Monday, September 15, 2008

pants on fire

"Excuse me young man, I am wondering if I could bother you for fifty cents? I am trying to buy my grandbaby a box of Pampers."

 

The guy who said this was in maybe his early 50s. His pronunciation was crystalline, and his hair long, full, springy, still the color of impossibly rich soil. He was wearing a tight brown leather bomber coat. He'd steered his kid's-sized BMX bike diagonally across the street toward me near the Daimler building.

 

"Sorry, I'm just out walking my dog," I said.

 

Which was true, but so light on elaboration that it felt like a lie. After he pulled away, I tapped my pocket and heard a few coins hit against each other. And so it was.

 

I kept walking and stood under the tree frog tree I wrote about previously. There was nothing, not a single parseable sound.

.

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