too obvious  too obvious  or he was being paranoid     or was he paranoid enough

muscles shows up a day earlier

she ran past him this afternooncame up behind him

he heard panting and as he was walking and reading he was alert to sounds around him he veered left gave whoever was overtaking him a wide lane right between him and the street curb

passing him he glanced up out of The Windup Girl a woman CrossFit stitched into the back of her black running bra her thick rump concealed by black spandex running shorts later he learned they were called scrunch bum shorts appropriate  hed happily order them to have with his black morning coffee sumptinsweet

at CrossFit he knew it was muscles

she talked about lifting hurting herself and in the meanwhile recovering she learned of CrossFit that was her gig now she said

he was happy he finally got to see her from behind

it was worth the wait  unexpectedly

at CrossFit he knew

                      but he had to confirm it and dropping his eyes to her churning legs her upper right thighBAM the wrapped tattoo The Sky above me The earth below me The fire within me  he had asked what her thigh said 

during their brief introduction the fire within they revealed they were Aries

a pair of oppositesex Aries

he dug the possibilities

he dug she probably dug too

                                  however

he made enemies or they thought he was their enemy

lambasting the powers that be which they liked to think of themselves as being  whas the pointhuh without their unplumbed depths of entitlement audacity  and hubris  See he could stroke them

                                                                                         but he didnt and they sent lieutenants to properly inform him  unfortunately they thought their words were powerful cudgels 

when he replied cudgels they didnt follow

evidently they had something in common  bad habits

he sent the lieutenants packing like good dogs

they were obvious

maybe they thought muscles wouldnt be as obvious

she was

it was flattering

they got his type right

they got his appreciation of loners of familial détente determinedenforced by long distance consensually agreed and abided

the slag where they missed the bus  was that inside the wrapping

the rap didnt cross the river 

maybe they thought she could erect a bridge  

she said P-A when he asked her where she was from

maybe in P-A they refer to Pennsylvania as P-A 

their psychological assessmenthis breakdown broke down it shouldnt have missed his abject dislike of acronyms his compleat joy of language and saying what something is unabbreviated

                                                                           there was nothing about himnever was that could be seen as abbreviated he preferred ad nauseam  ad nauseam is another word for endurance the long term seeing ahead acorner afork anintersection in along seemingly endless  road 

ablithering optimist

P-A he repeated

muscles nodded

Ah

he was bornfrom Illinois he never called it I-L as it was abbreviated today the abbreviation when he was a kid was I-L-L when he addressed a letter home he wrote Illinois

no muscle was as close as she ever was going to get 

she was close enough to admire

she was dressing

not oyster stuffing

                        or he was fishinghe was wrong swung wildly though again his old man gave him a tool to offset the experience or the error Boy, there’s always more fish in the sea.

1500-ish,  Saturday,  25  4. 20

1522,  Sunday,  26  4. 20

Vic Chesnutt  Philip Guston  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfYKjktav4