Something stirs inside me, forcing a restless streak un-felt for ages. The urge to prowl was too hard to ignore and I soon found myself changing into an old white t-shirt and placing my cap a bit askance as I glance at my reflection before racing out the door. My neighborhood opens like a ripe tomato before me, spilling seeds of sidewalk secrets upon the runway of life. Before I know it I have crossed 104th St all the way to 5th Ave and Central Park and upon entering find my way upon a deep and twisting trail winding through the tip top. Trees become spooks in the dark, their limbs seemingly reaching down in a menacing way as I try to keep my focus on the stone filled ground below my feet. Men pose against rocks as if in an underwear ad in their own warped imagination, their macho bravado lagging under their Dudley Doright pretensions and rubberized faces. A crotch rub here, a moan in the bushes there. The sexual tension is hardly wild for all this outdoor action and no-one seems to actually be doing anything other than posing. And smoking. Everybody’s smoking. Newports. Marlboro Black Box, Parliament filter. The cackle of an ebony queen cut through the night and I curiously follow it’s wail until I have come face to face with five banjie black boys engaged in some sort of shady situation where money was being passed and multiple baggies procured. I smiled as sweetly as I could, realizing in the dark no one could see my expression anyway and gingerly walked through their scene as quickly as possible. I stopped for a bit to admire the moon and smoke a blunt by a small creek that seemed to trickle out of nowhere. Slowly I lost myself into the parks void and became almost transparent as suddenly all around me men swarmed in groups of two and three and four until my brain was overloaded by their musky smells and the sounds of their gruff voices calling in the dark filling me with a sense of anticipation I can only describe as the cruelest torture. For as the men who pass through the night, looking for love in the faces of total, but beautiful strangers, finally find what they think they have been looking for forever, do they realize that everything they thought was true is completely impossible and the only love they will ever know is the fleeting kiss of a stranger behind a tree as his saliva slips between their lips leaving nothing in it’s wake but a trace of longing & regret. I finally exit the park & stumble down the subway steps, hopping on the downtown C hungry for another adventure. - WC Polaroid of Walt Cessna by Benjamin Fredrickson NYC 10