The Plot Thickens

Bloomsday meanders toward the mouth of the Cuyahoga on his lunch break.  Descending a century old brick street beneath the bright blue Main Avenue Bridge, he sees the vast rubbled acreage on the river's east bank.

What is the opposite of sacred ground? he thinks. Profane ground?  This lunar surface of dirt and broken concrete, pushed and piled and leveled arbitrarily was once the hotbed of tens of thousands of date rapes and D.U.I.'s.  The Flats.  The concentration of bars and nightclubs that filled this now-cratered landscape arose out of the factories and foundries that spilled unimaginable horrors into the river and the lake for decades.  Before that?  Torso murders. Shantytowns. East Coast surveyors. Indigenous peoples. Sacred ground.

His desolation stroll takes him to a better vantage point, near the first major bend in the river and Settler's Landing.  The skyline of Cleveland looms over this grassy knoll sloped toward the river. Gulls confront joggers on paths on the riverbank's edge.  Bloomsday rests on a bench to absorb the vista.

A elderly man walks slowly toward him.  Bloomsday hears his intermittent speech, shouts of "Look out!" as he waives his arms.  Despite his words, there is no urgency to his actions. No panic in his voice. His slow measured steps along the path at the top of the grassy hill, and his crisp khakis, perpetuate the incongruity.  As the man nears, Bloomsday notices things in the man's hands.  Paper and pen in one, something that looks like an early 80's cell phone in the other.  He's making marks on the paper, then pushing buttons on the odd, archaic phone, then waiving his arms with shouts of "Look out!"  This is something he does all the time, Bloomsday deduces.  He's the most lackadaisical person waiving their arms and shouting "Look out!" I've ever seen.


The man pushes buttons again and behind him, at the farthest side of this park I see the wide spray of lawn sprinklers suddenly disappear.  He makes a note on his paper and pushes more buttons.  A Bellagio of water arches magically appears in front of me.  A sun bather and some pretty secretaries eating lunch jump and run for cover. The old man makes more marks on his paper and moves on.