like riding a bike

It was dark outside, I said hello to the lady I was going to be passing by, thinking she looked a lot like *the owners’s* cousin. She gave me the same type of hello in return, the polite passer-by hello when we both recognized each other, she was the owner’s cousin.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she was peeling a banana.

“Day job stuff, and you?”

“Oh yeah” she remembered my day job even though she knows me from the second job “The same”

She heads up neighborhood relations for a local university. I told her I would see her inside as I left her with her banana.

I signed in just like I used to do back when I used to do this, I told them why I was there. I was trying to get a read the room when the guy by the fishbowl said you have to buy a raffle ticket.

“Did you say I have to buy a ticket?” I asked accentuating the ‘have to’

“Well, it works for the mob, and if you win you get two t-shirts your choice of color” he motions to a rack of eight different colored tee’s. “Or you can buy one. Twenty percent of the price goes to the civic association”

“How much are they?” I asked as I offered a dollar for the raffle ticket.

“Fifteen bucks. Do you want one?”

“I’ll see how the raffle goes”

the local police captain was there, he gave his monthly update. "Someone who we are classifying as homeless took his life in the park down the street” is the update I remember most

things went well, then got sour, then got well again.

My raffle ticket ended up winning but I gave it away to the guy who said he never wins anything.

He ended up giving me one of the t-shirts.