Oh to be Chris Ware...

Today my employer and I wheeled/walked to Central Park. We sat in a pagoda by the pond, its opaque surface the color of lime peels. Turtles and turtle shells frequently emerged and submerged.

HIM. Where do you see yourself in five years? (His speech slightly impeded by the presence of a cough drop.)

ME. I want to have a substantial body of published written work. (I don't fucking know.) What would you have answered when you were my age?

I visualize him physically capable of shrugging. It seemed appropriate.

HIM. I would have said the same as you.

Pause. Turtles.

HIM. But at that age my life was ruled by sexual conquest. All I was interested in was sex. And literature.

I think bitter thoughts, affairs and women weeping.

HIM. I wanted to find a woman who would change my life.

Isn't that what everyone wants. Not that he wasn't already forgiven.

ME. Did you?

HIM. Yes. When my first daughter was born.

We laugh. Then turtles sets in.

HIM. When I was 27 I married a 17 year-old.

I calculate... 1963.

ME. Did you have children?

HIM: Two daughters, one who loves me, one who doesn't.

ME: How old was your wi-

HIM: 18 the first and twenty the second. It was a horrible mistake. She was a drug addict. The girls had to take her to the emergency room more than once.

ME: Is she still alive?

HIM: Still a drug addict.

Long interlude of turtles.

HIM: Do you mind if we go back home now?

My whole day consisted of conversations like these, although it's easier to write about his skeletons and his closet than anything I shared with him. Before I went home for the afternoon, he gave me a copy of his book, dictating its inscription, "To Emily, my new friend." He asked me not to ask him questions about his memoirs. I won't.

APPENDIX
At one point he mentioned a turning point, when a one act play of his was produced for the first time.

HIM. I wish I still had a copy of it. Have you had anything produced?

ME. Right now.

Meaning that you can buy tickets online for The Nostalgic Recollections of Raymond Boggs, part of The American Living Room Festival. If you have run into me in the past couple of days then you have a brochure already, if not go to www.here.org.