"Hah!" I bark back at Tony the Tiger. "Merry happy, dude."
"You, too."
Which it is, more or less, for us ragtags who live on Tony the Tiger's paternal
instincts and jumbo survivalist-sized boxes of Corn Flakes.
And now it's the crack of noon, and my navel is thoroughly contemplated, and my
adoring public awaits, so it's time to struggle down bravely and feed my face.
I've got a robe, it used to be white, and plush, with a hood. The hood's still
there, but the robe itself is the sweat-mat grey of everything in Tony the
Tiger's dominion. I pull it on and grope for my cane. I look down at the bruisey
soccerball where my knee used to be and gingerly snap on the brace that Tony
fabbed up for me out of foam and velcro. Then it's time to stand up.
"Fricken-mother-shit-jesus-fuck!" I shout and drown out my knee's howls of
protest.
"Y'okay?" floats Tony's voice up the stairs.
"Peachy keen!" I holler back and start my twenty-two-year-old old-fogey shuffle
down the stairs: step, drag.
On the ground-floor landing, someone's used aerosol glitter to silver the
sandbags that we use to soak up bullets randomly fired into our door. It's a
wonderful life.
I check myself out in the mirror. I'm skinny and haunted and stubbly and gamey.
Num.
There's a pair of size-nine Kodiaks in a puddle of melting slush and someone's
dainty wet sock-prints headed for the kitchen. Daisy Duke's home for the
holidays. Off to the kitchen for me.
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