I center myself on the bench by the river in order to center myself in my world. Spring raises the water level with the runoff of city streets. The water laps at the base of the ancient willow, at the doorway to a possum’s home.
“Huh,” he says, surprised, like the trees have spoken. “Dey took my lock and chain, man. Dey took it. You wanna go for a beer? ”
He kicks at the dirt. “No, not me,” I say. “You take it easy.” I leave him grappling, trying to lift a half-ton boulder. Gives up. Kicks it.
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“All out, sorry,” I say, trying to remember, What is a doober? I have two guesses. One: a doober is a condom; I wonder if I should suggest they retrieve the ones tangled on those twiglets. But that branch has probably made it to Division Street by now. Second guess: a doober is a joint, meaning they must think I look like a doper. I’m no help in either case.
I ride down the block and by luck meet my good friend, a riverbank bird-watcher. “Do you have a spare doober I could buy?”
Tell me more things, my eyes must have said.
One fine spring day the bank failed by Ms. Bauer’s house. “I tote du whole haus vas gonna shlide in,” she told us. Ms. Bauer’s is a sanctuary for birds, mostly pigeons, which have whitewashed her roof with their limey doo. A dozen bird feeders hang leaning in the breeze, and flowers, flowers are everywhere. Her husband, before he passed away, seeded beds on the ledge of level ground just along the river drop-off, It’s here that the terremoto happened. A 40-foot-long strip of earth–small trees, bushes, and weedy growth intact–scuttled down ten vertical feet. Startled, ghostly roots, grubs, and worms found themselves exposed with a river view. Refugee muskrats evacuated their collapsed labyrinth, splashing the water as if to say “What the heck?”
