Zoo Story (continued) chapter 11

Well anyway, I went up to this guy , sitting and smoking a cigarette. I was a few feet from him when he looked up at me as if to say, what the hell do you want?". I was embarrassed so just walked away. I was still determined to feel what it was like to speak to a total stranger, when I saw another man, reading a newspaper. I was near him and I mumbled been to the zoo?. The man looked at me and continued to read his newspaper..

I walked out of the park thinking my experiment had failed when I got a revelation. What if it was just as hard for Jerry to do this? What if he was trying all day to engage someone and was unsuccessful until he came upon Peter.

That night at rehearsal, I tried what I had discovered in the park. Up until this time I would enter all full of energy as I wanted to entertain Peter. This time I walked fast into the scene , saw Peter and just kept walking off stage, on the other side. I entered again and just looked around. Peter glanced at me and just kept reading his book. We played this back and forth for awhile until it seemed that these two characters had a rapport before even the first line was said. "I been to the zoo".(continued)