The assignment was to do a sunset shot. “And try to avoid the cliché,” Professor Moke instructed. So I went down to the pier in plenty of time to catch the sunset, but how does one avoid a sunset cliché? I walked out onto the pier and spotted a few fishermen and a few abandoned fishing poles and took a picture of the poles but was too shy to ask the fishermen if I could take their picture. A fat woman was slathering suntan lotion on a kid of about six or seven, but it was too late, the kid was clearly burnt. I snuck a picture of them, then walked back. The sun was still a few good inches above the water. I set off along the walkway.

I had a brainstorm. If all else failed, I could come back in the morning, take a sunrise shot, and print it upside down. How’s that for feminine ingenuity? Then it dawned on me that the sun didn’t come up over the Bay.

I noticed as I walked that every ten yards or so was a bench, and most of the benches had dedications. In loving memory of... One bench has a pair of lost sunglasses. Looked like sunglasses for a child. Maybe it was the suntan lotion kid’s. I thought about rescuing them, then I had another brainstorm and took a picture of them, angling my camera so the sun and my freakish face glinted off the smokey glass.

Not too cliché, huh? I kept walking.

Couples sat on some of these benches, waiting for the sunset, I guess, and I crouched low so I could get a row of them in the frame. A kid on a skateboard zinged by me, his gym shorts sporting a less than full-throttle boner-bow. Yeah, I looked hard, almost forgetting to snap the picture, and the guy probably smirked. I was pretty sure skateboards weren’t permitted on the walk, but who was I to say anything?

The walk went around a curve and the kid didn’t make the curve. He tumbled into the grass and his skateboard kept going. I took a picture of him sprawled on the ground, his feeble erection dwindled to nothing. I knew it wasn’t a sunset picture in any shape or form, but I took it anyway. It seemed like the right thing to do. I walked past the kid, a boy of about my age but not one I recognized from the college. He looked at me and didn’t look embarrassed. I admit there was something sexy about him, even bonerless. I imagined kissing him. I imagined having sex with him. Not really; that is, not specific thoughts or images, just vague notions. I’ve never had actual sex and only ever kissed two boys, one in high school and one earlier this year, and then Professor Moke, but so far just once. I kept walking.

Around the curve I could see where the walk ended. There was only one bench, and it was occupied. My camera had a zoom but it wasn’t enough to tell me much about whoever was sitting on the last bench. The last bench—somehow that seemed important, though in exactly what way I hadn’t a clue.

It was an old man. A black and white dog sat on either side of him. How come they never say “white and black”? The dogs looked old and tired, but not as old and tired as the old man. I couldn’t guess how old he was, but much older than my dad, older than my grandfather, so probably at least seventy, maybe eighty or more. There wasn’t much left of the park after the last bench, so I turned around. I stopped back at the bench and asked the old man if I could take his picture. “And your dogs,” I added, when he didn’t answer. It occurred to me he might be deaf, or anyway hard of hearing.

I was about to walk away when he said, “Why’d you want to?”

For a long moment I didn’t know what to say. Something about sunsets? Something about a photo assignment? He was staring at me intently with crinkly eyes. They were bright blue. The dogs had brown eyes.

“You just look so peaceful, so content,” I said. It wasn’t a total lie.

He thought about that. He didn’t say anything.

“Is there an inscription on your bench?” I asked. It was just something to say. I didn’t really care.

“Yeah, ‘Emma and Abby, always in my heart,’” he said. “Course it’s worn off now. Been worn off a long time.”

“Emma and Abby,” repeated. “My name’s Emma.”

“Yeah, she died a long, long time ago. Abby too. Abby was my wife. Emma was my little girl.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, a long, long time ago.” He didn’t say anything for a time, and then he said, “This here’s Bruno,” nodding to the dog on his right, “and this one’s Ellen.”

“They look like twins,” I said. “Brother and sister?”

Instead of answering, he said to Bruno, “You want this nice girl to take your photograph?” The dog blinked. To me the man said, “I shoulda asked Ellen. She’s the one makes the decisions. I got this pair not long after Abby and Emma died. No, that’s not true. It was quite a while after. Sometimes I get confused.”