Conspiracy of One
by: Susan Fox
Old Mr. Iskowitz
had visitors the thirtieth of April.
Next day he disappeared.
Six nurses, three guards, and two officials of the nursing home
spent half the day searching.
At dinnertime old Mr. Iskowitz, pajama-clad,
was spotted climbing slowly
out of the IRT.
He looked confused.
The day dawned gloomy, though the sun was out by noon.
Sol didn't care. His day had nothing to do with weather.
Purpose reminded him
of a tiny stash of coins,
of train routes,
of gestures that would override
his faded hospital pajamas.
The trick, he told himself,
veteran of countless civil conflicts,
is in the eyes:
Look straight ahead like straight ahead is right.
All the way down from the North Bronx
he looked straight ahead.
Headlines, punkers, babies in slings,
the man with a ferret in his shirt,
begged his attention
but Sol held firm. Straight ahead. He knew the trick.
He remembered to get off carefully at Union Square,
waiting for the moving grate to meet the train.
That was all that matched his memory.
On the corner where Kleins Department Store once stood
three cranes herded a construction site.
Okay, so why should Kleins get richer?
But cranes that high? As high as towers,
as high as flight.
That's it! thought Sol -
all his ninety years of dreams
invested in a world
where cranes did the work
so workers could be free -
We did it! It's begun!
Vindicated, festive, he was ready for the drums.
Holiday rolls - he loved the sound.
Bullhorns. Anthems. Chants.
Jeers, okay, but who'd mind jeers
on a day like this?
His spine recalled its length,
his eyes their color -
his slippered feet rehearsed the march.
He looked around for comrades.
None that he knew, of course -
those were all dead,
or turned,
or, like his visitors the day before,
aged into wistfulness
('Tomorrow, Solly, you know what tomorrow is?'
Benny had asked,
and Sol had made himself remember: May Day).
New brothers he looked for, young ones,
with dreams as far beyond his own
as those three cranes surpassed
the creaking wobblers of his day.
The park was calm.
Sol strained for sound: traffic.
The stubby walls of the Square,
postered and sprayed with decades of graffiti,
were down. Half the trees were gone.
A swirled mosaic plaza replaced the speaker's post.
Cold took Sol's throat,
more sweat than he'd felt in twenty years
froze down his sides.
Benny said today! It's May Day!
Then this isn't Union Square!
Wrong train, wrong station -
old man, stupid, missed the stop - ask!
'Yeah man Union Square - spare change?'
(too stoned to see the old man sag in his pajamas) -
Sol asked again, a woman: He was here.
Then where was May Day?
Ten solid hours of speeches, fanfares, hymns -
where?
No drum to time his step,
Sol shuffled through the Square, the bastion,
now just a pretty urban park. Nothing.
Exhausted, he sat down.
Two girls eating out of cardboard boxes
moved down the bench to give him room.
The smell of food repelled him.
Cold wrought iron stung.
Fool, idiot, he chanted to himself.
They moved it, and you didn't even know.
An excursion you've had.
You took a little trip.
Idiot. Moron. Jerk.
Hours he sat there. The sun began to fade.
He shivered. He remembered the cardboard boxes of food.
He watched people crossing the park to somewhere.
He rehearsed the route to the Bronx,
but the fare coming down was ten times what he'd thought
and he'd spent his coins.
Okay, so die here, jerk -
freeze to a bench in Union Square.
Poetic justice.
No. Pathetic. Sol gathered himself and rose.
A middle-aged woman in a fur-trimmed leather coat
eyed his pajamas and his terry scuffs.
He felt like a starved wet dog,
wanted to snarl, wanted to move on. Couldn't.
Muttered: trainfare.
Took it. Left.
Someone gave him a seat. The car was warm.
Moron. Fool.
All the way home to the North Bronx
old Mr. Iskowitz reviled himself
for missing his last parade.
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