Shark

It’s been raining incessantly but today it suddenly stops and the clouds peel back to reveal raw blue sky. I don’t want to leave the house but I can’t help myself, I feel myself drawn into the sunlight like a sleepwalker, or a cartoon hobo being pulled through the air by the wafting scent of a fresh pie. Besides, a newly-discovered live recording of A Love Supreme has just come out, and I want to see if they have it at the record store. 

At the bus stop, a woman in purple scrubs looks at my foot and asks if I kicked a shark. She has to repeat it a couple of times before I understand what she’s saying. Her hair is purple too, as are her glasses. “My friend used to say that when she broke her foot,” she says. “Makes you seem more interesting.” 

I get my record, then get hot wings for lunch. I sit at a picnic table in the sun and eat like a wild animal, getting orange hot sauce on everything. As I’m waiting for the bus back home, an old woman with her mask under her chin comes up and asks if the next bus is imminent. That’s the word she uses, imminent. I make some inane comment about the weather and she goes into a tirade about the homeless people downtown. “Tents everywhere. Garbage everywhere. It’s disgusting. I don’t know how they can live that way,” she snarls. “It seems like a hard way to live,” I say. She says her husband and her had to live in their car for six months. “So you know firsthand” I say; “Life is so hard, I try to be grateful for what little I have. Like those clouds. Amazing.” I realize I sound like a cornball but I think I actually mean it. 

She’s quiet for a few minutes, then says her husband fell out of bed and broke four ribs. “He’s such a baby, does nothing but whine,” she says. “It feels good to whine,” I say. “I love to whine. Most guys do. Makes you feel alive.” She cackles. She doesn’t have many teeth. “You know something, you’re right about being grateful,” she says. “I need to remember that. It could always be worse.” I say, “And it will be.” She laughs again, then, suddenly self conscious, pulls her mask up over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I know I should be wearing this thing. What happened to your foot, anyways?”  I look at my cast as if I’ve just noticed it and tell her I kicked a shark.