5th Avenue at 125th Street
8:22 PM Monday, September 2
Frank Cosgrove frowned at a crowd outside the Shake Shack. "Look at that, Jalen. Too many kids not reined in."
"I know what you're also thinking," said Jalen Shaw, glancing through the passenger window beyond Frank. "Too many kids not dressed."
"Straight-A." There were too many bright, eye-catching colors and, more importantly, too much bare flesh . . . too many girls dressing most suggestively. Frank could have done with no cleavages, folds or navels in sight. "They ever hear of mosquitoes and West Nile Virus?"
"No one virus has a monopoly these days," Jalen said with a sigh. Frank thought this wasn't the time to ask Jalen if his parents were better. Long haul Covid was exactly that.
The lights seemed to be stuck (this was getting more common lately), and the cross traffic on 125th wasn't too thick. Frank slapped on the dashboard bubble and said, "Gun it."
Jalen goosed the Ford P-I wagon and let its siren whoop. Two cars had to brake; one driver thrust a finger. The wagon and its two detectives entered 2000-block 5th Avenue with its numerous brownstones — still well kept, which was more than could be said for Marcus Garvey Park one block ahead.
Not long ago the park, groomed and hosting numerous recreational facilities, had been a pride of Harlem — even over the first couple years of Covid. Staff shortages had since taken effect, and good citizens didn't use the park much any more. Some of its long-established trees were sick — Frank could see their half-bare crowns silhouetted in the late twilight sky.
At 124th Street Jalen turned left. Frank looked through his window at the depressing sight of an overgrown park. Ivy and kudzu were climbing the trees and in another year or so would start to strangle them. Swing sets looked flaky and rust-streaked; plastic jungle gyms were bleached, cracked and in places scorched where arson had been attempted.
Nearing Madison, the once-groomed and shady lawn had become a jungle rampant with sumac and ailanthus saplings, some of which were being swamped by what groundskeepers called "creeping death."
"The night the kudzu has your pasture, you sleep like the dead," Frank said.
Sections of the iron fence which surrounded the park had been cut away. A young black man emerged from one such gap and saw the P-I. He waved his arms and came running. Kevin stopped the P-I and activated its lights as Frank powered the window down.
"Hey, there's a girl hurt real bad! My girl's doin' CPR!"
Frank jumped out, military flashlight in hand, and followed the young man into the thicket. Kudzu snared Frank's right foot and he fell.