Like our Miss Havisham, sometimes I have strange fancies. For example, when I’m walking down the stairs, I imagine: If I fell to the earth here, would I live? Probably not. A floor lower. Perhaps. A floor lower. Probably. By the second floor. Almost certainly, yes, I would live. Very few people die from falling from the second floor. Except Chet Baker. Not a splendid death, that. After years of drugs and Italian prisons and womanizing, the poor soul died falling from the second floor.

I also imagine escaping gunfire. That is, when I get in an elevator, I tuck myself around behind the wall. That way they can’t shoot me. When a person is following me down the stairwell and I can’t see them but I can hear them, I try to ensure that I am far enough ahead that if they had a gun and if they wanted to shoot me that I was out of firing range. On a subway platform, where would I go if someone pulled a gun? I try to imagine my escapes. I’m not exactly paranoid. I don’t imagine that it will actually happen. I don’t lose sleep over it or anything. It is a perverse sort of mental exercise. It is mostly a way of amusing myself, or rather a way I had of amusing myself that has become a habit. But it is a habit that does not trouble my head.

Hmm? I’ve always felt, entirely unlikely as it is, that I will die by getting shot in the back. I also imagine that it will happen on a Wednesday night. But since it’s a Wednesday night, it could be a Tuesday night or a Thursday morning. I usually don’t share this information. It sounds crazy. It doesn’t change my life. I don’t live differently on a Wednesday than I do on a Thursday. And on Thursday I don’t imagine that I can do any manner of crazy reckless thing because I have survived another Wednesday.

I loved Hogan’s Heroes when I was a kid. No, that’s not right. I didn’t love it. I don’t remember any of the plot or the dialogue and I’m quite sure I didn’t get the jokes. But I love the kettle with the camera and I love the secret fort under the tree stump. When I was a child I always wanted an underground fort and on a number of occasions I tried to build one. I never got very far.

I’m old now. But I haven’t lost the fantasy of secret hiding places and secret exits. When I worked downtown, consumed by other people’s money, I would sneak out into the city. I would imagine there were secret doors, secret passageways, thin exits out of this life and into a better, bigger, more colorful life.

This tree is in the park next door. I love this tree. It’s an unassuming tree that I perhaps never would have noticed if Murphy didn’t wrap herself around it stalking squirrels. This bit here is exactly hand-sized. With Murphy in tow, I will look around for witnesses then put my right hand onto this bit. It’s as if it is built exactly for my right hand. What secret exit it opens, what secret passage it reveals, I will keep to myself. That is all mine. Well, and Murphy. Murphy knows.

SS