The Plastic Monstrosity – Fiction for A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

It's strange being around people again.

Jackson squatted down across from the sculpture in the center of the village. He watched the people ebb and flow like water around a rock. Some gathered on the benches on all four sides. To gaze at what, he wondered. This plastic monstrosity?

He realized that his backpack stank. He figured he probably smelled about the same, if not worse. No one seemed to care, not outdoors in the brisk winter air. People gave him a wide berth: no one had settled on the benches on either side of where he squatted. But that's just my natural defenses at work.

He had been developing his natural defenses for years at that point. There was his cloak of invisibility, for example. Of the hundred or so people moving around the square, not a single one of them looked at him, for example. And he liked that. He could people watch all day, just stare and stare, and no one would dare object or even acknowledge his gaze.

There were other distinct advantages to being invisible too. Three benches to his left a young family had perched for a snack. They were eating corn dogs, looked like. The toddler, three or four years old, would surely not finish his; he was struggling just to fit it into his mouth. And when the mother gave up coaching him to it, when the toddler got tired of the fight, where would the rest of that corn dog end up? Sitting on the bench in its paper tray? Or maybe the dad would be responsible and gather the trash for the bin. Either way, being invisible meant he could walk over and snag the leftovers without anyone objecting.

Strange to have such easy options again. He had wondered what it would be like, coming back to the world. So far he found it thrilling to rediscover the abundance. He also had his eye on a group of men across the way, standing behind the benches smoking. They looked to be Eastern Europeans, Ukrainians maybe. He hadn't been around Ukrainians for years, decades even. But he remembered, from his time in the fish packing plant, that they smoked good tobacco.

It was tough coming by cigarette butts in the woods. Do I even have a lighter? He felt the pockets of his parka. Nothing on the outside pockets; nothing on the inside either. Fat lotta good a butt will do me, he griped. But just before him, between where he squatted and that rainbow monstrosity, a dad had stopped one of the wandering paraphernalia peddlers. He looked to be buying a small Olympic flag for his daughter, who looked about 10. He paid cash for the flag, and as he stashed his wad back into his jeans pocket, a bill fluttered to the ground. He didn't notice.

Bingo, lighter money. The vendor went one way and the dad and daughter the other. The bill lay on the ground inviting him forward. He stood, knees popping, and walked stiff-legged to pluck his blessing from the concrete.

But he had forgotten. His invisibility cloak didn't work around money. When he straightened from picking up the bill – a ten! – his eyes met those of one of the Ukrainian men. When he hurried back to his backpack, the mother with the toddler frowned at him. So many eyes. He stashed the bill in his parka. He ducked his head and squatted down next to his pack and tried bring back his invisibility. But too late. A couple blue-jacketed security officers, a coed team, walked over, staring him down.

They played friendly. “How are we doing today,” one officer asked. Jackson didn't reply, just stared at their boots. Black boots; S.S., he thought.

“Is that your money,” the other officer put in. She squatted down to try to meet his gaze. He looked to the side. Yes, finder's keeper's.

The officer stood up. “God. He stinks.”

“Yeah,” her partner said. “Hey, buddy, do you have a ticket?”

Time to go. He grabbed for his backpack.

“Whoa, stop,” the male officer said. Jackson didn't stop. He had his backpack in his hand and was two steps away before the man reacted. He just managed to grab Jackson by the back of his parka. He spun him around and planted him face down on the concrete, putting one knee in his back and twisting an arm behind him. Jackson wasn't going anywhere. The backpack had flown from his hand and landed near the female officer's feet.

“What do you have in here?” She kept back a little ways from the backpack.

Moldy notebooks, a blanket, a camera.

When he didn't answer, she pulled a security wand from inside her jacket, knelt down, still keeping the pack at arm's reach, and scanned it. The wand beeped. “What do you think,” she asked looking at her partner.

He sighed. “Better get the dogs. It's probably nothing, but...”

“Yeah, and let's clear this square.”

She stood, speaking codes into the radio clipped onto her collar. The man pressed his knee into Jackson's back and reached to pull back his other arm. He cuffed him, then helped him stand. “I'll get this down to lockup.”

As Jackson was led past the plastic monstrosity, he noted the two or three cigarettes the Ukrainians had left behind when the lady asked them to leave the square. He noted that the dad with the toddler, was placing the leftover corn dogs into the bin before he left. Can't get to either of them, he thought. But then he realized that no one had gone after the ten dollar bill. Maybe, if he was lucky, they wouldn't search him in the lockup. And there might be a meal, if they kept him long enough.

It's all good. It's good to be around people again.