Chokepoints

Just clear of the overpass, the path climbed deeper into shade. Honeysuckle sweetened the dense canopy newly freed of high-rise shadow. Now buttercups brightened the way along blind turns that opened to a footbridge beneath which a commuter train rumbled north. On the other side, stone stairs descended to the cool of the Hudson at high tide in retreat.

Where Lester expected shade-seekers and bathers, only a loner with a dog braved the scallop of rocky beach. Full sun, with its 101° heat advisory, bore down on their splashing, skittering light over the ripples where the river slowed in the shallow.

The picnickers and fishermen apparently stayed away. The silence from the tennis courts suggested the doctors had too. The bike path offered Lester a rare walk without worry of checklist tourists or Le Tour wannabes, the two types likely to graze or clip a walker with their handlebars.

At his favorite spot, he sensed an opportunity in its inviting shade, cool river breeze, and dreamy prospect framed by the span of the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey. In this idyllic berth, he spread a beach sheet and lay unsandaled, stretching his legs on the still-cool cotton.

From his tote, he organized two magazines, half a tuna sandwich, a handful of almonds, demi-sec sauvignon blanc, filtered water, and soon had his fill. Then, apple blossoms floated down from the cliffside and the warm balm carried him toward a first-ever siesta; he was sedated also by the hum of the highway embedded into the cliffside and even the rumble of passenger trains beyond the hedge behind him.

At some point he rolled onto his side, seeing a car speeding north on the bike path. Only it was more like dreaming of properly urinating only to discover oneself in a puddle. He pushed himself onto an elbow to find what was left of the proof, a line of dust hovering above the path. He waited a few minutes before dozing off again, noting a pair of fishermen a half-mile south on an outward bend of the shore where the trees fell away at river's edge.

Then another presence sped by, only this time he woke to see an NYPD patrol car and an ambulance gaining ground, eerily without sirens or spinning lights. He tottered in bare feet beyond the shade for a look just as a helicopter whooped over the tree line and banked upriver toward the bridge.

He rushed his picnic into the tote and was reaching for the sheet when a husky voice behind him said, "Don't fucking move, I got a gun. I don't wanna hurt you, but I will. You understand what I'm saying?"

"I'll do whatever you want," he said, shaking. "Just please don't hurt me."

"I need you to lay right where you at and act like ain't shit going on. You got that?"

A rounded object poked his back as he dropped to his knees. The voice seemed to shift a little as it repeated, "I said lay the fuck down."

He did as told, which positioned him for a breathtaking surprise. He landed on his stomach seeing both the gun and the oversized black T-shirt lifting off, freeing breasts flattened in a sports bra and a mop of curly hair in freefall.

"Mothafucka, don't look at me, I'll shoot your ass. Now get on your side and look the other way."

He rolled toward the forward edge of hedge, noting the wide trunk of a large tree and a ribbon of glistening river. Anyone northbound on the bike trail might see his feet, which couldn't exactly signal for help.

"Now," she said, "me and you just hanging out, just chillin' in the heatwave."

"I don't understand," he said as it sank in that she was undressing. "What's your name?"

He told her and she ordered him to lay still. All kinds of possibilities crossed his mind, but none included body spooning, her bare kneecaps touching the underside of his. Presumably it was the gun poking his...