Corner Park

(photo courtesy of Santiago Mejia)

The four-year old’s eyes bore into me worse than anything my parents cast upon me.

“Plllleeeeaaazzzze???”

And then a drop-dead eye roll. And why not? I can’t blame her, this has been bordering on charade for some time, and she knows some sort of ridiculous deadline has passed.

But damn, where did she get that eye roll from? Exquisite.

“Okay,” I relent more to my own relief than hers. How bad could it be? The police tape came down two days ago, and it’s been a full week since the assassination.

She was expecting to go and play on the twisty slide that day before the street was blocked off by squad cars just after lunch, and we didn’t quite lie to her when we said the city need to do some “special repair work” down at the park so it was closed.

Special.

“Repair.” As if.

There were witnesses. Maintenance men on their lunch break saw one kid draw point blank on the back of another kid sitting on the bench, only the park fence between them.

Before she even goes through the gates, she is at a full sprint, pent up and stir crazy to reach the fortress of tunnels, slides, fire poles and climbing poles, and utterly oblivious to the memorial that has blossomed obscuring the sign that announces “Nicol Park” financed by HUD. Utterly oblivious to the dark spattered stains on the asphalt her little sneakers trample over that were a part of living matter just a week ago.

We play hide and seek, hit the swings, and she runs pell-mell all over the play structure pretending she’s Dora and I roleplay as the Blueberry Bear. For the next seventy five minutes I can see people from the neighborhood taking long looks at us from the street. Are we the first to venture into this park since the incident? Are we being disrespectful by coming here? How long was I supposed to keep my kid from coming to her favorite park?

It bothers me that I don’t know how to feel. Who am I supposed to ask about the etiquette on when a hit goes down at the corner playground park? Somebody had to come back and breathe life back into it at some point.

Eventually Hannah notices the gathering of flowers at the far end of the park. She asks and I don’t lie.

“Somebody died in the park and the people in the neighborhood want to remember and honor them.”

Over time, she will ask more uncomfortable questions, and I will have to answer them as truthfully as I can, but for now she remains quiet. She thoughtfully goes over and picks a daisy out of the overgrown grass of the park and puts it on one of the memorial bouquets.

One night later I’m stumbling home drunk from the bar after midnight and the entire memorial is a brilliant candescence of dozens of candles lighting up the flowers freshly placed there that day. I can’t help the tears.