32

Chapter 32

I stepped outside the Colonel's house and walked over to Tikki's final resting spot, kicking a few fallen leaves away from the small mound of dirt. Poor fella, I thought. My immediate plan was to head over to the Burger Barn and see if I could locate Ethyl in the alley. That failing, I would check in about her whereabouts with Ahmad and a few other of the normal stoolies. All in all, I just wanted to walk, I think. I had all day; no looming deadlines at either of my works. I would just take it easy, dodge the sun by choosing a path that would take me from one shaded awning to another. Ours was a small enough world. Sooner or later I would happen upon Ethyl and, as a bonus, maybe Edgar, who I also hadn't seen in a while.
I crossed Belvadere Street and veered right into the alley behind the Burger Barn, casually strolling through a veritable Dead Sea of cardboard, newspaper pages and spoiled lettuce toward the dumpsters. It's not that I hadn't offered Ethyl food on numerous occasions, complete with a standing offer to raid my fridge, it's just that she is hesitant of being a burden to anyone, which is one reason she lives on the street in the first place, I assume. She'd never mentioned family even once and I had to wonder what the story was with that. Ultimately, this was not my problem but, in another light, it was exactly my problem...and yours. As the famous Ukrainian feminist postmodern poet said,

    All things told and,
    We are all beholden
    To one another.
    Your wilted lettuce,
    My wilted lettuce.
    Your sister is
    My brother.

But I think he was kidding, being a Ukrainian guy and all. However, I find there is often wisdom to be found in the converse of many statements such as that one, and one must be careful with the sharp spear of sarcasm and the dutiful pruning shears of irony so as not to isolate one's audience to the point of...

It was during my contemplation of this, and just after I'd unwrapped and popped one of those mini Tootsie Roll Bites into my mouth, that I felt this feeling on the back of my head that felt a lot like something feeling uncomfortable and, to be more to the point, really bad. "Wow! Kids these days can move so quickly!" That was the last thing I remember thinking before I stopped thinking anything at all for, oh, about 20 minutes according to Ethyl and Edgar.