A Dog Walk in the Park, No. 1

It was my second day in New York City. Eighteen years old and fresh off the boat. Actually taking a boat from Chicago to New York seems like a pretty inefficient form of travel, so really I was fresh off the plane. Anyhow, I decided to go running. Now, this was long before I had fallen into a more traditional college routine of staying up late and sacrificing working out to any other cause. But on this warm August morning around I set out from my new home, a dorm located on 114th and Broadway. It was an ugly cinderblock and brick number from the 70’s, but at least it was conveniently located on the campus of Columbia University, the place I planned to dedicate myself to four years of education and my parents to over 100 thousand dollars in tuition.

On this morning, I wasn’t thinking about tuition or education. The learning had yet to start, and I was elated that I was 18 and in freakin’ New York City with no responsibilities. I ran south to 110th street and then headed east to Central Park. The run in the park went entirely as planned. Well almost.

I made a slight mistake on the way back. Instead of returning how I came, I ran north to 114th street with the intention of taking it all the way home.

There was only one flaw in my plan: Morningside Park. Now, I am pretty sure that this is untrue, but someone once told me that Morningside Park has the highest murder per square foot ratio of any place in all of Manhattan. How anyone would compute that statistic is beyond me, but even the mythology is a bit harrowing. At the time I didn’t know anything about the sketchy locale, so I thought to myself “there are steps here and I can see some on the other side of the park, why don’t I just cut through it?”

With that line of reasoning in head, I descended the stairs of Morningside Park onto the garbage strewn, matted grass of its “recreational” surface. The only other person who was in the park at that early hour was a ragged man walking his dog. He was standing in the middle of the asphalt path that was supposed to lead me to the other set of steps much like the Yellow Brick Road led Dorothy to Oz. But, as I drew closer to the individual and his canine companion, I realized that he was not actually walking his dog, or even walking. Rather he beating the shit out of the poor thing that futilely cowered and whimpered. As I came closer to the man and his desperate dog, I watched them both look up and stare at me. I veered around them, picking up the pace, my eyes focused on the prize of the set of steps that would lead me out of this weirdness.

Thinking back on it, maybe the dog wasn’t begging for my help, maybe he was warning me about what was to come, as if Toto was telling Dorothy (and not the other way around) “you’re not in Kansas anymore.”