One morning, Alan threw a clatter of toonies down on the Greek’s counter and walked around the Market, smelling the last night’s staggering pissers and the morning’s blossoms.
Here were his neighbors, multicolored heads at the windows of their sagging house adjoining his, Link and Natalie in the adjacent windows farthest from his front door, Mimi’s face suspicious at her window, and was that Krishna behind her, watching over her shoulder, hand between her wings, fingers tracing the scars depending from the muscles there?
He waved at them. The reluctant winter made every day feel like the day before a holiday weekend. The bankers and the retail slaves coming into and out of the Market had a festive air.
He waved at the neighbors, and Link waved back, and then so did Natalie, and he hefted his sack of coffees from the Greek’s suggestively, and Mimi shut her curtains with a snap, but Natalie and Link smiled, and a moment later they were sitting in twig chairs on his porch in their jammies, watching the world go past as the sun began to boil the air and the coffee tasted as good as it smelled.
“Beautiful day,” Natalie said rubbing the duckling fuzz on her scalp and closing her eyes.
“Found any work yet?” Alan said remembering his promise to put her in touch with one of his fashionista protégés.
She made a face. “In a video store. Bo-ring.”
Link made a rude noise. “You are so spoiled. Not just any video store, she’s working at Martian Signal on Queen Street.”
Alan knew it, a great shop with a huge selection of cult movies and a brisk trade in zines, transgressive literature, action figures and T-shirts.