Without thinking, he calls a doctor friend and asks for a medical note (they agree to meet in a park they know from their childhood); he takes his camera, a few rolls of old film, and goes out. He walks along the seawall all the way to the end (he crosses through the tunnel on Fifth) and sits down to wait. To wait for what? For the scratched record of the inevitable to play out. An hour later, a group of teenagers approaches the shoreline with planks, ropes, and empty barrels. In just under forty minutes, they put together a floating contraption of limited dimensions (they make a mast out of a pipe, and a sail from a number of sheets). A few gallons of water and cans of cookies will serve as sustenance for the crew. The kids prepare the raft—he photographs the process—until one of them (no older than seventeen) approaches and, with all the insolence of the barrio, asks him, “Man, you a cop or something?” “No, no, no, me a cop? Forget it.”
