Clockwhipped

            I was saying goodbye to my neighbor, Al, who was moving to Edina. His gal had already moved to Arizona. (She is back this week visiting, flying in with the one she loves.) Al and I sat in the front, I in my chair on my stoop near my potted plants and he on the lawn rather than the proffered chair. I started to tell him about my being stranded. I was probably shot at by a bullet that sounded like a K against the pale beige brick above my head, as I wandered one evening outside about nine, just after a car had passed, as cars do with some regularity, one or two an hour, or three around nine—how would I know? I told Al that the Russian escort of my former fiancé had said that she could have me eliminated, my former fiancé had said. I thought of the Russian when I heard the K sound. Not the point of my story. The point of this story is that in describing the Russian to Al, I called her a “woman cock,” and it shocked both of us. Al, as he closed as my neighbor, said he does stand-up comedy in Minneapolis. He has a resonant voice. I could hear his singing through bared screens in summer. I had written to the Attorney General's office on the advice of a retired attorney friend who had since died. I did not know whether to write to the Department of Justice or New York State. I wrote to the Department of Justice and the Minneapolis Sheriff, and neither replied. At my two-month appointment with my doctor, he handed me a copy of my email to the Sheriff that Xfinity had sent to him. I asked the Sheriff in the email, cc'd to other recipients, including the church where I had confirmed, how neighbors can assist each other in P.T.S.D., especially now, before more shit makes the grade as gun waste. Woman cock, I had said it. The shock wore off. I now felt prepared to waltz under a K bullet that hits a stucco brick above the tropical hibiscus.

            My former fiancé said tonight it is good that I did not have four legs wrapped in surgery. He may be on-target in evaluating human-to-animal risk proportions where I live. Well. To live in flat flux is how I like it. Some prefer peaks and valley flux. I like level ± flux.