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Here they come around the corner of the block, the man and his dogs.  He wears soft buckskin moccasins so the sound of his feet treading the sidewalk imitates that of his two companions.  Padt padt padt.  The only difference is the rhythm of their strides.  The dogs are tall and shaggy, solemn black and white collies that address each other like siblings.  If you watch closely you can see their eyes changing colors as their heads dip up and down.  They alternate taking the lead, dog-man-dog, like it is some kind of drill, but none of them rush forward or suddenly drop back.  They weave and loop at a pace that seems directed by an internal metronome shared by all three and wouldn’t be notable except for the fact that the dogs wear no leash.  Nothing physical tethers these three together.

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When I opened the wooden, eight-panel door to Fatty’s bar, a muscular man in a yellow tank top banked the seven ball into the lower right corner pocket and scratched, the skinny bartender poured Budweiser into a pint glass, and the laughter–the animation I heard while out on the street–was pinched silent.  The other billiard player was unaware of my presence.  He was standing beside Derek Ellis waiting for the pint of beer.  Derek Ellis was wearing a brown fedora and seated at the bar.  He was looking at me.  The three middle-aged men seated with him were looking at me.  The waiting billiard player followed the bartender’s eyes to mine.

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I wake up wondering, how many people are here?  It didn’t used to be so crowded. I know I’m not crazy, but my brain keeps putting slides of various people in front of my eyes whenever I look at a mirror.  It’s like my house is haunted. Every piece of silvered glass has another person captured inside, each gazing at me. I blink hard and strong a few times. Come on, focus.

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When our two eyes meet for the hundredth time in the day, skies outside cloudy, a rolling froth of clouds threatening to boil over, caught in the red rhombus of a televised tornado warning area, something happens that was unlike the first ninety-nine.  We are pulled inward.  A glass is set down on the counter, unnecessary in our current orbit.  One of those rare kisses that outmodes titillation, brief formality, or banal assurance.  All of those kisses are meaningful in the way dimes and nickels are; they are cumulative.  But sometimes we reach out, clasp our hands behind each others’ necks, and from thin air draw a silver dollar.  There’s strength in the unpredictability of domesticity.

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