LUNCH ON A BENCH

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Interesting evidence of the different aspects of human connection was given by a young woman yesterday in front of the county courthouse. A homeless man was pushing a cart along the southern edge of the plaza, and when passing a man in a suit, implored the man for a few coins. Money was exchanged, along with a few words and even laughter. A twenty-six-year-old woman eating her lunch on a bench observed the entire scene, and later remarked upon it. “I saw a real balance,” she said. “For all the economic differences, the second they began to speak, they assumed the same posture, the same expressions. They made the same gestures with their hands. Forget race. Forget class. I mean, we have to remember them, but forget them for one second, the way I did when I was watching the two men. One of them said something surprising and funny, and the other one threw back his head and laughed, a real spontaneous laugh. The fact that I don’t quite remember which one spoke and which one reacted, well, that’s the point.” The woman, who would not give her name, explained that she was out on the plaza because she had just broken off an affair with her boss, who she loved, but who she also resented, because he had pressured her into the affair at first, and in a way that she knew was entirely beyond the bounds of propriety, and that friends of hers had urged her to go to Human Resources and report the conduct, but that she had no plans to do so, that the very idea was anathema, because there had been love, because there still was love, and that now that the affair had ended, everyone was going back to their corners, which meant that she was going back to oversee the paralegals and he was going back to the corner office, to the long black leather sofa that ran underneath the window with the view of the park, to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled not only with bound legal opinions but with novels and even poetry that he loved to read out loud, to the big wooden desk with pictures of his wife and children, and at this she began to weep. Her shoulders shook with life lived and unlived. A few moments later, she composed herself and pointed back toward the southern edge of the plaza, where the homeless man and businessman had conducted their transaction. “Humans connect in unpredictable ways,” she said. “That’s my point and that will always be my point.” Her weeping recommenced.