Collecting bottles, tossing leftovers, taking out the garbage
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Ryan Berg was awarded a 2011 fellowship in nonfiction literature by the New York Foundation for the Arts and lives in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in Ploughshares and at www.weareaugustines.com.
Every few days or so, when his loneliness becomes impossible to bear, Rodrigo leaves his Manhattan high school and goes to Central Park. He wanders off the paved roads and makes his way to the secluded, wooded trails, just a few blocks from the housing project in Harlem where he grew up. There he drifts and waits. He might lean against a tree or roam along a trail. Eventually a man will show up.