It was a single glance back, she realized she couldn’t leave without grabbing one thing that he really loved. Well if not love, what he really needed.

And of course he didn’t have time to notice.

I was in an exuberant mood as I briskly walked through a rather large urban park. There was a slight hint of rain, a stronger hint of autumn – mixed with the burning of distant wildfires. Forest fires this year are the worst on record. Just a week earlier forest fire smoke overtook the area. It was a smoky quagmire of epic proportions.

Today seemed far too normal other then the less than expected bird activity. The quiet was somewhat eerie. I listen for these kind of things while hiking or walking. Who knows what is normal anymore? I took notice to a pattern of signs, regularly distributed, near the benches along the trail. They appeared in my periphery. After about six-hundred yards my curiosity got the better of me. On the first sign I examined, there was a photo of a middle aged gentleman who seemed to have gone missing.

He was pleasant enough in an ugly sort of way. He had a wry crooked smile and was in need of a shave. I believe, I remembered seeing a blip about this man on a neighborhood discussion board. From the best of memory, I thought this man had been found more than a week ago.

Or do all these memories get re-configured in our brains?

It could have been the angle of the sun, as I thought I saw a man another hundred yards along the trail. The lingering smoke from the wild fires played tricks with the psyche.

As I drew closer, my dog suddenly started limping noticeably. This is something he never did. Surprised, I got down on one knee and massaged his big black bear of a paw and glanced toward the man on the trail. The big black lab seemed to appreciate the message.

The man appeared to be putting up the signs that were scattered along the trail. He was using what looked like a small hammer gun. In retrospect it could have been a stapler.

The man, with the stapler and a handful of posters in his hand turned suddenly and met my gaze. It was a vacuous stare with no implied intent. A wind picked up from the west.

“Hey there young man those are two handsome dogs you have there.”

“Well thank you very much. I am surprised this little one here isn’t barking.”

I looked at the poster on the bench and glanced once again at the man with the stapler.

“Let me see that poster you have here.” as I said this the little dog did manage to grumble about some form of disturbance in the universe.

The man meekly handed me one of the posters. “Could you check it for typos?”

I thought for a second, that this guy looked far too similar to the guy on the posters. The crooked smile was a harbinger, or at least a hint.

“You dangled a participle in the last sentence.” I added dryly.

“Yes I was a bit of a grammar nut myself.” The man said with what could be considered a confidant, radiant smile.

“Setz dich bitte” For some reason I often spoke German with the dogs. It was the only German they heard. So for the most part it worked.

I yelled in the general direction of the little dog who is in mortal combat with a skate boarder. Given my small sample size, Jack Russell’s do not seem to like skateboards. I realized this interaction was getting a little absurd. Sometimes absurd is the little funny I sometimes enjoy. Large heavy raindrops suddenly emerged from the sky lasting what seemed like a minute.

“You look pretty similar to the guy in the photo.” I said to him, knowing the photos were inflated photocopies speckled by a newly falling unexpected rain. One could not draw exact conclusions here.

“Yes that is because he is my twin brother.” It was at this point that the man on the trail realized he had not thought his plan to entirety. He reached into his pocket to pull out his ID, and suddenly realized he was was without his wallet. Or at least that is how it appeared to me.

“Wasn’t your twin brother lost about a week ago”

“We all get lost.” Answered the man with a stapler and posters under his arm.

And then he added, “Did you come out of the woods with your dogs? I never could find the short cut to this trail. “

“Yes the dogs love getting off the pavement” I responded tepidly with out adding any further detail.

“There is nothing wrong with being lost. Being lost is kind of fun. If I were my twin brother I would stay lost for awhile. Nobody harasses you for not being where you are supposed to be. And when you are found everybody is glad to see you.”

I stood there for a few seconds looking toward the western sky, where dark clouds were gathering, with a new found determination, on the horizon. “Hey I have to get going as there looks to be some heavy rain moving in.”

“No problem brother.”

I started into a slow run and the dogs were happy to get started again. There was swimming hole another quarter mile up the trail.

The stranger yelled to me as we set off. “Could you come back here please.”

Somewhat reluctantly I obliged.

“Word gets around here pretty fast.” He said to me as the first large drops of rain hit the bill of my cap.

“I may as well come clean. I did’t expect to see anybody out on trail today. You and your dogs are pretty determined.” He said, as he folded the posters under his ample denim jacket.

“Let me guess, that is really you on the poster.” I said back to him, never really thinking how likely the scenario. It told a great story.”

“You got that right brother. I really need to get away for awhile.” He half screamed, as he followed me toward the east end of the trail. The Jack-Russell Terrier led the way with a steady, understated growl.

“No need to explain your reasoning, you aren’t in any danger?” I said back with far too much emphasis on the end of the sentence.”

“No look I am fine. I am not going any where far. I left in a hurry and my car-key and wallet were not in their usual places. I believe my lady knew I was leaving. Man the world is a nasty place at times.”

“Do you have a place to go right now?”

“Yeah I have a friend who is a about a mile from here. I can get some peace and quiet there.”

“You do what you have to do. Hey I have to get home” I stammered breaking into a slow jog as the skies started to open up.

“Your Secret is Good with me.”

Is Sofa King worthy of being a bit odd. Many refer to it as a couch. It is pronounced Cooch, as that is a Portland thing.

It came into being because it came as a package. It has brothers who match this couch. The chairs serve as chairs, which is cool.

Well not this couch. We sat on this couch for a year never talking about how sofa king uncomfortable this Davenport could be.

It having no legs, we thought this was hip chic urban flair. Against the run of play, we decided to buy the Davenport some legs so it would sit up higher.

When we went to install the legs we ran into a curious thing. We flipped her over and discovered a zipper underneath. This zipper was discovered by my sister in law. She slowly pulled down the zipper and you can guess what emerged. Yes four shiny brown legs for the davenport.

The Davenport, for a long time, even in in sofa years, lived a peaceful existence after the leg implants. That is until two cats moved in to the house. For awhile, they coexisted domestically.

And then the cats moved into the Davenport. Yes they moved into the Davenport. Somehow Bobo and Sinclair ripped the bottom out of the davenport. This was Sofa King genius. They hang out inside the Davenport for hours.

In an ironic twist, catastrophe may have been inverted (possibly averted) , if we would not have found those four legs stuffed inside the couch.

You see where I am going with this.

Bobo and Sinclair would have tried to find the secret passage to the journey to the inside of the Couch.

And yes they would have been bludgeoned by the legs hidden inside the davenport.

Sofa Kings many lessons to be learned here. One being, commas are not bad thing.

In Berks County

Pennsylvania. And it is really bothering me.

Hopefully I learned from it. A famous man once said, Pennsylvania, a state with two big cities and Alabama in between.

I grew up a racist son of a bitch

Didn’t know any better.

What sticks to a young mind

What that sticks can be unstuck?

When we were little the men who picked up our trash, we were taught to fear them. They were black people coming into our alley. The putrid smell of trash lingered from the trash cans.

I felt like we were at war with a country called Puerto Rico. The parents blamed the spics for everything. Why didn’t they go back to their own country. Don’t go anywhere near the housing projects. They were not a safe place to be.

In our household the moon landing eclipsed the life and death that was Martin Luther King. The space program was indeed exciting.

There was a club in town that made fantastic mouth watering pizza that tickled the senses. The sauce was absolutely perfect. I don’t remember the cheese. I know many people who referred to this pizza place as the WOP club.

The WOP CLUB preferred to not have blacks as customers. This sentence is odd for Berks county where they would shrug their shoulders and say.

“It don’t matter.”

I don’t know what became of the Polish jokes we heard as kids. As a Cub Scout we made Indian war shields out of elongated raw pasta. It didn’t work very well in the rain.

Our grandmother when eating licorice spice drops would refer to them as Nigger babies. As a kid the candy was passable, as an adult it is delicious. The term we should have hated, but it was our grandmother. Our other grandmother predicted the demise of Tiger Woods before there was an actual Tiger Woods.

Let’s play tag -Who is It?

Eena, meena, mina, mo,Catch a nigger by his toe;If he squeals let him go,Eena, meena, mina, mo

We said that shit.

Our high School had about a dozen persons of color. They all lived in the same neighborhood. It was called Furnace Hill. The furnace referred to the place where they burned trash. Most people in town called Furnace Hill -Nigger Hill. It was not a term of endearment. It was a convenient place to burn the trash.

It had predictably come to this.

One day while eating a traditional Berks County hoagie along with a bag of chips, I sat on my break with a woman with whom I worked. I liked her plenty, she was a friend and a great co worker.

She happened to be black.

While enjoying that delicious hoagie with the perfect crust hard roll, I pulled a single chip from the bag. Yes a single chip. It was burnt to a crisp.

I called it a Nigger Chip.

It was automatic without thinking. It was a learned behavior. I said it out loud.

It came out so easily it scared me.

It came out so easily it scarred me.

My friend and I talked. Well she talked and I listened.

It took awhile, yet it changed me, it shaped me to understand how that made her feel.

That may have been one of the more life shaping sandwiches I have eaten in my life.

“Enjoy Every Sandwich” Warren Zevon

And today I see the shenanigans in Pennsylvania politics. They are refusing to seat a Democrat who rightfully and demonstratively won the seat. Why, because a sea change is coming.

And some just can’t keep from being racist. It is their nature. They never ventured far from their home town or their racist way of being.

This is a love story

Jack was once in a Rock-N-Roll band. Jane did not really enjoy the scene after a sad night at the club. Being only nineteen, she still managed to sneak her way into the club. The band was pretty good and she feasted at the bar. She was the recipient of free drinks of her choosing offered by a wide array of men looking to improve their luck. All she wanted was some decent conversation and a laugh. That is not too much to ask for a night out.

She walked out into the city air, mesmerized by the near full moon that appeared to race through the incoming clouds. The stars darted in and out on what could be be a sparkling late winter evening. She promised her friend Jessi she would meet this guy he set her up with.  She was low on self esteem, yet, buoyed by the fended off vultures at the show tonight.  The effects of the free drinks further invaded her logic and she teetered back into thinking she could be having some decedent fun right about now.

Life didn’t work this way. We are neither one-night stands nor the recipients of blind dates within the randomness of the cosmos.  But here she stood, under a streetlight on St. Paul Street. It was a seedy neighborhood, by Brighton standards, yet she stood steadfastly removed, waiting to meet her random stab at romance. No she was doing a favor for a friend. Admittedly, Jesse gave her the lead to the job she currently worked. She skipped going to the college route, which she could not afford, thanks to Jessi, she landed one of the better jobs in town,

She stood under the streetlight for a long time waiting for her blind date to appear. It was fun for her as every minute passed her expectation that he wouldn’t show increased. A sudden squall of snow picked up from the east, and out of the sparkling chaos walked a man who carried him self-well. He was downright dashing even wearing dark sunglasses in the middle of snow bluster.  “Wow, this could be a nice evening. ” she thought to herself as the man walked straight past her. He briefly tipped his hat her way and kept right on walking.

A wave of disappointment rippled through her body making her feel limp. She watched the snowflakes dance in the streetlight, and she felt herself drift into another reality, while looking in the opposite direction where the stranger walked, Abruptly, she felt a tap on her shoulder coming from the other direction.

Standing on a corner,  “You must be sweet Jane.” another stranger said in a clear calm public radio voice. He held a suitcase in his hand. He wore an old fashioned cardigan with patched elbow sleeves, He also brandished a pair of stylish grey corduroys similar to the guy in the sunglasses. Or maybe that was her mind playing tricks on her.

“Yes I am and you must be Jack, the actor, Jessi talks about so frequently. ”

“Yeah that is I, it so nice to meet you. ”   They shook hands politely and the snowflakes between them picked up with a new found vigor.

“BRRRR……”  was the most intelligent thing to pop into her mind and make it into her voice box.

“Let’s get a drink Jane, there is dive right around the corner.”

“Yeah I know.”

“So it’s a date?”

“I don’t know.”

The snow picked up with an added fury, Jack tilted his head in the direction of the dive bar and Jane followed without thinking.

The emergence into the smoky bar felt like a sensation a dog would get the first time they navigated a doggy door. Suddenly they were in another dimension.  Smoke swirled above the pool table refracting a bluish light from what appeared to be a jukebox. The place was nearly deserted except for few diehards bellied up to the bar.  Jane recognized one or two of them who tried to impress her a few hours earlier.

She did the natural thing and ordered a shot and a beer and the same thing for her friend.  Petey the bartender said, “You are lucky it is a quiet night, if you have another round have your friend do the ordering.”

One of the tenants of the bar, yelled louder than the situation merited, “Whore”

Jack and Jane marched over to a booth far away from the drunks at the bar.  Jack, noticing the weave in her march, grabbed her by the left hand and guided her into the booth. A path of melted snow marked their paths.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a blind date on a snowy night with two fairly inebriated people, goes pretty much like any other first date.  They talked about the things they have in common. And for the longest time, they sat and watched the snowfall outside the window adjacent to their table. One can learn plenty listening to someone experiencing something so simple and pure. That is pure comfortable silence.

Blind date protocol guided their conversation back into a simple capitalist construct, even though either of them had any interest. Yes, the dating ritual of making sure your prospective mate had the ability to earn some hard earned money. It had its time and place as she once had a date walk out on her mid date, leaving her to pay the tab.

“You are so goddamn weird, take that as compliment.” Jane said with a stumbling laugh.

“Yeah I am actor, and many times I feel like an actor in everyday life.  In the fifteen minutes, we have known each other, I feel more like myself.

Jane raised her right eyebrow only, he had no idea how to translate this facial contortion.  This gesture was new to him.

“Take that as a compliment.”  Jack replied

“Do you act at the Geva, I have been there once and it is oddly fascinating.”

Jack slowly removed his sunglasses so he could look her in the eyes. By slowly, he slid them off his face at a snail’s pace seeming for dramatic effect.  Jane felt like she was in an odd scene in an Indie film. She liked the melodramatic effect. It was playful fun.

“No I am in film. It pays the bills and the hours are much better.” Jack said as he cracked a crooked smile.

“Do you have any clips of your work?  Or have you been in movies I might recognize.”

“I would rather steer this conversation away from my work.”  Jack tersely replied as Jane knocked back what remained of her drink. Fortified, she insisted he show her a clip of his work.

“I work corporate films, you know training films, sales pitches and semi inspirational videos.” Jack replied as he signaled Petey to bring them another round.  He was mesmerized by this playful back and forth, and opted not to walk to the bar to order a light beer. Instead he gave a hand signal to Petey, indicating another round. It took a while to get Petey’s attention.

“You the sunglass wearing guy in snowstorm do corporate training videos. Are they like the videos we have to watch as a new employee at the bank.” Jane said while licking  the salt off her freshly arrived margarita.

“Yes one in the same.”  he smiled demurely and decided to roll the dice.  “Yes I once played this guy in a training film, who was using border line suggestive comments toward a co worker. Boy did I have to smarmy myself up for that role.”

“Uhmmmm”

She emitted a deep belly laugh that filled the smoky room. The smoke danced under the light of the pool table and a drunk at the bar once again yelled out.  “Whore.”

“I wonder who that was directed at?  Jane said as she attempted to remove her jacket. She tugged at the zipper of few times as she tried to gather her wits.

The drunk at the bar yelled the same old cliche line echoed by far too many men scorned by somebody way out of their league or level on inebriation.

Jane leaned in and whispered  “How the hell did you get cast as the sexual harasser guy?”

“I have no idea. I honestly took the part because it was such a stretch for me. I thought playing this part would be a great exercise in taking on a role that is a complete stretch for me.”  Jack signaled for the check.

“Are you acting tonight or being yourself? ”

He sat and fidgeted looking for the twenty he had in his pocket.  By his quick calculations he had enough including  tip.  While searching his pockets,  he was reminded he had a porcelain garden gnome in his pocket. He had planned to give it to her as a gift. He let the gnome settle back into his pocket. There was no need to add to the pleasant poetic oddity of the night.

They walked to the front door of the bar and opened the door slightly. They both sat and watched a few frenzied snowflakes dance in the streetlight. The looked in each others eyes, back to the snow and and once again back at each other.

“Close the door whore, its Fucking Cold.” once again  a voice echoed from the bar.

“Wait here for me. I forgot to leave a tip.”

Jack walked back inside and marched right over to the bar where a lone man sat yelling at the muted television, The Sabres were getting blown out. Jack knew the voice. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind as he tapped the man on the shoulder.

The man turned and attempted to look him straight in the eye. “Hey buddy I have a tip for you.”

“Yeah what?” he said after a belch he surprisingly tried to muffle

Wordlessly, Jack extended a solid left jab to the jaw of the harassing man.   He decided to use his off hand as to not hurt the man too severely. He only wanted to send a message in many directions.

The drunk rocketed from his barstool, and fell silently to the floor, followed by a hollow thud.

Petey walked out of the backroom and asked Jack if he had forgotten anything.

“Sorry I forgot to leave a tip.” he said as he handed Petey a five-dollar bill.

He joined Jane under the streetlight, as a wind rolled in from the west. The snow picked up with a sudden newfound fury. Jack kissed Jane firmly on the lips. It was not an ametuer clumsy kiss. It was a kiss he saved for a special occasion. Jane, expecting it, returned the warm embrace.

Jane was in a rush, as she had work in the morning. said  Let’s do this again.”

“You know where to find me.”

And Jack faded once again into a snow squall and headed back from where he came.