Semi Topless Stranger in the Park

My mind meandered as Elmer and I headed toward Johnson Creek Park on an extended walk to begin our day. I was thinking about Robert Heinlein's science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. I had finished reading it for the first time the previous night and was shocked by the story's laughable sexism and how cornball the dialogue sounded. Still, somehow, 63 years after its original publication, this so-called classic somehow got contemporary America right—a society of charlatans and carnies staging sideshows (live or via software) and ripping off a mob of suckers and rubes. In the novel, the mob eventually stones a dimwitted Christ-like figure to death because he offered free love as the answer to eternal happiness.

I'd discovered Stranger in a Strange Land for sale on the $1 table outside my local bookstore. Elmer was with me on an afternoon walk and it was either Heinlein and sci-fi or a 900-page historical novel by Herman Wouk.

I chose the stars, or in the case of this novel, Mars.

When we set out, the sun was a mushy orb barely visible in a haze of wildfire smoke. The sky was turning the color of a molding peach. (I had three in the refrigerator for reference.) Elmer was a little wild on the leash. He wanted to run! Going on eight months with my husky, we'd left behind our Meet the Beatles beginnings and adventured into Revolver territory. When we reached The White Album, well, the book-length walking prose haiku I am writing about our encounters with the homeless would be complete.

On our way to the park, we passed the mini encampment of one van, one truck, one tiny trailer and one tent. A dozen opened and unopened cans of chili stood upright on a sidewalk near a Weber grill. Why not? Our boys at Valley Forge would have killed for canned chili. All they had to eat was tree moss and owl's heads.

We entered the park. I glanced left and saw the creek trickling. I then glanced right and saw a woman lying on the grass with a sleeping bag draped over her lower body. She was almost topless. A black skein of some garment concealed absolutely nothing.

She was awake, fiddling on her phone. A wagon and grocery cart, both crammed with possessions, rested near her.

Our eyes met. I said good morning. She said good morning and smiled. There wasn't trace of meth or fentanyl derangement in her face. I estimated her age at 30, but who knew for sure. She had flowing black hair, huge eyes, broad shoulders and gigantic breasts. She bore an uncanny resemblance to a soothsayer from the Oregon Coast I once knew.

A long gone American word blasted into my brain—pinup. This voluptuous homeless woman lying on the grass near a creek looked like a pinup. Grade A Betty Grable cheesecake.

There was nothing more to say, to the woman that is. There was a helluva lot more to say to Elmer about it on the walk home.