I wake to the sound of lawn mowers and house alarms braying through the neighborhood like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. My wife is already away to work.
Clad in a tartan robe, I descend from my chamber to prepare a pot of coffee. As the coffeemaker mutters about its business, I move to the front door and step outside. A breeze brushes by my bare legs like an invisible cat. My bedhead hair stands atop my scalp in a Dr. Strangelove coif. I draw in a breath and smell the ghosts of the onion fields that once occupied the ground of my exclusive enclave in LaSalle, Ontario.
Next door, Antonio Rasputini, an aged, withered wine-making man has shut off his lawnmower. His ancient, dented metal garbage pails sit by the curb for the morning's pick up. These cans have been struck down by every imaginable vehicle, from a 1973 Impala station wagon driven by joy-riding teenagers, to neighbors' SUVs, minivans, snow removal vehicles, and even the garbage and recycling trucks. Yet the pails somehow make it to the curb each week.
Across the street a tanned, shirtless retired man, Boris DeMohrenschildt, runs an electric handsaw through a sheet of wood. The windmills and weathervanes on his lawn and atop his house spin and squeak their code about the direction of the breeze. The rage of the saw quiets and the distance between he and I fills with his trilly, tuneless whistling. My wife says one day Boris' house will break apart and a life-sized doll house—that he's secretly building within—will stand in its place. Personally, I believe him to be a one-man toothpick mill.
Sage Edenderry walks past with her new baby. The stroller looks like an off-road vehicle. Sage offers a quick wave. Every time I see her I want to shout out how much I love her name.
All appears as it ought and should on Jolly Crescent.
I see that my stoop gave birth to a newspaper during the night. This has occurred on all previous nights since we moved in. I hope the news is better today.
Stepping into the house, I stop. My cat, Ennis, sits at the top of the stairs licking herself. My wife says that if people licked their own bums on a regular basis the lifespan of human beings would be the same as dogs and cats. Maybe it should be. Ennis looks up as I close the door. Although she's been busy all night measuring the progress of the universe with her spinning toys and rattling balls, she appears alert and inquisitive.
"Vien minou," I say. It's the only French Ennis understands. She follows me into the living room.
I toss the newspaper onto the couch, and then lie upon the floor and roll onto my back. Ennis lies upon the floor nearby and rolls onto her back. Craning my neck, I look at the cat and extend my right hand. She extends her right paw. Almost touching.
We re-enact Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.