I can’t stop my brain from thinking about art. I watch the kids and think: Those kids are art.
I think: That bell is art. It’s on display like art and it’s viewed by millions like art and it’s a symbol of something artistic. Freedom. Freedom is artistic.
For lunch, I stand by a trash can and wait for someone to throw food away. It only takes a half hour for some tourist guy to buy a vendor hot dog and take a bite, then toss it away. I wait for him to round the corner and I lean in and pull the hot dog out. He put mustard on it and I hate mustard, but I wipe it away with the napkin and then I eat the hot dog by the side of the trash can.
The hot dog is art. The napkin with the mustard all over it is art. The trash can is art.
Outside Dunkin’ Donuts, a woman tosses in a bag with half a cruller still in it. It’s the nicest doughnut I ever ate even though it had her lipstick smeared on one side of it.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. I have money in my wallet. Five bucks. I have a SEPTA pass that could put me on any bus, subway, or trolley in the city. Instead, I hang around tourist areas and eat food out of trash cans.
I think I’m trying to become Alleged Earl.
Which is stupid. I am a boring middle-class girl who has a house and a bed and a favorite umbrella.
But on Tuesday, I learn that other people’s food tastes especially nice. That and the thing about the Liberty Bell never being heard by anyone living today. You can learn things by just walking around and listening. Mom asks about dinner with my friend and I tell her my friend is sick. She says, “Maybe next Tuesday, then.”
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Wednesday I leave for school because Dad wakes me up and makes me pretend. He stands at the door and tells me to have a nice day and to keep our deal and Mom is still asleep even though she didn’t work last night, and before I leave, I pack my backpack full of every piece of sidewalk chalk we have.
And I go.
I stop at the food cart where they sell the best breakfast sandwiches. The woman’s smile is art. The way she pronounces oregano. The way her husband fries the egg so it fits the roll, the way he places the ham and cheese on top—the way he folds it once the cheese is melted, the way he scoops the whole thing up and lays it on the roll is art.
I walk to the corner of South and 4th and I watch the tourists try to figure out which cheesesteak place to go to. Pat’s or Jim’s? That’s the question. That’s always the question. Truth is, the difference between these two cheesesteaks is so large that you should try them both. Everyone has an opinion about which one is the most authentic but what does authentic have to do with anything anymore?
Cheesesteaks are art. Some art is Rembrandt. Some art is Rothko.
I find a place on the sidewalk to doodle with my chalk. I’m still in yesterday’s clothes. Some people throw me a quarter around noon. They just toss it like I’m a fountain and they made a wish.
Here’s what I decide they wished: They wished they knew which cheesesteak place was the right one.
If they would have asked, I would have told their fortune. Beware of any cheesesteak with bright orange liquid cheese.
I draw nothing. Just big blobs of color. Nothing comes to me. Did you ever see those people who draw those 3-D masterpieces with sidewalk chalk? I want to draw that. But I don’t know how to draw that. I don’t even know where to start. So I just rub the chalk against the sidewalk and I make dust. This doesn’t feel like art—probably because I’m not enjoying myself at all. At least the breakfast sandwich couple love what they do. Or maybe they have to. Or something. Either way, this doesn’t feel like art and I don’t care. I am relieved that I’ve gotten it out of my system. Pesky art. Who needs it?
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At dinner, Mom and Dad notice I’m still wearing the same clothing I’ve had on since Monday. Mom says something about my washing my hair. Dad says that my shirt is filthy and points at the chalk markings on my jeans.
No one asks me where I was all day.
Mom and Dad both look exhausted like they do sometimes. It’s not work exhaustion. It’s something else. They have exhausted each other. This is clear because they don’t make eye contact. Maybe it was one of those parental meetings they do. I assume it’s where they make those parental deals. From here it looks like they spent the whole day at the tilt, wearing hundreds of pounds of armor and racing toward each other on horseback. If I was to guess the outcome, Dad won.
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