At the laundromat I see this girl I work with whose face reminds me of a flower. She looks hungover. We pretty much all drink a lot here in Terre Haute, Indiana. There probably aren’t enough bars here, incidentally, for anyone looking to corner the market. Anyway, as usual, the girl ignores me with a dutiful, mildly disdainful expression on her face. She’s about 19 or so. I’m 34. At work I try not to pay her much attention, noticing though that her behind is well shaped, wide for her slender sides. At the laundromat when I look up at her I notice her giant, perfectly rounded globes. She is working fast, bent over at about a 30 degree angle straight ahead of me 25 feet, so that the large, treeclimber looking man sitting 10 feet the left of me has her facing exactly. Shamelessly she lets her top fall, exposing the upper one-third of mammoth breasts. I am reading Collected Poems by Robert Hayden. The poem, “The Dream,” is so good that I decide to stop perusing it and pick it back up at a later time when I’m better able to devote it my full attention. It’s often hard to concentrate in the laundromat. Sometimes if I’m reading something and I enjoy it then some rustic looking person will come up to me and really glare at me, which is sometimes unpleasant, although lately I’ve been having so many unpleasant things happen in my life, such as losing my running water for a couple hours, having the net neutrality repeal fu** my phone service in the a**, going to Shoe Carnival and not finding a single pair of shoes that fit me and then calling them on the phone only to find out they don’t take phone orders hence necessitating another two mile walk over there, that I’m not so sure that such a glare would bother me anymore, or that anybody would even be willing to dole it. As I leave the laundromat I think that that girl I was talking about is in this giant SUV, although I can’t tell, since it has tinted windows. The motor vehicle is running and it is 92 degrees outside and cloudy. I flail my arms considerably when I walk. I see a girl walking a dog, Caucasian, about 21 or 22, the dog a tiny little shih tzu or something, whatever they’re called. I don’t really fully understand the appeal of dogs although I have met some with whom I get along. I know not to walk down sixth street, where one time I encountered a large dog, off its leash, foaming at the mouth, driving one young black, 18 or so, to charge up onto a nearby porch, taking retreat. I know not to run away from dogs. I slowly walk. Its owners call to it. And they call to it. And they call to it. And they call to it. It’s still walking after me with no expression on its face. My heart is beating about the boiling point of water, Fahrenheit. After about two blocks it turns down another street, still not going back to its owners. I say to the girl with the little shih tzu, “He sure likes that grass, doesn’t he.” She smiles and says “yes” in a somewhat loud voice. Across the street to the left I see a black. At first I nod and smile at him. Then I glance at his shirt, which is an Indiana State one. I think he says something about “that a**,” referring to the girl who had been walking the dog. She had indeed been exorbitantly attractive. I just laugh and keep going. One time back home in South Bend a black male, 50 or so, had commented to me, “I hope yo boyfriend eatcho a**.” I was really glad he said that. I needed someone to say something to me. It was freezing cold in November and there was really nothing much going on, anywhere, especially, to speak of. The Notre Dame quarterback once stood three inches from the female reporter, smiling ear to ear and looking straight at her, during an interview. Down the street, fourth, I see more dogs and one single cat, who is frowning down, as if it has seen everything that there is to see. The dogs are off their leash and big so I turn around, thinking I’ll go down, I dunno, something. Terre Haute has a lot of streets and giant, old houses. I think, if a dog comes at me, I’ll jump on a car. I think of the Jane’s Addiction song “Of Course”: “Of course this land is dangerous / All of the animals / Are capably murderous”. Perry Farrell has never chainsawed any kittens to death, as far as I know. Well, maybe that’s the problem. Anyway, how anybody’s response to life could be anything but humility is entirely beyond me.