The outdoor rink in the old part of town By Benjamin Joe

Judith Jackson CC




The outdoor rink in the old part of town


The vibe got scary after that first time Lauren freaked out at the skating rink.

I had seen her five days before, one day after I read about the old man dying by the former foundry building. No explanation was given. Just an old homeless man who’d finally given up life to his Maker. 

That’s how I saw it anyway.

The homeless game in this town was all behind me when I read it. I had a quick trip to detox and then onto rehab. Oh yes, I wasn’t just homeless. I was an addict. And now I was a fully functional member of society. With a kid, a wife, a family and even a job washing dishes at the local Denny’s.

But that didn’t change the past and the past for an addict is all wrapped up in the people he met while in it. I saw Lauren as I picked up a pack of cigarettes. I never know how to act in those situations. Lauren and I had shared the same tent one night and I said “I love you” in the morning, but nothing came of it.

I thought about trying to give her a hug, but she clocked my movement and raised her fist. I thought she was going to knock me down. It’s funny how I’m attracted to people like that, but I’d never let it bring me down.

Anyway, she spat on the ground then, turned her back to me, reached to a bottle on the sidewalk, and picked it up and hurled it at my head. I ducked, saying, “sorry” and “good to see you” and half ran, half crawled out of the parking lot, cigarette box in my hand. I heard her swear to her companion about something. Then I thought I heard sirens, but that was always me, when I was a street punk and now when I was a dishwasher. Always fleeing before the law, whether real or imagined.

The old man and Lauren had been close. Like a father and daughter. I don’t know why he didn’t come to the shelter that night, but he’d always had faith in his below zero thermal sleeping bag and tarp he put over the cold wet ground every night. They were his prized possessions and as I read about his death in the paper, I wondered if they’d been stolen. Not likely. Likely it was the pills or the needle that gave the old man his final ticket and I can’t say I’m surprised.

I read in the paper days later that Lauren had been arrested. My friend Kevin, another survivor of homelessness, said he saw the whole thing go down when he took his kid to the outdoor rink in the old part of town.

Lauren and Bill came out of nowhere as these kids skated and adults watched. They were reeking of alcohol and Lauren pushed Bill into the rope around the rink.

Then she was climbing under it as Bill sat up on his feet and she stared screaming and Kevin swears it wasn’t curse words, but the single word we’d been told our whole lies to get on with.

“Happy! Happy!” she yelled.

She bellowed it out over and over as she slipped towards the center. The kids and adults scattering to the sides. And the police came and grappled her on the ice as she spread out her arms and feet and was smiling wildly, but kept screaming and yelling that word. 

Her face is still on the website of those in the county jail.


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Benjamin Joe lives in Buffalo, New York. Excerpts of his novel, Nirvana Dreams, published by NFB Publishing, can be found at the March 2018 Ghost City Review and Issue 14 of Riggwelter Press. He is also published in BlazeVOX, Variety Pack, Burning House Press and Ilinix LitMag.