Gravel

     Two sides of the main building of the museum are fronted by gravel beds surrounded by a low brick wall. There used to be bushes, but some rich donor thought they looked too messy and had them torn out and replaced with perfectly conical shrubs surrounded by beige gravel. It's all very sterile looking. Lately someone has been taking handfuls of the gravel and leaving them in small piles and arrangements around the perimeter of the building. I like to imagine they're part of some elaborate ritual or spell, though in reality it's probably just the work of some obsessive. When I do exterior patrols, I put the gravel back in the beds, though I know it might be dangerous to do so. What if these piles are part of some protective spell cast by some witch or shaman? On the other hand, they could also be some sort of hex.

    As I'm cleaning up the last of the gravel piles this morning, I say hello to an elderly man sitting on the wall. We watch as another man tears off his shirt and starts stomping and screaming in the middle of the street. skinny as a skeleton. "Ever'body losin they shit," the old man says. He's wearing a US Marines cap and tells me he fought in Vietnam, the same time my stepfather did. I ask where he's from originally and he says New Orleans, though he left in the sixties and hasn't been back. I tell him he still has the accent, it sounds like he never left. "That's what they tell me," he says, We chat while I keep an eye on the man in the street to make sure he's not in danger, but there's no traffic out and eventually he staggers into the park. "Ever'body losing they shit," the old man says again, and when he thinks I'm not looking, reaches behind the wall to scoop up a handful of gravel.