Morning Blast #3

Throughout the night, the sounds of the house disturbed him. He wrote it off as the settling of the wood, the easing of old joists and supports into their various roles, but he knew better. The water was finally coming for him. A long winter with multiple heavy snows, a spring beginning with a crush of steady rains--it was too much to hold back anymore. Even the dog looked worried, or does she look like that all of the time?

The fear was not for the rain pouring down the sides of the house, running down the slant of roof, but for the ground. Bubbling up through the saturated ground and into the basement floor. The yard turning into liquid and the house teetering, gliding through the muck of the neighborhood and bobbing like an ill-designed ship.

He would take the helm if necessary, jump to the back balcony and keep watch for errant telephone poles and trees that had not yet sunk or toppled in the viscous lawns. He would guide the house inland, navigating suburbs west to Pittsburgh, to Chicago, to Denver and maybe to drop anchor in the Rockies.

The Silverites!

Morning Blast #2

Met Carbone for lunch and at once the meal deteriorated into name calling and hurt feelings. Hack, poser, pansy,etc. Once the plates and little sake cups started flying, they threw us out of B Lounge and the fracas spilled out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. I slammed a newspaper box onto his back and that seemed to be the final straw. I left him in the soft mix of rain and snow, crawling towards York Road in hopes of making it to his car before the pain was too great to move. We've been banned from B Lounge for now. I think we'll have lunch at Souris' next week.

Morning Blast #1

I didn't believe for one minute that this guy had seen the rat we were now down on our hands and knees looking for. Not that this guy hadn't seen his share of schnauzer-sized rats, working down here, but right now he's just using a bullshit distraction and I'm playing along with it because I don't know what else to do.

I shine my light down behind the cars and see nothing but some old kids' toys, broken and scattered among the trash. I haven't seen any sign of an actual kid in the four hours I've been on this block today, but that doesn't mean anything. Kids make themselves scarce when I come around just like everybody else does.

I'm not a cop. Let me get that straight right off.