In the Shadow of the Lady's Torch

Dirk Vanden

On certain evenings you remember. When the sky glows with that haunting yellow-long after the sun has gone down; when sounds are muted and seem far away. You need not even close your eyes--it is there as tangible as it ever was. It never did seem real.

There is a vast coolness along the sidewalk beside the short, colorless cement wall which runs dipping and rising in easy solid waves along Central Park. As far as you can see along the sidewalk there are concrete benches and old men, and dogs and baby carriages, and tight indecent Levis, and icecream pushcarts, and tight indecent dresses, and tipped-over icecream cones that stand in sticky, shiny puddles on a sidewalk that won't cool down till after midnight. You can smell the cool wetness from the little lake, hidden by a thick screen of dark trees and bushes. And there are children in the graveled playground, screaming higher and higher in the swings and gurgling into the water fountains.

You hear them playing in the shadows, kids yelling "Run my sheepie, run! Red, green, orange and you think of children times and think, dear God! they're playing the pretend is real; too soon they'll discover they are at it backwards!

You stand by the wall like you do almost every night. You've learned how it is here-like the game the kids are playing a game for grown-ups, or those pretending they are grown-ups. It's the same in every city. The rules vary because the playing fields are different.

A man and his wife (you guess) walk by, and the woman has a little dog. You can see how much she loves that little dog.

The guy is talking with his hands, like in those comic movies. "But what's

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