Something Important

Thanks, Bruce.

Last Saturday, I hung out with my oldest brother Ben.

"Meet me in Washington Square Park," he'd instructed. "I gotta do something important there."

Long accustomed to his bizarre edicts, I didn't question him about what kind of pressing business he had in Washington Square Park, on a Saturday afternoon.

When I got there, he was sitting on a bench with Ariel, his long-suffering girlfriend.

"Hey," I said. "What're you guys doing?"

Ariel looked at me miserably. She pointed to a neighboring park bench.

"That's Ben's stuff," she said, gesturing to a pile of shirts, a suit, and three pairs of shoes. "He wants to see how long it takes someone to try to steal them. And what, exactly, they try to steal."

I stared at him incredulously.

"You're fucking nuts," I exclaimed after a long moment. "What is wrong with you? Why would you do that? As if you're not angry about enough shit, as it is. Now, you're creating situations where you go mental?"

"I thought we'd be here fifteen minutes at most," she continued. "But we've been here for two hours! He won't let us leave!"

"The shoes are Gucci," Ben said to me, ignoring her. "The suit's Zegna. Two of the shirts are Varvatos and one's Prada. The trick is that a couple of the shirts are pieces of shit from the Gap. Let's see what goes first."

I shook my head and looked at Ariel.

"Is that stuff new?" I asked her.

"No," she replied. "He was cleaning out his closet and then he said, 'Hey, wanna have some fun?' and started bundling it all up. When he brought this stuff with us, I thought he was going to drop it off at Housing Works before we had lunch."

"That was your first mistake," I told her. "Believing that he was going to do the normal thing with this shit."

A young guy gingerly approached.

My brother stared at him intently and then, at the clothing items on the next bench.

After catching his glance, the guy wandered away.

"What the fuck?" Ben hissed. "Why would he not go for that shit?"

"Maybe because you were giving him the stink eye," I said. "And anyway, what are you going to do to the person who takes this stuff? You going to give them a beatdown?"

He looked at me irritably.

"No, chode-munch," he said. "I'm going to let them take it. To prove a point."

"To whom?" I yelled.

A crusty-looking older man in ripped Vans, a stache, and a dirty baseball cap sidled over and fingered the suit.

He was either an ironically aging hipster or just downright homeless. It's hard to tell these days.

He looked around furtively.

Then he snatched up the suit and walked away quickly.

"Good for you, buddy," Ben beamed after him. "Good for you."

He looked genuinely delighted.

"Mark that down," he ordered Ariel. "The homeless guy went for the Varvatos."

"Oh my God," I laughed. "He's making you take notes?"

She nodded miserably.

"What for?" I said to Ben. "What are you, conducting research for like, the Pew Foundation?"

"Shut it," he snapped.

He took a bite of the hotdog that had been on his lap.

"Look at this I-Banker fuck coming over. How much you wanna bet he goes for the Gap shit?"

"You're an I-Banker fuck," I protested.

He ignored me and then began cackling.

"This dumb fuck wants a new Gap shirt to wear to his next Dave Matthews concert."

I turned to Ariel.

"Why?" I asked her. "Why do you put up with this shit?"

"Shut it," my brother demanded. "Ariel likes it. It's fun, right?"

She rolled her eyes.

I sat down on the bench with them.

I reached over and took Ben's hotdog. He didn't protest. He was too intent on watching potential "customers."

I took a bite of the hotdog and watched my brother watching passerby.

I watched Ariel watching him with an expression of dull boredom and a weary kind of acceptance.

And I felt better, so incredibly, inexplicably, lovingly-somehow better as I always do when I hang out with Ben.

Because it's nice to know that the Crazy didn't just get me.

It got my brother, too.