Wednesday

We ate a nice dinner at Au Parc tonight. Sometimes we go there just because it's blocks from our apartment. Those blocks make a nice walk around the park, less invaded by the chaotic bustle of other downtown areas. The park is a romantic hang-out: on any given night, couples canoodle amorously while perched two-to-a-seat on their parked scooters. Since the park is so popular after hours, it attracts vendors. Any after-hours gathering is sure to cause impromptu restaurants to be laid out on nearby blankets. Local coffee discos send waitresses out into the park to take orders. Ice cream and other carnival snacks orbit the area in bike-mounted coolers. Those endlessly circling bikes have funny horns meant to alert their possible customers: sort of like the music-box advertisement of beloved neighborhood ice cream trucks crossed with the obnoxious Dixie honk of the Duke Boys' Dodge Charger. It's impossible for me to describe. Just imagine a six-year-old's hectoring enquiry routed endlessly through an out-of-tune whistle pop. And we hear this little jingle all the time: we walk through the park to go pretty much anywhere. Sometimes I hear it from my apartment when the vendors are leaving for the night. I always hear the Tune throughout nice dinners at Au Parc. But walking home tonight was special, like a crazy dream. One of these bikes began following us, blasting its hectoring tune. Then there was another up at the nearest corner, and another coming at us in the crosswalk. Eventually, we were surrounded by half a dozen, converging on us from intersecting orbits, asking their Tune over and over and answering as often, a nerve-wracking round tempered by immediacy and distance and angle. We got out of there eventually; but I'm sure they're still circling the park, waiting. [Cavin]