the likeness is quite exact

I tip my hat to the dwarf with the beautiful Italian shoes.

He’s just quit smoking. Yesterday. He’s been to the doc,
donated some tissue samples, won’t tell me why, though, just that "they’ve found some abnormalities."

I look for a hook in the conversation, but can’t find one.

Or rather he doesn’t want me to find one.

He doesn’t smile. He’s too self-conscious. "Five cracked teeth," says the dwarf. "And all I got left are smirks for all the ladies."

His jaw is all stubbly; it keeps the world at large at bay.

I’m going through my pockets, trying to find my watch, but it’s not there.

I look at the big clock on top of the town hall.

The hands are missing.

The dwarf isn’t surprised. "Been that way for years,"
he says. "Town council keeps saying, ‘Oh, there’s no money.’ But we all know where the money’s really going."

"Where is it going?"

He points toward a prostitute.

I’m just about to ask him to explain that when out comes the mayor, skipping rope.

He’s taller than I imagine. He’s also incredibly well coordinated. I’d always admired his sense of something or other. He stops skipping rope, glad-hands the dwarf, asks him for a smoke.

"Sorry, Mister Mayor, I quit yesterday."

The mayor seems angry. "What the hell did you go and do a thing like that for?" he says.

The dwarf shrugs. "Just felt like it."

The mayor sizes me up. "How ‘bout you, son?"

"No, sir." I say.

"Don’t tell me you quit, too?"

"No, sir, I never started."

"Oh, one of those," the mayor says, eyeing the prostitute. "Well, boys, really love to stick around and chat, but got places to go, people to see, you know how it is."

He pats me on the shoulder, pats the dwarf on the head, walks over to the prostitute and bums a cigarette from her.

They stand facing one another, laughing, joking, flirting.

I overhear him asking her if she voted for him in the last election.

She’s all coy and her cheeks are rosy. "I don’t vote," says the prostitute.

"You don’t? How come?"

"I don’t know… just doesn’t seem like it matters who’s in office."

The mayor pauses in thoughtful repose. "Hmm. Well. Why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee and explain to you exactly why it does matter?"

"Okay."

They disappear into Bert’s Neighborhood Grille.

"What I tell ya?" cracks the dwarf, offering me a slug from a flask.

"No thanks," I say.

"Dude, it’s Jack Daniels."

"Don’t touch the stuff."

"Sinatra drank J.D. Two fingers, the rest water. He also liked his martinis chilled and dry with an olive."

"I’m a Lou Reed guy," I say.

The dwarf nods. "When he was with Velvet Underground."

"Even after…"

The dwarf takes a hit from the flask, shrugs.

The wind picks up.

The dwarf begins wobbling back and forth.

"Hooo, feel a little woozy," he says, and falls to the ground.

"You alright?"

"Just need to rest for a quick minute. I’ll be alright." And he falls asleep.

As I head for Bert’s Neighborhood Grille for some hot coffee and scrambled eggs, I hear the dwarf mumbling in his sleep.

"No moral payoff…madness and surrealism…short-circuiting my analytical capacities…Good luck to you and give’em hell…I am in love…"

I sit down at the counter, order my breakfast and for the first time that day, resolve to keep my eyes off the clock.
　

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Well, that was a walk on the wild side. I'm quite concerned about that handless clock. (Can't help it, my father was a clock man) Hope a street sweeper doesn't scoop up the dwarf. Entertaining writing, my friend.

[Philip Gaber]

Yeah, I know, right? I was concerned that people might think it was going to be a story about Toulouse-Lautrec.