A Walk Through Pillowed Hell was what I had intended in titling this.
The employees and customers at the Dollar Tree had adjusted to the new social distancing, with most customers wearing masks and half of all pedestrians and cyclists and motorists wearing masks. Will I be stoned for not having a mask?
As I walked back from the store, on the other side of the street, was a pair of flamboyant soy-boy millennials, one with an electric guitar, walking along as if they were Stars, the un-guitared one acting the barker for some rad act.
Then, as I passed a homeless man who has been living on one grassy patch between the sidewalk and an automotive company, I noticed that he was more animate than usual, was standing and preaching in the gutter. He was my age, just a little shorter, with dark weathered skin. He looked my way as I approached and I put up the hand that was not bearing the bag of food and said, “Hey man,” and he nodded to me and said, “Sir.”
He then continued to address his invisible audience which seemed to be his method of address to occupied seating in the middle of the street and said, “I’ve seen it in Thailand. A friend of mine even got to pick out the victim for his liver transplant. For forty grand you can get whatever organ you need!”
