284

There was a special painting for viewing at the noon hour. There may have even been an advanced screening the previous night at midnight, but one can’t be too sure of the rumors they hear from that crowd. Everyday Yeah and I made the noon showing and afterwards we went out for crab legs or crab stomach or both.

The painting was of a man holding a cantaloupe and that was it. Everyday Yeah swore he saw more.

“It’s of a man,” said Everyday Yeah, “Sending himself a letter in the mail. It isn’t much of a note; it’s more of a test. The man wrote a single sentence with a small footnote and he mailed the brief prose to himself in order to discern whether or not his footnotes can survive the rigors of postal travel.”

All the restaurants on the harbor were full during lunch hour. Instead, we went to the a quiet street off of a busy avenue and found a small vendor sitting in a lawn chair on his front yard selling barbeque crab on shish kabob spears. There was a hammock and I sat down to eat my share.

“Let’s go,” said Everyday Yeah.

“Give me a few minutes,” I said.

Seven minutes later we were stuck in traffic.

“If we had left ten minutes ago we would be home by now,” said Everyday Yeah.

He was probably right. I don’t remember where we got the car, but it was a painful ride not going anywhere. Let’s just leave the car.

An hour later we were finally off the highway.

“Take a left,” Everyday Yeah said.

Darkness was coming. Memories of elf shadows and leafless branches haunted the roadside.

“Take a right.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home, follow the road as it curves to the right.”

There was a time when Everyday Yeah and I were in a row boat. We tried rowing with each of us holding a single oar.

“It is no use,” he had said at the time, “I think your oar is longer than mine.”

We stopped rowing for a second to measure. They were the same length. We set to rowing again, but were just spinning ourselves in circles.

“I think your arms are longer than mine,” he had said.

We put down the oars and tried measuring out limbs, but the shoulders didn’t match up evenly.

“Yes, I think our arms are the problem,” I said.

Everyday Yeah threw the oars in the water a few minutes later and we waited for the waves to take our boat to sure.

Back in the car we still hadn’t gotten to where we wanted to go. I’m not sure we were really headed home.

“If we had just left ten minutes earlier we would be there by now,” I thought.

“Take a left,” said Everyday Yeah.