Late start tonight. It was a bus day of sorts, Marcus was in, his last day before flying to the Mediterranean for his honeymoon. Calvin was in a good mood, Raymond was OK at first, then morose later in the day and Sean was impetuous as only a 19 year old could be.

Sean and Raymond butted heads over something stupid and I wisely kept out of it even though both sides angled to have me on their own side. They were friends again an hour later.

Around 2:30 I had lunch and headed out to a bench by the park to enjoy a cigar. But it was overcast and I was sitting beneath a tree. A few drops fell and I wasn’t sure if it was rain or falling from the tree so I decided to head back to the cigar shop, rather than sit and wait and possibly get soaked.

I sat in the back room smoking the cigar and talked about the economy and war with some of the smarter customers. After that, the afternoon went by, not so fast and not too slow.

Most of the customers were decent people, just one asshole by my count. And he was easily ignored. Raymond is still being punished for what he did a few weeks ago, and he doesn’t have a key anymore. That means he and Sean get to leave at 9:00 and I had to stay and shut up the shop.

I closed the store and took my time and as I was getting ready to head out the phone rang. I didn’t answer it since the store was closed, and frankly, I couldn’t be arsed. It rang again and I checked it out. It was Sean.

He was about to start his evening and left some of his cigars in his bin. He asked if I could get them for him and he’d meet me outside the building. Ah to be 19 years old and thinking that the world revolves around you.

I did him the favor and got his cigars and headed out after setting the alarm. And of course Sean was nowhere to be found. You would think he would make it a point to be there since I had to catch a bus like I told him, but there he was a few minutes later so happy to see me.

I knew I missed my usual bus and would have to catch a later bus. Tonight’s songs were from Wild Planet by the B-52’s. Specifically the first 4 songs. It took me 13.8 minutes to get from the shop to the bus terminal.

Incredible time and it felt like I wasn’t moving that fast. But apparently I was. And tonight’s time was truer than last night’s. I was in the bus terminal as Give Me Back My Man was ending.

I’ve been getting better at avoiding people as I hustle my way down the avenue and there were quite a few tourists in the way. But still I made it, and in a good time.





Videos courtesy of Rand Hoppe.