loose noops

"Ya'll I got them loose noops over heah, loose ones."

"Loose ones, loose noops."

"How you doin baby?"

"Hey how you doin."

"Loose ones. Got them loose ones."

"Looose noooops."


On sunny weekdays, there is an older man in a motor chair. He gets doped up or something, and he sits in the sunshine, in burgundy polyester pants, saying, over and over:

"Lucifer, lucifer. LOOSEY fuhh, loosey FUH. Lucifer-ahh-lucifer." He has a crony a guy in brown, who sells Xanax for 5-8 bucks each. In front of the pawn shop, a skinny white woman has a lot of gold jewelry, her eyes won't stay open, but her pale paw holds a skinny cigarette. She seems to be falling down, sort of, but her body won't quite tipple over. It just stumbles back and rotates around without her feet moving, in a sluggish radius.

Another block up is the bum who seems to have less body every time you see him-- first he has no feet, then no legs, finally, on today's visit, his torso ends in a stump, with a knot tied in his jeans. I give him a quarter, and when I look up to smile at him, I see he is wearing a knit cap that reads, in olde inglish script, "I GET MONEY," with a halo embroidered in gold around the "I." After I give him a quarter, immediately a man in an apron, pushing a cart loaded with spray bottles and papertowels asks me, "Can I get a dollar?"
"No. You got a job," I reply,
"So?" he smiles,
"And you got legs," I say, and I laugh. I walk away. They don't laugh at this.

I go and get sushi, against my better judgment. The last time I got sushi in the ghetto in the middle of the week, it wasn't so fresh, and the rice was a little dry-- it did something to the inside of my mouth that made the entire day insipid. I decide I'll go light on the sashimi. When I get home, and I pop a piece in my mouth, it is so fresh, it's like a wet flower in my mouth. It's like the smell of a clean empty beach on a slightly cold day. It's like a rainbow.

The cat enters and puts her paws on my knee-- her eyes are superbright, crinkly gold, smoothed, like the gilding on an 18th century chair. When I give her a piece of salmon, she is my best friend.