THE HEART OF THE PARK
asleep for almost an hour, all the time without suspecting there was
somebody in the bushes looking at where she came out of the suit.
Then on another day when he stopped a little later, he saw three
women, all with their suits split, the pool full of people, and nobody
paying them any mind. That was how the city was-always surpris–
ing him. He visited a whore every time he had two dollars to spare
but he was continually being shocked by the looseness he saw in the
open. He crawled into the bushes out of a sense of propriety. Very
often the women would pull the suit straps down off their shoulders
and lie stretched out.
The park was the heart of the city. He had come to the city
and-with a knowing in his blood- he had established himself at
the heart of it. Every day he looked at the heart of it; every day; and
he was so stunned and awed and overwhelmed that just to think about
it made him sweat. There was something, in the center of the park,
that he had discovered.
It
was a mystery, although it was right there
in a glass case for everybody to see and there was a typewritten card
telling all about it right there. But there was something the card
couldn't say and what it couldn't say was inside him, a terrible knowl–
edge without any words to it, a terrible knowledge like a big nerve
growing inside him. He could not show the mystery to just anybody;
but he had to show it to somebody. Who he had to show it to was
a special person. This person could not be from the city but he didn't
know why. He knew he would know him when he saw him and he
knew that he would have to see him soon or the nerve inside him
would grow so big that he would be forced to rob a bank or jump
on a woman or drive a stolen car into the side of a building. His
blood all morning had been saying the person would come today.
He left the second-shift guard and approached the pool from
a discreet footpath that led behind the ladies' end of the bath house
to a small clearing where the entire pool could be seen at once. There
was nobody in it-the water was bottle-green and motionless-but
he saw, coming up the other side and heading for the bath house, the
woman with the two little boys. She came every other day or so and
brought the two children. She would go in the water with them and
swim down the pool .and then she would lie up on the side in the
sun. She had a stained white bathing suit that fit her like a sack,
and Enoch had watched her with pleasure on several occasions. He
139
