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Vertical Halo
When I stopped shooting at that trio of dogs–the two German Shepard siblings are just big puppies really–the neighborhood became devoid of cats.
The chained up dogs of my neighbors don’t even bark anymore when the trio, the black and brown Shepards and the long red haired mutt, show up periodically throughout the evening to forage for things they missed on the previous one hundred visits. I heard a cat yowling the other night but that’s as close as I’ve come to seeing a cat in this neighborhood for three weeks. The cats are alive, I believe, most of them anyway, and not being seen during difficult times is how they survive difficult times.
The Pentecostals recently hauled in some river sand to finish out the leveling of the vacant lot next door. Then it was windy without rain for many days and the sand blew into drifts up along the fence of the auto title establishment. Its like Padre Island, or Cap Ferret (if you’re the type to suffer regrets), without the water. Or sure, like the Sahara, or the Mojave, or like those dunes inside the missle testing grounds of White Sands, NM., where I trespassed in sleep one night of my youth. Except, come to think of it, not exactly like that because this sand next door is kind of yellow, or beige, and that sand in NM is, that’s right, you guessed it–white.
I’m watching the Spurs/Laker game. Yesterday I was on Dumaine talking to a former Los Angelian who doesn’t care for the Lakers, except Kobe, and she said Shaq looks too much like Baby Huey. He looks just like him, she said. For the life of me I can’t quite conjure up who is Baby Huey. And yesterday when I had the chance to get the answer to that I did not seek the answer.
That trio of dogs will lounge on the waterless beach next door. It was them in that state of repose that caused me to quit shooting at them. They looked so harmless, and why shouldn’t they get to claim that lot for themselves?
The chained up watchdogs are barking so I get up to see what, what, what, maybe it’s the free and feral trio, but no, it’s just some boys trying to ride their bikes through the sand. It’s very hard to ride a bike through deep, soft sand, so the boys get off and push their bikes.
Last night the trio had to dodge small flying boulders as some crack headed cat lovers across the street threw bricks in their direction as hard as they could (um, okay fellas, those bricks are coming real close to my car, uh fellas?)
Sometimes at work, if I’m alone, I will do a kind of spastic ballet to stretch my muscles. I am not all that limber. Last week I’m doing this move, like a very untalented ballerina on the exercise bar, stretching my torso sideways, with my arm curling over my head as a vertical halo and the same side leg off the ground attempting to stretch beyond it’s limit. I can tell, even without a mirror, that this is not a pretty picture. Then I remember where I am, turn around, and see out the open window two burly construction guys sitting in their car outside, parked head on to my window like I’m the drive in movie. One of them is reading a newspaper, but the other one isn’t.