My New Neighborhood, Pt. 1

There is a liquor store 33 steps from my door; it is across four lanes of traffic, but just four, good odds for a fellow with balance like me.

The guy who runs the place wears his soiled shirt half unbuttoned, and is more than comfortable with his heart surgery scar showing, that lippy, pink keloid fault line pocked by equidistant stitch-craters from diaphragm to sternum that Krusty the Clown also displays, though Krusty's are of course drawn on.

After two visits, this zipper-chested chap knows what I like (spiced rum and soda) and is hurt when I walk over to buy only Pepsi. When he smiles, he smiles left to right, and up and down, his moustache and chest a happy crossword, two seven letter words for 'vivid.'

I could wave to him from my patio, but I don't.

Not yet.

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