At work, my computer had a virus, so I took a walk to the park to place a call to a hypnotist in the privacy of a totally public square. I was my hope that the hypnotist would cure me of a decades-long, disgusting compulsive habit. I dialed her number on the tiny keys of the phone. Birds tweeted shrilly behind me. I felt a plop on my shoulder. One of the little creeps had shat on me.

The day was obviously shot, so I walked out of the park and toward home, though not before scraping the bird poop off my shoulder with a scrap of paper torn from a printout of an airline reservation.

Outside of the juice shack on Second Avenue, a woman with a large dog was howling hysterical apologies at a man with a bandage on his hand. He was seated on a bench, she hovered above him. He stood, saying, “Stop, stop it. Just shut up. You’re making it worse. Shut up and go home.” She wailed and shuffled away from him before I could see her face.