The Man in Central Park

The night sky glimmered and the commotion of the New Year’s celebrations echoed through Central Park, John Hathaway could not help but feel alone in a city brimming with people. As New York cheered on the coming of the new year, he silently sat on a bench and contemplated his current situation. He was out of time, out of money, out of work, and out of hope that things would turn around. When he thought of his little girl that was at home with her babysitter, his aching head, and his empty wallet he cupped his head in his hands and allowed a single teardrop to slowly slide down the creases of his face until he felt a glaring on the back of his neck.

When John pulled his solemn head out of his cupped hands and looked around. He found no one. All he could see was the emptiness of the park. He slowly slid his head back into his hands and again felt the nagging glare of another staring back at him. Curious, he picked his head back up and jolted to life as a tall lanky man in a trench coat stood before him. The man said nothing. His face blank and cold, with eyes like steel staring through him. He slowly extended his arm and handed John a small black notebook. Reluctantly, John took the book expecting the man to say something in return, but his only response was to walk off into the night. John, confused by what had just happened, opened the book to find a single passage, “I see your struggle and I will help.” Left with more questions than answers, John tried to follow the mysterious man. With the book in hand, he raced down the sidewalk in the direction the man was heading when his phone alarm went off. It was time to go home to his daughter.

John briefly contemplated staying and searching for the man but knew that he would not be able to hold off the babysitter. Grudgingly, John turned towards his small apartment on the other side of the park and slowly strolled down the path looking around him for any sign of the man, but he had vanished as if he were a gust of wind. When he finally left the park and crossed the street, he felt the same glaring feeling at the back of his neck and a cool breeze carrying a muffled whisper, “do not give up.” Turning back around, he saw the man standing in the middle of the park. He nodded his head and in the blink of an eye, he was gone again. John, now concerned for his safety, swiftly made his way to the subway station to catch the last train to Mott Haven.

As he sat on the train, he replayed the incident in his head repeatedly. It had all seemed so strange. He had sat on that bench for hours blankly staring out into the distance as strangers passed without so much of a glance at him, but that man… that man saw him. In the one moment he dropped the facade that he had held in such high regard around his friends and loved ones, a stranger had caught him in that moment of weakness. He felt vulnerable, confused, lost, and even distressed. Yet he had somehow found a glimmer of hope that had not been there before. He opened the notebook and re-read the passage that he had only glimpsed once before, “I see your struggle and I will help.” The man in the park could not possibly know anything about him yet handed him a notebook that seemed to have been meant for him. He flipped through the notebook looking for any sign of who the man might be or what it had meant, only to find empty pages.

He sat there in a daze, listening to the subway car screech down the tracks as he tightly clasped the notebook as if it were his last grip on life. He allowed his troubles to fall to the floor and, for just a moment, that small flicker of hope blossomed to create a better life for himself and his daughter. His imagination ran free in the moments before the train came to his final stop. He took a deep breath, picked up his troubles, and finished his walk home. Arriving at his apartment, he saw the babysitter’s shadow anxiously pacing back and forth in front of the door. As he went to turn the doorknob, the door swung open to his frantic babysitter who presented him with an orange piece of paper; an eviction notice. “Keep the money. You need it more than me,” she said as she hurried out the door and closed it behind her.

John slumped to the floor as his emotions crashed over him like ocean waves in a storm. He wrapped his knees into his chest and uncontrollably broke down in tears. He had nothing left. He was drowning in his own sorrow and disbelief of his failures over the past few years. This apartment was the last thing that he had, without it he and his daughter would be homeless. He lay there weeping, thinking about what to tell her. Suddenly, the pitter-patter of small footsteps came down the stairs. It was his daughter of about six years old, Della.

John tried to collect himself, but it was too late. Della stood at the bottom of the stairs in her tattered nightshirt watching him. “Why are you crying?” she asked as she held his hand. John explained how they would be homeless with tears in his eyes as he held his little girl. “Wait,” she said as she went running up the stairs. John wiped his eyes and recollected himself as much as he could before she returned. Within minutes, back down the stairs she came but this time with a small piggy bank in her hands. “Will this help?” she said full of hope. His heart sank and his lungs became devoid of oxygen at the gesture of his little girl. “That will not be enough,” he said. She sprang back up and ran to the kitchen this time. Trotting like a horse back to her father, she handed him a small plain unmarked cardboard box.

“What is this?” he asked.

“I don’t know. A man gave this to me when I was playing in the street. He said to give this to my Daddy.” she replied.

John uneasily opened the box to a message that read, “I see your struggle and I will help.” John dropped the box in disbelief not realizing the rest of its contents.

When the box crashed to the floor, hundred-dollar bills flowed across the floor like a spilled glass of water. John stood there for a moment looking at all the money in disbelief as Della started picking up the bills with her little hands and tried to hand them to him, but he was unable to move. “What’s wrong daddy,” she asked as if she had done something wrong. “Nothing.” he stuttered as he tried to hold back his emotions that had welled back up inside of him. Letting the commotion of his daughter fade into the background he shakily picked up the lonely piece of paper from the floor and read it again, “I see your struggle and I will help.” John fell to his knees with a smile on his face and wept with joy. The realization that his struggle may finally be over setting in. Della, now laughing and dancing around in the money, cheered on her father yelling “Nothing is wrong!” After celebrating with Della for a short time John whisked her up in his arms and took her up to bed, leaving the money on the floor.

Tucking in his daughter, John was again left with more questions than he had answers. Who was the man in the park and was he the same man that gave Della the package? Looking into her little blue eyes as she drifted off to sleep John asked if she knew the man that gave her the package, but she had never seen him before. Once asleep, John made his way back down the stairs to collect and count the money, twenty-thousand dollars. He sat with his back against his apartment door and stared at the pile of cash that now lay neatly between his legs. He picked up the small black notebook and the piece of paper with the stack bills, it was the same handwriting. He had to know who the mysterious man was but also knew that he was given this money for a reason: to get his life back on track. As John thought of all the things he had to do an ease of mind washed over him. He gently fell asleep there on the floor.

The next morning, John awoke as a new man. He cleaned himself up, got Della off to the babysitter, and continued his task of reclaiming his life. That morning he contacted his landlord to pay her in full, caught up on bills that had been long overdue, and paid off his vehicle that had recently been repossessed. With the remaining money, he bought Della new clothes that were not tattered and full of holes. Filled the cupboards with their favorite foods and snacks and bought himself new clothes for job interviews that he was hoping would come next. Later, he sat down at his kitchen table looking back over the small black notebook and the piece of paper, “I see your struggle and I will help.” He sat there and thought of the people that he had in his life that might be able to help him in such a way, but there was no one that came to mind.

Over the next few days, he told everyone he knew about what had happened that night. He tried to explain how the man had looked. Continually interrogated Della on any details that she remembered and had even asked his neighbors if anyone had seen the man give her the package, hoping that someone would recognize who he was. He showed them the small black notebook and the piece of paper with the message that he would never forget, “I see your struggle and I will help,” hoping that someone might recognize the handwriting. At every pass on his quest to find the identity of the mysterious man, he seemed to always come up empty-handed. As the days and weeks went on, John eventually found a decent job and moved out of Mott Haven closer to Central Park. Things had finally settled back into a normal rhythm for him and Della.

They visited the park frequently after that night. They would walk the sidewalks and play in the grass until the sun went down. He often took the time to look around for any sign of the man who changed his life but could not find anyone that closely resembled the memory of him. The man had been a passing of good fortune and hope in a desperate state when all had been lost. The only thing that John had wished at this point was that he could thank the man who turned his life back around and so he continued to search. As the days grew longer, the memory of the man started to fade, and the search had gone cold. Until one day, John sat back on the bench with a smile on his face as he watched Della play in the leaves with the other kids in the park. Feeling an oddly familiar glaring at the back of his neck, a cool breeze lifted the forgotten voice of the stranger, “I’m glad you got my package.”