They're two blondes across the street from us, prancing around a sports car parked half-assed on the corner while we shuffle across the dirt-lined street towards the El. One has a perfect hour glass figure, tight abs exposed beneath a cropped t-shirt. White pants that MUST be greased on with crisco, looking slippery enough to pose a hazard if you rubbed up against them... You'd probably end up shooting right off and breaking a leg. Long golden hair on both of them that they manage to toss at least three times before the light turns green. The other one is equally lithe and proportional, bestowed with a fine set of breasts packed into some cute little t-shirt.

He gawks and grins. "Those two blondes are the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Looks like I'm gonna be dumping your ass today."

The next day we stop for breakfast at some little granola-y, hippie-esque coffeeshop on that very same corner. He has pancakes the diameter of your forearm stacked in front of him. I am working my way through a feta-spinach omelet and some of the most gloriously greasy homefries I've ever had. We don't really talk, sorta just sit and suck it all in. He's watching out the window behind me. I'm staring at the human traffic in the distance. A few minutes go by. Finally he breaks the silence: "Damn if there aren't a helluva lot of hot chicks in this neighborhood." He shakes his head and grins at me. I fork another mound of greasy, tomatoey goodness into my mouth.

We're driving in his car: "The hottest chick ever came into Gale's today while I was there. We were all just sorta following her around and offering our help the whole time. She was one of the most gorgeous chicks I've ever seen."

"That bartender is really hot."

"She definitely has a 10 ass."

"Damn."

"Too bad we're going out, because THAT chick sure is sexy as hell."






At the very same breakfast coffee-shop with the greasy homefries, a twenty-something, fresh-cheeked fella sits behind him, slumped in his chair and deep in thought as he gnaws on the end of his pen. He's got chocolate-brown locks locked tight in an ocean of glorious curls. His chin is thick with a closely-cut forest of beard. His eyes are a warm brown and distracted by whatever thoughts are consuming him at the moment. He keeps shifting his weight in his chair and then furiously jotting things down in a notebook, a cup of coffee not too far away. His chair wobbles a little each time he fidgets.

At the bar the night before, a younger man on a stool to the right of us, leaning over the table and talking intimately with some young, pretty girl. He looks strikingly like my old next-door neighbor from my childhood. He's got some of the bluest eyes I've ever seen, like pure, untainted sky. His hair is kinda shaggy and falls into his eyes occasionally; his jaw looks chiseled out of marble. He probably has those sexy boy-fingers, flat like spades and slightly calloused from working outside. He's there most of the night and pretty to look at in the blinding light that emanates once in a while from the women's bathroom.

At the museum, a tall, lanky, dark-haired fella in a cute little red t-shirt. I noticed him earlier as I passed from room to room. This time I bump into him outside of the bathroom. A red baseball cap shoves down his dark curls and he ushers around the same couple of little girls, teasing them and urging them to tell the others to get their butts out of the bathroom already. I catch his eye on my way in, and he grins and rolls his eyes.

The skinny guy with the dark, square glasses and the full sleeve of tattoos.

The girl running down the street wearing a slip as a dress, thin and curvy legs wrapped in a pair of black knee-highs.

The guy next to her with his lip pierced and a very very nice pair of tired blue jeans hanging just barely onto his hips.






Sometimes silence is golden.

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