Tom, get your plane ride on time.
I know your part’ll go fine.
Fly down to Mexico.
Doe-n-doe-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am,
The only living boy in New York.
Only living boy in New York.
—Paul Simon
The scene is a street in New York City leading to Central Park. A man sits on the steps of a stoop below a building door. He is the only person in sight.
He has on earphones and he’s listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Only Living Boy in New York.” We see that the windows of the buildings around him are neatly covered with inexpensive mass-produced shuttering. Likewise all the doors and metal fixtures, including the fire hydrants, have an extra covering on them. Cars are neatly parked and covered with sturdy tarps.
Here and there on the street vegetation has gone wild. Bushes have outgrown their containers, long grass grows up from cracks, fallen leaves have been swept into large piles by the wind and plants have sprouted on the resulting compost. But there is no normal trash on the street—no overturned garbage cans spewing trash, no abandoned furniture, no mis-parked cars. Long ago the street was deliberately swept clean and all the street trash was hauled away.
In the little slice of Central Park we can see at the end of the street the park looks overgrown, but there is something else going on, too. The foliage and the surrounding buildings reflect some large light source in the park, out of sight to us and the man. Evening darkness is near, so even though it is only about welding spark–bright, the flickering of the light source is noticeable.
The song ends. He comes out of his reverie, looks around, looks at his wrist where a watch would be. With a sigh he turns away from Central Park and walks.
After a few steps, he notices us, the readers. He’s a bit startled, but not too much. He moves his mouth a bit; nothing comes out. It’s like he’s trying to talk, but he’s out of practice. Finally, words emerge.
Hello there.
... You can’t be real, but you seem real. So I’ll talk to you. I’m a pretty lonely guy these days. Like the song says, I’m Tom and I’m the only living boy in New York. And I have been for three years now.
He looks back at Central Park for a moment, thinking hard, making a decision.
That may change, soon. Especially if I’m starting to see you. You’re a hallucination, of course. There used to be others, real others, I mean, but they’re all gone now ... all gone.
But it’s really nice to have someone to talk to ... anyone. He sighs again.
I’m about to get some dinner, would you like to join me? ... Of course you would. He grins a bit sheepishly for asking the question. Old habits die hard.
I don’t live far from here, these days. I’ve been around quite a bit since this affair started. But these days, there’s really no reason to be anywhere else. The world as I know it is either here ... He motions back toward Central Park. Or anywhere else. So ... why not be here?
I’m probably not making sense, am I? Let me start from the beginning. I have a choice to make ... I’ve always had it. The question facing me now is ... do I want to give that choice up?
He laughs. Well ... that didn’t sound like the beginning, did it? But it is. Now let me start at something that sounds like a real beginning.