25th and Thurman

“Who’s pa-whoo-huh?”

“What was that?” I replied with my head turned back, but body facing forward. Living in cities had calloused my heart and I had grown cautious of stranger’s intentions. A rattling garbage truck passed, turning north onto 25th. The air was quiet again and the man repeated himself in the stillness of the morning.

“Who’s pulling who, am I right?”

He chuckled with a dry laugh as he motioned with an oversized sleeve towards the two small dogs with him.

One looked determined to get home in the misting rain that had just started, impatiently straining at the end of its leash.

The other was obscured in a stroller, only slightly visible through the fine black mesh. Older, its tongue lolled out as if to taste autumn from its mobile perch. The wheels of the dog-pusher were caked in two distinct layers of wet and muddy maple leafs.

Unprompted, the man leapt into a story. One in which he repeatedly passed the same pile of leaves in a yard while making his daily rounds with his dogs. Observing over and over, he noticed the number 100 in the leaves. Then twice. Actually, five times. He peered closer, attracting the attention of the landscaper working at the residence that day.

“The landscaper grabbed them before I could. It was five one-hundred dollar bills, shaped into origami maple leaves and thrown into the pile for someone to find” he told me, his grey eyes never meeting mine. His equally grey mustache covered his upper lip.

He pointed towards the empty coffee mug in my left hand.

“Could have been you, and you’d have a lot of refills.”

We wished each other a good day and I thought to myself as I walked away, how my cup was full once again.