An unwelcome break from politics!
This note comes hot on the heals of a limited mailing in which Dick whined about some drunk driving through his bookstore window on Friday night at 3 a.m.
Okay, so today as the bookmobile swung into Ye Shoppe territory, it occurred to Dick that there were far too many cop cars parked on the block. I mean, the car through the
window was a lousy caper, but here we have six blue and whites, serving and protecting, and seven or eight of those dark, plain Crown Vics, blackwalls, municipal plates, shit
all over the floors, no Cubs bumper stickers. Too much heat for one bashed in bookstore,right? So we swing in to our favorite spot, the semi legal one outside of the metered area but not prohibited by signage ( and we have successfully appealed two tickets from that
spot, so we know our semi legalities, here ), and walk across the aptly named Eastwood Street to the corner at the north end of Dick's Famous Books ( not its real name ) where we confront, first off, the same cop who took our window crash complaint, it seems like, and was,only yesterday. He is standing casually in a large knot of his uniformed confreres, gabbing in cop-ease.
Yo, home, 'sup, we say. What's goin' down, five oh-wise!
Nothing, he says, beat it written all over him.
So I truck on down a few doors to the store, open up, and wait for neighborhood gossip to fill in the giant gap.
It soon trickles down: an unsolicited assisted departure from this veil of tears has transpired. Maybe up to
a week or more ago, a tidbit inferred by many who observed the city employees in attendance
all puffing huge stinky cigars, the air freshening measure of choice with homicide dicks ( no relation ) who are confronted with not so fresh evidence, if you get my drift, smoke-wise.
The TV trucks arrive sometime later, but no smiley faces, of the man-tanned variety, are posed on the sidewalk, for fear of bringing free publicity to Dick's Books. Just some camera guys who shoot a few minutes of the three story building, last known address of Mr. X, whom Dick suspects
of being one of his customers, but since it's cash only at the store there are not too many names in the Rollidex.
So who really knows. In any civilized country, the stiff's image would appear ASAP all over the media, but here in god's own America we're sensitive. So I'll never know if
it's my guy or a non-reader.
Unless the landlord calls me to come down and clean out the library.
Your humble servant,
Mr. Sensitivity