse. The signal lights were working so I got to run first in green light and then in red. I know your eyes are supposed to see better at night in red light, at least that's what they taught us in Escape and Evasion School -USAFSS, another story for another time, but I have to report here that it was much easier to see in the green light or the brief yellows.

The storm had knocked all kinds of sticks and branches onto the road and there were deep puddles to avoid or splash through along with trying to peer through the murk to see if anyone else, besides the previous runner, was nuts enough to do this this early. Sure enough right after the Fifth Avenue exit, I saw two women and a man running towards me. They must have been as put off by the dark as I was because they actually said "Good morning." that never happens unless I happen to say something first. There was a large tree branch down just past that point blocking the sidewalk on the left side of the road. There was already Caution Tape strung across it so someone in authority must have already seen it.

I got to the Boathouse just before six am and it was then that I remembered- it was a holiday weekend- no one was going to open the restrooms until later. (The Boathouse has the cleanest restrooms in the Park.) This was going to be a problem because I needed an open restroom. Sooner rather then later. I had a number of choices, none of which I really liked: 1) run back to 59th Street and see if the icky public johns were unlocked and chance being in there with three homeless guys washing up, 2) run over to Fifth Avenue and catch a cab down to the all-night Cosmo Diner at 888 8th Avenue. (Yes. I have had to do that before.) or 3) jog up to the Precinct Station at the Reservoir and see if they would let me use the men's. I had never done that before but it was fairly close, about a mile and half.

The only problem was I didn't know how to get to the Precinct. I know that sounds strange, but you can see the building from the Bridal Path but it's across one of the roadways that cut through the park and there are no signs directing you how to reach it. So after I got to the Reservoir, I had to find a way to get down to the Bridal Path and then find the Police Parking lot and then find the path from the parking lot to the roadway, all without having an embarrassing emergency.

And it was still very dark, but somehow entryways appeared in the murk and I climbed down a little stairway to the road, crossed over and made it to the door. It was open.

The two cops behind the counter looked up as I came in.
"Hi," I said, "I wonder if I could use your men's room."
"Sure thing." replied the one closer to me, "Down the hall on the right."
"Thanks so much." I said,"Man, it's really dark in the park this morning."
"Oh?" The cop looked right at me. "Tell me more."

There are two groups of people I love to have conversations with, reporters and cops. Why? Because they ask you questions and then really listen to your answers. Hardly anyone else does that. A customer asks how to hang a lamp on a plaster ceiling and then, as you answer, lets his eyes glaze over. A friend asks you what you did over the weekend and before you get the first sentence out starts fiddling with the lid on the ketchup bottle. But when a cop says "Tell me more." He wants to know. AND you, you know this, you cannot hand him a line of horsehocky, you have to give him what you really know. It used to thrill me when the editor of the Tulsa World would ask me "What's new?" My mind would spin trying to think of something which was actually new.

"I'll be right back." I said to the cops, "I've really got to go."

When I came out they were waiting at the desk. I went over with them, practically yard by yard, what sections of the lights were out and which ones I thought I remembered being on (the Boathouse was all lit up, just nobody there.), I told them about the big tree branch and one of the cops said, yeah, he's seen that about 3AM. I said maybe that was part of the cause of the light being out. He said he was going to make a circuit of the park in about twenty minutes and he would check it all out. I said something about there not being too many others out on the roadway, the other cop said something about how it was dangerous to be in the park so early, I said I would be careful, that I didn't want to make any extra work for them. They smiled. I like cops.

I headed out along the Bridal Path to the Bridge. This is the one I call the Stretching Bridge because most of the day it;s covered with bent and bending bodies, runners of every shape making their limbs into semi-natural shapes. It's one of several that reach over the Bridal Path to one of the walking paths in the park. I got to the roadway again just as the rest of the fog was lifting. The rest of the run was uneventful except that after I had cut through the 102nd Street cutoff and was headed South again, one of the cops went by in the cruiser. He gave me a little wave. "Oh, good,"I thought, "Now he knows I'm not just a nut."

Wait a minute, my brain replied, seeing you still out here probably confirms to him that you are a nut. "Shut up." I said and pushed past the Delacorte Theatre where there were about three hundred people asleep in the ticket line. I'll have to do a piece on them sometime. That day was the last performance of Mother Courage and her Children, an interesting choice of play in these times in this city.