He would spend most nights taking Polaroids of his erect penis. From every conceivable angle, in every available light source and with any inventive background, he would snap photo after photo until the floor of his small apartment was carpeted with tiny, white-bordered squares, many still in the process of giving their images life. He would then work until the wee hours of the morning sorting, arranging and categorizing them according to quality, clarity and aesthetic feel. After morning toast and coffee, carefully compiling the best of the photographs, he would don his coat and muffler, and proceed to the public library only blocks from his apartment. He would slip the photos, randomly, into books in the children's section, all the while trying to hide, not just his giggles, but the growing bundle in his trousers.
I would meet with him on Tuesday afternoons, in the park near that very library. We would sit on the bench and he would tell me things about the people that went by. This woman has had sex with over four hundred men, he would say. This man eats because he want to die, he would say. This woman... he paused. I had never heard him pause before. I looked to see his face in awe, his eyes becoming milky and moist. She has never known true pain, he said. He turned his stricken face to mine, And she has never know true love, he said.
She carried herself like an aged thing, but had the hands of a much younger woman. She strode purposefully through the park, almost awkwardly at times. In passing, in seemed as if she was deliberately avoiding the sunshine; the very treat that brought so many to the park that day. As I watched her, I realized she was the first one I had ever really seen. The others I had only given passing glances, but gazing upon her I knew she was the first I had ever truly noticed.
He truly believed that when it rained while the sun was shining, it meant the Devil the devil was beating his wife and these were her tears. He also believed that the world was a tree and that God was a squirrel, hoarding nuts for the inevitable emptiness of winter. He believed that he had a machine inside of him, but could not determine its purpose.