Sidewalk in suburbia. An actual neighborhood — fifty, sixty years old — instead of a housing development\/subdivision. Nine out of ten streetlights shedding a sulphurous mist just post sunset. New sidewalk. New cracks. Brick bungalows maybe ten yards back from the roadway. Mailboxes a lesson in suburban diversity.<\/p>\n
A crow followed me from lightpost to lightpost. I didn’t notice until just after the third one — when he swooped by at arm’s length and waited for me at the next one.<\/p>\n
I slowed to a halt and stuck out a raincoated arm. He fluffed up on the post, considering, then dropped down in a less-than dramatic swoop, ending up on my forearm.<\/p>\n
Even though I’d been acting like I expected it, I was caught off guard. I couldn’t tell you whether he weighed more like a grapefruit or a bowling ball. Adrenaline surged while I thought of what to do next.<\/p>\n
I thought about the neighborhood I was in. I hazarded, “What up, my nigga?”<\/p>\n
He cocked an eye at me the way birds do, where everything you say or do requires them to look at you in a funny way. “Hello,” it said.<\/p>\n
Of course. “So this is where I get the lecture about political correctness in my greetings?”<\/p>\n
“Hello,” it said. I sighed.<\/p>\n
“Hello,” I replied.<\/p>\n
He bounced up and down, the way a bird will when it’s testing a branch to see if it’s springy enough to help with take-off.<\/p>\n
“Gum?” it asked. “Hello.”<\/p>\n
I was, in fact, chewing gum. I rolled it to the tip of my tongue and presented it.<\/p>\n
The crow bounced gently up to my shoulder and pecked the gum expertly off the tip of my tongue.<\/p>\n
“Hello,” it said, unmuffled by its beakful, and flew off into the trees behind a nearby house.<\/p>\n
“Aloha,” I replied. “Don’t let it drag the ground unless the streets are clean,” I called out after it.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what I meant. My own special version of Tourette’s Syndrome. It sounded like good advice regardless.<\/p>\n
The footsteps that had been shadowing me for the past quarter mile kept their distance. Hell, I would have, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sidewalk in suburbia. An actual neighborhood — fifty, sixty years old — instead of a housing development\/subdivision. Nine out of ten streetlights shedding a sulphurous mist just post sunset. New sidewalk. New cracks. Brick bungalows maybe ten yards back from the roadway. Mailboxes a lesson in suburban diversity. A crow followed me from lightpost to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1rL5j-4p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/xal.li\/eri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}