“It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?” Brian said.
“It sure is,” I told him. “From the deck here at Fido’s I can watch the waves breaking on the reef and feeling the wind coming off the ocean.”
“Days like this remind us of why we live here,” he said.
“What I like about coming to Fido’s at this time of morning is that the place isn’t open yet. I can sit here in the peace and quiet and try to get some inspiration for this week’s column.”
“Good luck with that,” he said, as he went back up upstairs to the office.
Presently, one of our local beach hustlers came along and called to me from the beach.
“Hey man, gimme a cigarette.”
“No thanks. I don’t want a cigarette.”
“No, I didn’t mean to give you a cigarette. I meant for you to give me one.”
“Oh, I don’t want one,” I said. “Thanks for offering me one, though.”
He finally figured out that I was messing with him and sat down on the beach under a big palm tree. Soon another hustler joined him.
“What you doing?” hustler number one asked.
“Just chillin’,” was the answer. “I just come from the store. There was a little boy outside the store crying. I asked him what’s wrong and he said that he had two dollars and a man in the store stole one of them.”
“Oh, man.”
“Yeah. I asked him if the people in the store didn’t hear him hollering. He said he did holler but he has the flu. His voice is too weak for anybody to hear him.”
“What did you do?”
“I stole his other dollar.”
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