THREE DAY OLD PUMPKIN PIE

During the day on Halloween I ended up smoking in an alleyway between Montgomery and Sansome after lunch. When I sat down, an athletic woman with a gun strapped to her bare thigh trotted past.
It took me several seconds to realize that, despite the remarkable paucity of clothing, she was dressed-up.

Lara Croft, financial district tomb raider.
A very vicious and busty type.
Or so I've heard.

I do not dress up for Halloween; I'm the most frightening thing you know already. I am a Caucasian carnivore bill collector who smokes tobacco. Apparently sensitive little children run away from people like me screaming, and I've been told that carnivorous tobacco fiends cause starvation and pestilence in the Third World.
We generate a miasma of bad karma.
Vegans tremble when we pas.
And kittens faint.


Except that unless you see smoke actually coming out of my mouth, you wouldn't know that I am so evil. I still look sweet and charming, much like any trim middle-aged dude. And my warm smile hides the coldness within most admirably.
I am in disguise, pretending to be human.

Pipe tobacco.

Overdue bills.

And carrion.


That probably explains why I like crows.
Such intelligent avian creatures.
Evolution's single success.


At tea-time, there were no birds in Sue Bierman Park, down at Drumm and Clay. Not the crows that raid garbage cans in the Embarcadero Center, nor the huge flock of noisy parrots that roost in the tall trees. Just a crazy woman repeating the phrase "seventy five dollars", and a drug addict asking people what time it was.

It was warm. Shirtsleeve weather.
There was a smell of cinnamon.
Two pink bunnies approached.

I had seen them earlier, when they were heading toward North Beach. It seemed more natural for them to be in the park.


When I got back to my own neighborhood, there were three crows perched on the edge of my building. A welcoming committee.
Even from street-level, I could tell that they had character.
I've always liked crows.



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