text: “Ya know, that paper confetti blew all the way over here from Times Square, and it’s still all over the streets.” It was an uncharacteristically warm and cheerful morning on one of the first days after the New Year. Yves sat sketching the view from his street-facing window, which included a park with an old playground, a sprinkler, and a bathhouse. “The city doesn’t bother dealing with it,” his girlfriend, Claire, half-shouted from the kitchen. She joined Yves in the bedroom, tying her reddish-brown tendrils of hair into a bun. A taxi pulled into the remaining parking space across the street in front of the park. “I wonder if it’s because there’s just so *much* of it that they just let it get into giant clumps on the curb, and *then* they clean it all up.” Yves’ blank expression and floating gaze communicated that he wasn’t intent on listening to her anymore now that his idea was vocalized. It seemed, at least to Claire, that he paid *less* attention to her responses whenever she was *more* receptive to whatever it was he was talking about, which drove her up the walls. She *hated* that about him. She wasn’t supposed to *say* she hated it, but she really did *hate it* when he dismissed her thoughts in such a passive way. *Why do you* ***ever*** *tell me* ***anything,*** *if you don’t care to hear what I think about it?* She wanted to say. He would blame it on an undiagnosed ADHD sort of quirk, but she’d seen him be engaged in conversation for *hours* at a time when we wanted to, especially when *the guys* were involved. “I’m wondering if I should include the confetti in this,” Yves said, folding his arms. “Ya know, for accuracy.” He rolled up the sleeves of his denim shirt and looked back at the bones of his sketch. “Well, does it fit the -- I dunno -- the *mood* of what you’re trying to depict?” This sketch bore little resemblance to the others -- the bleak, dreary, arteries of the trees and the avenues around the park went up against the vibrant oranges and blues of the other sketches. “I don’t think It does,” Yves questioned, standing up. “But I’m finding it hard to imagine the scene without all of it now.” “Well, there you have your answer.” Claire relocated her attention to the bookcase that towered over the bed, adjusting the few that stood out of their place. She looked over at a slight crack in the wall just left of it, and wondered if the building’s management wouldn’t mind fixing it. She’d prolonged asking about it since she was always putting in requests for various tweaks and repairs in the apartment. She recalled the words of her mother, back in Pittsburgh, about being entitled to what you pay for. It’s what *they* were paid to do, anyway. “Hmph.” Yves furrowed his brow and tapped his pencil on the sill. He sucked his teeth and backed away from the window. “Also, this guy is more or less obscuring my view of that little garden in the park.” “Who?” This made Claire react almost defensively. “This homeless guy. he’s got a ton of stuff with him, and it’s blocking what would be my view of that little garden in the park.” Claire shrugged. “It’s winter, anyway. that garden is a pile of dust and dry soil,” she said definitively. “I don’t think it’s any different in the springtime, incidentally.” “I guess I’m just finding it hard to ignore.” Yves stood motionless, save for his twitching eyes, scanning the scene. “Ya think I should go down there and bring him something to eat?” He said after a few moments. “Wow, you gonna try and goad this guy out of the park with a snack for the sake of your crumby sketch? That isn’t artful integrity.” She glided behind Yves and buried her chin into the space between his shoulder blades and gripped his torso. “Well, if you must know, I think I may include him in it,” Yves said resolutely. “But he does look hungry, and my guilty conscience could never stand to capture somebody who’s hungry.” Yves freed himself from Claire’s hold and craned his head into the doors of the pantry, shuffling around assorted bags and cans. “Man, this healthy kick has got us strapped for snacks,” he said, closing the doors. “I can hardly find anything that doesn’t resemble rabbit food.” “I think you’ve used that rabbit line once before. Or, a few times.” “Well, I just don’t feel so good about forking over a bunch of pickled *artichokes,* or-“ “It’s asparagus. Artichokes have too many carbs for a *vegetable*, believe it or not.” “Oh, I believe it. Hey, what am I gonna bring this guy to eat? Nunna these stores are open, go figure. And I’ll feel just awful if I’ve gotta watch him be all miserable down there.” Claire passed through the kitchen. “Hmm.” Yves turned to watch as she carefully filed through the fridge, squatting down in the yellow light of the doors. She wasn’t wearing her trademark carpet slippers with goats embroidered on them, with it being so warm over the last day, despite her feet always being so *cold*. You’d think the tiles were made of lava the way she hopped about them, and the way she terrorized Yves by planting them on his back at night. She had Yves fixed on her, his arms and the corners of his mouth tied in admiration, enamored either by her delicate handling of each item or by the upper thighs that peered out from the bottom of her sleeping shorts. “Well, if this wasn’t ever a nudge to take a visit to the grocery store,” she muttered. “Nothing?” Yves asked, heading back toward the bedroom. A pause. A pause that meant Claire wanted to be *sure* if there was something to bring or not. “Ya know what?” the light in her voice quite literally magnetized him. She rose out of the fridge, gripping a bushel of bright red strawberries in her long, situationally useful fingers. “I’ll wash these and you can bring them down to him.” Claire stood up and pushed closed the door of the fridge with her hip. “They’re *mine,* as you know,” she said as she brought the fruits to the sink. “But they’re the sweetest strawberries on earth.” \*\*\* Yves clomped down the stairwell with a small cardboard box and paused at the door of the vestibule. It truly was a *nice day --* something about the air even had a taste to it. That usually didn’t happen for another three months. Sometimes more. Across the street, the homeless man flung pieces of bread at a gang of pigeons bobbing around in the garden. Underhandedly, though, so as to not startle them on impact. Yves descended halfway down the stoop and took in a large inhale, and a longer, slower, more necessary exhale. Whether or not he consciously acknowledged it, he was nervous. Not because the man was homeless, but because he was a stranger. Meaningful interactions with strangers always made him nervous. He always said it was because, in New York, people don’t go around having meaningful interactions with strangers unless they want to appear “suspect”. Or, if they want something from them. Yves crossed the street and squeezed through the bumpers of parked cars and yanked open the iron gates of the park. As he approached the benches, the man looked up from his zookeeper duties with a sort of jovial warmth that quickly transformed into a stone-cold default as Yves neared closer. “Hey, man. Y’want s’more to eat?” Yves raised the box. “Some berries.” The man peered into the box, looked up at Yves, and gingerly accepted. “My girl washed them and cut the tops off. That’s the worst part.” The man took a bite of one. “She said they were the sweetest strawberries she’d ever had.” Yves forced in a chuckle -- an expulsion of air or some sort, as to make the situation more -- human. God, he loathed the idea that this was something transactional. He loathed even more the idea that the other person would feel the burden of having been done a favor. “Thanks, brother. Really,” the man nodded insistently, exposing the thinning crown of his head. “God bless.” Yves walked off, feeling overwhelmed with nervousness. He could even feel his pulse thumping in his ears. When he passed through the park’s northside gate, he wondered what the man’s name was, and where he was from. For some reason, he thought San Francisco or Seattle. Somewhere on the west coast. Then he wondered *why* he was homeless. The truth is, he wanted to be friends with the man. He wanted to know his story from the beginning, and what he liked doing. It made him upset that he *couldn’t* be friends with the man, not because he was homeless, but because he was a stranger. New York *never* lets you be friends with strangers. It might be because a lot of them end up being lousy friends. It can be real transactional in that way. As he rounded the corner outside toward the avenue, Yves started to feel better about everything. The man probably didn’t want friends, anyway. For someone like that, hanging out with a stranger and getting *sympathized* with is the *last* thing they want. That’s what he told himself to feel better. The start of the new block revealed dozens of people in two single-file lines along the sidewalk. Mostly women over sixty-five, or something around that. Every few moments, they would shuffle their carts forward in the direction of this big church all the way down to the west side of the avenue. Those at the front of the line received their portions from the back of a van -- bread, it seemed, but no strawberries. Holding on to the side of a few of the carts were little children. Grandchildren. They were remarkably poised and attentive considering the monotony of waiting in line to get a few loaves of bread. And for being little kids and all. A gust of wind flowed by and crept under Yves’ t-shirt. It was indeed still winter. Along the curb, pieces of yellow, blue, and pink confetti twirled around and danced in the air in front of him. \*\*\* Upstairs, Yves pushed the apartment door open and tossed the keys on the counter. He caught the door reflexively on the way back, so it wouldn’t slam and piss off the whole building. Save for the buzzing of the light fixtures in the hallway -- that sound was *always* there -- it seemed a lot more quiet than usual. Claire was in the back, sitting ambivalently on the split of the window and the fire escape. It was funny; now that he was focused on Claire, imagining what she was looking at and hearing in the street, it seemed *less* quiet. She was already smiling when Yves looked over at her, but it became a grin once she turned over to him. It was impossible not to smile back. He wanted to keep things serious and maintain that almost *sublime* sense of morosity he’d been feeling in the street, but it was no use. Claire bounded over to the kitchen and into Yves’ arms. “Well, do you think he liked them?” Yves looked down at Claire’s middle-parted hair, and at the tops of her bristling eyebrows. “Yeah,” he said, pushing some bass into his voice. “I think he liked them.