10.1.1998
The cold front is here and I shut my windows which upset Raccoon who lost communication with the alley cats. Out of love for her I open one and she stretches down before me on her front paws with gratitude then leaps up to the sill. I had a cold but the cold front was so cold it killed my cold, swear to god. I am driving for a messenger company in my grandma’s Mercury Sable, may she rest in peace. I broke out my wool hat with the bulldog and pulled it over my ears and hit the road with my cell phone, pager, a boiled egg and green apple. There are leaves falling across my windshield and football on talk radio. I am waiting at a light on Ohio facing a billboard of a woman smoking Slims. I wave off a Chicago Sun Times salesman in a tan leather jacket and the junky asking for money at the gas station will have no luck with me today. The street cleaners left a neon orange ticked under my wiper blade demanding a fifty spot. You wouldn’t know they clean wallets. They don’t advertise that. Downtown a black man is passionate about how the whites are trying to put him down. A well-dressed woman in heels and a fur coat hails a cab. The modern art installments in front of the state administration buildings are eyesores to me. The sky high Amoco building gives me bearings; I am disoriented on Dearborn. I don’t get a lunch break but my mind wanders between deliveries. I am thinking of a guy I bailed out of jail in Florida last year. He called me again last night. Somehow the court has my address for him and sends letters about his failures to appear, and when he calls I open and read them to him. Are you wanted in many states? I asked him. This was meant to be a joke but he answered it seriously. Only two. He is a troubling glimpse at a chapter in an awfully frightening book. But when I think about it, he’s not that bad… it’s not all that bad. I am peeling and eating my egg. I’m curious about one thing… how did that nice guy who owed him money, die? #katyamills
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