Tuesday, 05 April 2005 | Concrete flower

Due to a minor misunderstanding, our plans to go to the park fell through, so we ended up in Q's backyard instead. It was important that we be outside, since it was the warmest day New York has experienced since October or so, the sky was blue, and the wind was absent. Even if I hadn't witnessed the same bleak winter weather as everyone else, I would've known that pleasant temperatures had only just arrived, merely by observing human behavior. The people on my street, for example, were skipping down the sidewalk as if they'd just been let out of prison by mistake.

Q's backyard is significant in that Q has a yard, and Q might be my only friend in New York whom I can say that about. It should be noted, however, that Q's yard is composed entirely of concrete, and that one fourth of it is claimed by a giant pile of rubble that the landlord has decided to build a low concrete wall around. (The concrete wall doesn't conceal or contain the rubble; it simply outlines it, like velvet rope encircling a piece of art.)

The front edge of the yard is made up of the backside of Q's brick building and a rusty fire escape, and the back boundary is demarcated by a rusty chain-link fence that has been peeled away in one corner. When standing in Q's yard, you aren't able to see anything resembling nature, unless you count the dead tree that stubbornly sticks out of Rubble Mountain.

I sat on a dirty plastic sunbathing chair, and Q half-dusted off the other one with a discarded shirt he found on the ground. Because Q and his roommates haven't yet readied their yard for spring, there are small piles of fragrant trash decorating the concrete, perhaps remnants left by whoever peeled back the fence.

We were sitting on the eastern side of the building, so the sun faded faster than it should've and prematurely sucked out the last bit of color from our surroundings. It took me a while to notice that, during one of the very first hours we'd absorbed of spring 2005, we'd chosen to sit in a place that resembled a jail cell.