Graceless

I ran into a graceless man today on the way out of a Starbucks. I had a flat white in tow and my sunglasses over my head when the poor, fumbling giant knocked into me, toppling them off my head.

We were exiting the shop just as George Harrison was singing about peace and love over the radio, my kid sister and I. When we were safely by, I lit my cigarette as we waited for the cross traffic to cease by the large intersection near the grocery store.

My kid sister had treated me to my first proper flat white out in the wild since my exit from the clinic, only she wanted hers iced. A southerner, she much prefers cooler beverages to hot ones. I sipped mine like Dougie from Twin Peaks: The Return, that much happier for caffeine running through my veins.

Revivals still happen down here in the south, which I was surprised to learn. I thought they were a thing of the past. But then my kid sister ran into a ghost from her past, a woman once part of a recovery cult she’d been roped into. We stood for a long time on the corner, this woman with over-groomed eyebrows chatting us up, her bicuspids sharpened, her heart full of the Good News. I began to itch and it wasn’t just because of the heat.

Eventually, free of her snare, we left and went to the grocery store. I felt like her guardian angel of sorts and she seemed relieved when her ex-boyfriend wasn’t working as a clerk. She was so relieved she bought me a bag of my favorite Cape Cod potato chips and a mug cake I like, because she says I might wash away in a hurricane.

I looked for the lizard dog that waits for us by the steps but was too worried about my kid sister to see him, she just wandered towards the door all meek and sad.