Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: The cab driver doesn't know where he's going.

Solution: Decide between a) he's new here or b) he's completely mentally deranged. If "a," remain in the cab and give clear, explicit directions. If "b," tuck into a ball, open the door, and roll out of the cab before he has a chance to engage the child safety locks.

Complication: You decide he's both, or neither.

Solution: Flip a coin.

Complication: Tails.

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Walking with Whitey

It's a grim future for whitey. In the purple dusk he walks and curses those who do not know how to use a sidewalk: the left side walkers: Bohemians and drug addicts, the same pace walkers: stalkers, the three abreast walkers: lousy teenagers, and the cyclists: bicyclists.

"God damn you," he thinks. "Walk on the right side. Walk slower or faster than me. Walk single file -- there's mud around. Bike on the street like everyone else. Risk death like everyone else. You're not special. You're not even white."

Oh, no whitey. Oh, ugly whitey. You're going to fail, and then you're going to seek revenge, maybe inspired by Cheney's book, and then you're going to fail spectacularly. The world does not move according to your order. The world does not have manners. The world is chaos, and you must learn to find delight in that chaos, in strange and foreign experiences, in confusion and terror and tacos. But I see you can't. You can't get mud on your pants. You won't.

I'm sorry. I regret that I can't help. I'm busy not becoming you.
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My Friday

Today I went to work. I sat in front of a computer and put numbers into the computer, and the computer liked it. It purred from all those ones and zeroes. Oh, did it purr. I massaged its binary soul.

I walked home from work, squinting into the setting sun in my corduroy jacket and New Balance sneakers. I think people call me "corduroy jacket guy" and laugh. I think that because that's what I'd do. Would I laugh meanly? No, not mean straight up...like affectionate-mean. I think people should always mix meanness with affection, but not vice-versa.

Yeah.
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Chicken Story

Today I went to the live poultry store to choose a fresh chicken for dinner. I think, sure, it is terrible to be the indirect cause of an animal's death, but being so close to it makes it a matter of conscience to clean my plate and to use the bones for soup. Also I feel it's important to keep my money in the local economy and away from the Perdue Chicken board of directors. I hear their poop is mostly impacted feathers, which is inhumane on several levels.

A grizzled non-speaking brown man led me back to choose my victim. There, in the third cage from the left, I saw her. Looking at me upside-down was a brownish-red hen with the most expressive bird eyes I'd ever seen. Normally I view birds as a small step up from insects -- more than happy to peck you to death if it serves the flock. But not her, no, not her. I indicated that I wanted her alive by alternating the slashing throat motion with shaking my head no.

The proprietor opened the cage, threw her into a double paper grocery bag, stapled it shut, and handed it to me in exchange for a five dollar bill. I put her in the passenger seat, fastened the safety belt, and we drove home through the downy snow flurries.

I brought a packing box up from my basement storage area and shredded some rags and newspapers into it until I felt it would make a comfortable bed. She was still, scared. I removed the staples from her bag with a nail file, then turned her sideways until she stood up, and then turned her upside-down until she stood right-side up. She knew her way out of the bag.

I stroked her head. "Oh my little chickie chickie chickie," I said. "Oh, what shall I call you chickie chickie... Fuck! Peck, not bite! Bitch!"

"Ka-LAWK! Ka-LAWK!" she screamed and leaped at my neck.

Feathers flying, she chased me into my bedroom, where, after knocking a bit of furniture around, I was able to throw a fitted sheet over her. The fitted sheet promptly ran into the master bathroom. I shut the door.

"Ka-LAWK! Ka-LAWK!" she screamed into flannel.

Now I have an homicidal pet that I've no idea how to love, feed or restrain and appears to resent love, feed and restraint. And it looks like I'll be bathing in the guest bathroom toilet from now on. When I get the courage, I'll need to drive her down south and release her into the wild, beyond the frost line, probably down I-57 around Memphis, where she can find unfrozen food and do whatever chickens do.
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Small Coffee with Cream

"Small coffee with cream, please."

"Just one?" the girl asked.

It had not occurred to me that I needed to number my creams, but at McDonald's it makes sense to think of them in small, corporate units. I am not picky about how much cream goes into coffee, as long as the amount falls between not enough and too much.

"Yeah, just one."

She punched some buttons. "Inside?"

"No, to go."

"I meant inside the coffee. The cream?"

I laughed. "Yes, inside the coffee." Where else would the cream go?

As I walked home I thought about a man who might order his cream outside the coffee. This man must like some cream fraction, perhaps two and one-third creams per coffee, and he cannot, in a timely fashion, explain fractions other than one-quarter to the employees. Maybe because the apple pie is not circular.
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While crossing the river

The river, liquid and solid, like oil and marble, flows slow tonight. On another bridge, two blocks north, I hear voices.

"Look, ducks, Pa!"

"They're ducks. The green one's the man. The brown one's the woman. Oh..."

"Look, Pa, duck sex!"

"Yep."

"I didn't know ducks had penises and vaginas."

"Just like people, son."

"Ducks sure like to bite each other, don't they Pa?"

"Yep."

"Do you and Ma..."

"Hold it right there, son -- the answer is yes...the answer is always yes..."

It rains lightly. The voices fade into the night, drowned out by my shoes' squeak and a very loud quack.
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