In one of the alleys I passed, someone had thrown out a chair.
The chair looked nice.
I went to look at it.
While I was looking at it, there was a yell from down the block, and then the sound of something moving.
Out from between some garages, a teenaged person came at me in a jogging trip.
He was yelling.
He had on an old, dirty Chicago Bulls wintercoat even though it was like ninety degrees out.
He came up to me and stood there, breathing hard and smelling like piss.
Old piss.
Under one arm he held a brown paperbag.
He put it on the ground.
The brown paperbag was wet and crumpled.
He also held a bulge in his coat as his breathing calmed from the run.
He wore Velcro boots on the wrong feet, and all over his face there was bad acne.
It was a boy from the abusive family down the block.
“Muh. Motooz,” he said. “Motooz.”
Sounded like, “Motooz.”
I couldn’t tell.
Yolky stains covered his black sweatpants and it looked like there was something retarded about him.
I couldn’t tell.
I stayed where I was, just standing.
Transferring weight between his Velcro boots, he said, “Motooz,” over and over.
“Muh, motooz.”
Over and over, pointing to himself.
Smelling like piss.
“Motooz. Motooz.”
“Motion,” I said. Actually, I was asking.
“Mo-tis,” he said slowly, pointing to his chest. “Ah Mo-tzis.”
I couldn’t understand him.
“Moat-ziss,” he said.
“Moses,” I said. Actually, I was asking.
He nodded and smiled.
“Ah Motooz,” he said.
One of the pimples on his chin looked very swollen and painful.
It was yellow and full.
Birds lined the telephone wire.
“Motooz. Twigk,” he said. “Motooz twick.”
He reached for his pocket.
“Twigk,” he said.
“Trick,” I said. Actually, I was asking.
He nodded and smiled.
“Z, uh twigk,” he said, licking at the bad chapping around his mouth.
And I thought about Michael Jordan.
Thought about a transparent projection of Michael Jordan, and the projection went into my body and I absorbed it.
“Twick-uh,” the teenager said. “Z twick.”
He unzipped his coat.
Out from his coat fell some small beige bodies, into his hands.
Baby rabbits.
Their eyes were still swollen closed.
They moved around in his chapped hands and he yelled, smiling.
A bad smell came from the Chicago Bulls coat again and I thought, “Michael Jordan” and saw Michael Jordan’s face inside my head, smiling at me and saying, “Die, Die, Die” and all his NBA championship rings were floating over his head.
“Nice bunnies,” I said.
He pulled back.
There was a thick moment of distrust between us.
Holding the rabbits, he stared at me.
I thought — Michael Jordan is a baby rabbit.
“Motooz,” the teenager said.
He seemed confused and upset, trying to control the baby rabbits.
Then the wet paperbag on the ground moved a little.
It felt to me like the situation had already happened and I was being sent back to review what I’d missed, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d missed.
“Motooz,” the teenager said again, kneeling.
He was trying to keep my attention.
He set down the baby rabbits on the edge of the alley.
The baby rabbits were on their backs, moving in place, and trying to get on their feet.
I wanted to be in one of their bellies sleeping.
But I wasn’t.
The paperbag moved again, just a little.
“Twick, twick,” the teenager said, kind of nervous.
He undid the twisted paperbag, and took out a huge toad.
The toad was dark green and puckered — kind of moldy looking.
Looked heavy in his hand.
“Twick, twig,” he said. “Motooz, twigk-uh.”
He was getting upset.
“I’d like to see a trick, yes,” I said. “Show me a trick.”
He set the toad down on top of the paperbag.
“Twigk twick,” he said loudly, pinching the crotch area of his sweatpants.
The smell of piss and shit got stronger.
The toad breathed slowly, ribcage expanding on either side of its face.
And I couldn’t help but associate the piss and shit smell with the toad.
The toad was garbage.
Shit and piss toad.
“Twick,” the teenager said, again. Then carefully, “Z, uh twick. Z, trick.”
“Ok do the trick,” I said.
He pinched a baby rabbit by the loose skin around its neck and then held the baby rabbit near the mouth of the toad.
The toad blinked.
Nothing happened.
Something wasn’t happening.
Something wasn’t working.
Something was wrong.
I felt gravity happen inside me.
A different gravity from the one happening outside my body.
The teenager in the Chicago Bulls coat cried, and scratched his face with his free hand.
What a pussy — I thought, unable to tell who I thought that about.
Who’s who.
He pushed the baby rabbit against the toad’s mouth again.
“The trick isn’t working,” I said.
He flicked the toad’s eye.
The toad tensed.
Another flick to the eye.
The toad jumped forward, eating the baby rabbit.
Only the baby rabbit’s hind-legs remained, sticking out from the toad’s mouth.
“Motooz,” the teenager said. “Twick.”
And he calmed down, smiling.
He stood and clapped, looking at me.
I joined in the clapping.
It was hard to tell who’s who.
Everything smelled so bad.
We watched the toad finish the rabbit in labored swallows.
I thought — This is the world at present including everything that has ever happened.
And I felt entirely the same.
“Motooz,” the teenager said. “Motooz twig.”
Then he stomped down hard, missing the bulk of the toad, but snapping both its hind-legs under his Velcro boot.
And the hind-legs hung there, stripped and broken.
Soft looking bones came out of the skin.
Trying to move, the toad could only circle.
Its front legs scraped the ground, grabbing wet dirt but getting nowhere.
This is the toad’s entire life, including everything that has ever happened — I thought.
And it was hard to tell who’s who.
The teenager in the dirty Chicago Bulls coat scratched his face again, upset as he watched the toad circling.
He yelled and ran away, back down the alley gone.
Gone as he came.
Backwards along the same path.
Only the toad remained, circling pathetic, with some very small stones sticking to its skin.
And I thought about how someone seeing all of this from very high above sees something with its legs stripped and broken.
Just circling.
And I thought about how it would be hard to tell who’s who.