I saw this on the window of the door leading down the stairs to the cave-like room where Ella has her coffee shop.
Looks like someone has been reading Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan.
Then glancing across the street to the Lawyer's Building I saw an image in the top left window.
I swear to God (not the indifferent one) it was Dead Doane. We grew up to together in Shelby. Most of his life he was a reporter for the Providence Rhode Island Journal. He died a couple of weeks ago.
We had lots of adventures which I have written about in various books and blogs.
Of course I know that I didn't see Doane in the Lawyers' Building. It was probably more like the time after taking Allie to school I saw a man with a bear's head crossing the street in the dark
Anyway - here's one of our adventures from The Life and Times of Professor Ennui Pidawee.
Doane and I tried camping in the woods behind my house. The first part of the evening went well; we ate a can of Campbells Pork and Beans and toasted marshmallows. But about 3:00 AM it rained and water washed over the trench we had dug around my old army pup tent. We left the tent and wandered around the dark neighborhood like adolescent ghosts.
We walked down Lee Street past Suttle’s store where during the day we sometimes got Nehi sodas and Baby Ruth candy bars but which was now empty and gray. Across the street we sat for a few minutes on the SCO fertilizer bench in front of the potato house where Mr. Suttle stored sweet and irish potatoes for sale in the winter.
Coming back, gingerly crossing the muddy parking lot, I stepped on a dead cat. It felt soft and squishy under my foot. I jumped and said, “Oh.”
Doane laughed and said, “Meow”.
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