So I'm coming home for dinner between work and a meeting (I would say "sandwiched" but our houseguest has brought home a chicken and cauliflower and salad so dinner is much more satisfying than a sandwich) and I'm walking east past the police HQ when I notice the full moon up ahead. It is lighting a circle of cloud which by day would be giving a wonderful mackerel sky. The clouds are moving quickly, their scaly qualities emphasized in the way they go translucent as they pass the bright moon.
"Hey, bro. Sell me your jacket and I'll pay you later."
He's drunk and his date is cranky. He just fished her discarded cigarette out of the snowbank.
"Come on," she says, pulling him across the street in the direction of the Mount Royal Hotel, where there's a bar. Maybe the tavern of the York has already cut them off.
"But it's a nice jacket," he says.
The jacket is an oversized herringbone wool coat by Dittrich Tailors in Edmonton, vintage 1960s or earlier. I bought it at Value Village last spring for $15. It was made for this climate - heavy and thick and perfect for the minus 40 temperatures we get in the winter.
I'm not selling him the coat. I traded coats with a hooker once - that's another story - and I know a raw deal. I'd rather have my herringbone coat keeping me warm as I watch the mackerel moon.
No comments:
Post a Comment