Kill Her or Killer?

“I’ve been looking at Zillow.  I get their listings in my email all the time. And I saw this houseboat in Alameda for $350,000, 2 bedroom, 2 bath, and I was thinking how great that would be if you lived on a houseboat and you could just jump into the bay….”

            “I don’t want to live on a houseboat.” I am so cranky. The bay is too cold to swim in---56 degrees today---and I’m sick of walking because of the goddamn pandemic and there’s another surge now so the hopes that the indoor pools would open by the time it gets cold for the winter are utterly and completely dashed, drowned, kaput.

            “It’s too cold!” I mutter as we tromp up 31^st street, the crisp morning air should be a delicious wake up for me, but instead, I’m just very very cranky. We usually swim in Keller Cove on Wednesday mornings, but not today. Like I said, the water is too cold.

            “Arrrfff arrrrfffff arrrfffff!” a yap emits from behind a screen door. Disheveled blue robe man, with wild grey hair sticking up on all sides, thick glasses, ratty slippers, appears on the porch, jabbing a huge American flag in our faces.

            “Kill her!” he hollers.

            Kill her? What have I done? I know I’m cranky, but is murder the only solution?

            “Stop barking!” he commands, jousting with the flag, like he’s landed at Iwo Jima and is gonna plant it in our faces.

            I start laughing. What else can I do? The scene is so hilarious. “KILLER!” he commands again and this time I think he’s saying ‘Killer’. Like the dog’s name is Killer?

            Good name for a yapper, esp. one that belongs to a patriotic soldier dressed in blue.

            “Well, I just thought that it’d be a cool thing to have the bay right there,” Ian continues, totally oblivious to the Killer scene?

I turn toward him as we continue our march up the street, leaving Flag Man behind. “Wait a minute,” I interrupt, “we need to analyze that Killer Bathrobe Man situation first.”

Ian’s game for any analysis. “I think the dog’s name is killer and he was just telling it to stop barking.”

            “Okay, but what if he was telling the dog, whose name is inconsequential, to Kill Her, meaning me?”

            “Why would he do that?”

            “I don’t know. He could feel my cranky energy and thought I deserved to die by the teeth of a vicious little beast? Or he was in attack mode in his mind, landing in enemy territory and saw us coming up the street and thought we were the enemy? Or…..”

            Ian shakes his head, mulling over my speculations. And, I admit, it’s all a bit ridiculous. But what was up? Why joust the flag at us? Were we somehow unamerican? Did he know we voted for Biden and not Trump, his hero? Why do I think he was a Trump supporter? The flag? What is it about the American flag that seems so threatening to me?

            I remember when I came back from China. And 911 had just happened. And everywhere I went there were American flags flying---off people’s cars; in people’s house windows; on every street corner. It was scary. I wanted to go back to China. Or at least put the Chinese flag in my window.

            Of course, I didn’t.  Rabid Patriotism is nothing to take lightly. People kill over it.

            And, here I am back to Kill her.

            What is it about the energy today from this cartoonish little man that was so threatening, but at the same time, hilarious?

            We are in very strange times. The election is over, but Trump refuses to concede. The pandemic surges continue to climb and kill (again, the theme of killing comes up), and the racial unrest and protests continue in the streets.

            There is a lot to be worried about.

            And, I can’t swim! I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I feel like killing someone.

            “I know a houseboat may be just a fantasy…..”

            “Where would I put the grand piano?” I demand.

            “That’s a good point…”

            We cross Clinton as a big black car guns its accelerator, speeding toward us way too fast.  

            Kill Her! I think as I scurry across the street, my heart racing. The woman with the two Scottie dogs walks by, completely oblivious to everything. A couple of crows swoop down and pick up trash off the asphalt. I sigh aloud as we march up 31^st street. 

And it's just another day, another walk, another story in the neighborhood. I'm not killed yet. Maybe a houseboat isn't such a bad idea.....I grin to myself, gazing up at the puffy Constable clouds as we cross Esmond and head toward McBryde.