“Oh yeah, that guy, yeah he just stands there all day.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, he just stands right there in front of the legion with his hand in the air. People hardly notice him anymore.”

“He’s hanging. They’re all just leaving him hanging all damn day.”

“Yeah dude, that’s kind of his thing, I guess.”

“His goddamn thing is he wants a goddamn high-five and people are just looking at him like he’s the asshole.

“Jesus, why don’t you go slap his hand if you if love him so much.”

“Oh I love him alright. And you would too if your town wasn’t such a bunch of goddamn ignorant, non-fivers.”

“What..?”

“This guy is a national treasure. He should be in a hall of fame.”

“What hall of fame would he go into? The hockey hall of fame?”

“What? No… I figure they’d have to build a new one for him.”

“With a bronzed statue commemorating how he lived and died; with his arm in the air.”

“Yes! Man. I’d high five that statue everyday on my way to work, or the grocery store to buy bread for a sandwich.”

“Have you had that new oatmeal brown bread they’re making now?”

“Yes I have, and it’s delicious.“

“Spot of tea then?
Cheerio and right, right,
bollocks, flat, chips,
car boot sale” etc.

That is how I think some people talk.

While the woman across the street
feels the need to air out her perfect breasts,
in the late July’s afternoon sun.

She tosses her head back in the sunlight
and a warm breeze courses its way over her skin.
Satisfied, she closes up shop, and goes on her way.

“I don’t know” I’m saying, our heads still down,
“I think it’s jammed up right solid.”

Me: Hey so what’s all this horse shit about kids choking themselves out and dying?
Future Child: I dunno, some chick was doing it in class the other day, she looked like an idiot.
Me: Have you done it?
Future Child: No, I stick to heroin and meth during class.
Me: Don’t be a dick.
Future Child: Don’t accuse me of being one then.
Me: wanna go tie stuff to the cats?
Future Child: ok.

I actually remember a girl doing this in class once when I was in grade 7 or 8.
I think she got pregnant the year later.

My coffee cup rattles and clanks in time with the trains rusty wheels.
I wonder if they ever invented a rattle-less train, if it would lose it’s charm,
if the driver would have to compensate by playing it a little looser at the wheel,
I wonder if this explains airplane turbulence. I don’t think trains have steering wheels.

The train attendant is making her way down the aisle, stopping at each seat,
she stops by my side and asks me if everything is ok, and I tell her it is.
She has a face that you immediately want to be very close to for a very long time.
I don’t mean that she’s a kitten, but I don’t me she isn’t one either.

I imagine that there is a very grand mystery unfolding a car or two back.
I’m an extra in the twisting roller coaster of an Agatha Christie novel.
The grizzled detective only has a week till retirement,
and very accidentally stumbles into the biggest case of his career.

Mysterious murders, and guns, and torn pieces of a checkered over-coat;
snagged on the splintering wood of an aging train seat.
Everyone’s a suspect, and I raise my newspaper to my nose, and look around.
The kitten-tits attendant walks by again, and I eye her suspiciously.

The rain beats down on the side of the train and I stare out into the black.
The loneliness is thick on a ride like this, and you can almost touch it.
I look around at the oriental carpeting that seems to be everywhere;
like everybody’s waiting for the drummer to set up, but none ever does.

The bankers and the robbers have agreed to sleep on it for now,
and I decide to join them.

Heading to Sappy fest at the end of the month. I’ll be at the zine fair selling books, and at the shows listening to Jim Guthrie and the felice brothers, and Julie Doiron, and Rick White.

October brings the Halifax Pop Explosion. I think we’re heading up on Saturday for THAT zine fair, then checking out a show that night. (Hopefully The Hold Steady…) I think we’re going to wait and buy tickets rather than a bracelet. I may or may not regret that decision. woo!

Talk you to TOMORROW.
TOMORROW.

I’m working on a novel.
It’s like The Passage in that I’ll get a publishing deal before it’s done for $3 million dollars and then sell it to the movie companies for another 1.7 based on the outline alone.

The way it’s unlike The Passage is that it doesn’t really exist at all.

“WHAH? WHAH SCHA MADDA?”

Cracker crumbs all flying around all over the place. So mad.

“WHaH” she’s saying again, with a higher pitch.

I look at her.

“Those are MY crackers,” I blurt out. “There I said it. Yeah, that’s right. Those crackers you’re eating, they belong to me, and you’re just double fistin’ em into your big dumb cracker crunching mouth. It’s like… it’s like you have a little cracker holocaust happening right in your face, and you’re just following orders, and I’m just sitting here watching it happen.”

She stops chewing, and looks down.

The guilt settles in almost immediately. She’s got a mouthful of my crackers and now I feel bad about overreacting. Your standard cracker crime fallout.

She swallows what’s in her mouth and hands me what’s left of the crackers.

“I’m sorry.”

The regret is instantaneous.

“Hey look, I mean, you can have some, I just…”

But she’s gone and the door shuts quietly behind her.

Probably went to steal some cheese.