Lincoln, 10th

Lincoln cuts across a hill. The hill undulates in places. A block down the street, the whole sidewalk becomes a steep hill for the vehicles of local channel 4, the whole half block is messed up that way.

This ↑ is directly across the street, Lincoln, from this ↓ on a hill.

Beyond this spot of the onset of intense debilitating energy-sapping hunger the rest of this block rises up six steps or so to complete the block. It's odd.

I don't know why I take off without eating but I do habitually. I know better than that but I am not hungry in the decision making moment so I don't, that is the only reason I have, not a good reason but my reason and when I think about it, I miss not just one meal but two in a row sometimes, if you are counting and going by such things as time of day and clockwork. It all depends on actual hunger. I cannot be bothered until I feel it. So I am off already and realize too late I do not have the energy to keep going, yeah, now I can feel it. What a dunce.

There is a young woman standing against the wall with three tiny dogs on thin leashes.

"Taking the little poopers out for a walk?"

"No. Yeah, they were all just inside." 

"That's a Corgie, innit." 

"No. Yeah, a corgie-chiuaua mix. KNOCK IT OFF!" 

The dogs were all barking. At me. And they did knock it off.

"Pembrook, huh." I said definitively. 

"What?"

"Nothing. Is this deli any good?"

And so I struck it up, right up, there on the windy street with a pleasant young responsive and friendly woman who answered all my questions regarding the nearby deli. I was starving, honestly I would have eaten anything. She went into depth explaining their menu. She knew it quite well. 

In the deli I am the only one there. 3:00 pm, odd time of day for eating. The owner is there with two teenage boys, he  says, "Hi" and from the door at a distance as I approach I begin, "I asked a random person outside if this place is okay and I was told that yes it is great." They guy beamed. Took a direct interest and explained his menu in detail, all that again, a complicated affair hanging from large placards intended to be read from a distance. It is impossible to take it all in at once. But it is clear the place is not a regular deli. Not what I hoped for, nothing at all like a New York deli. You can get a pastrami but they do not make the pastrami right there. I was disappointed, frankly, could eat only half the sandwich I bought. But then in walked the woman with the dogs and now with another woman. That gave me the chance to say, "This is the random person who recommended you." He already knows her as customer now he knows her as recommender. He could not have acted more pleased with all that.

I should have ordered the Ruben. 

And there are better places directly across the street. I still have the other half of my sandwich and I'm dreading looking at it.

The two women ordered takeout and waved to me and smiled as they left with their three litte dogs. The dogs behaved perfectly well in the shop.

But what is that right here now?

I did not notice anything not advertising food.  The ladies are dog groomers and there is a medical marijuana store between them and the deli. 

The timing was perfect. Floyd's said there would be an hour and half wait. That is a long time for them. I finished the half sandwich, packed the remainder and set off.

"If you think my ears are hairy you ought to see this guy from India." 

"What? No. No. No. No. No. I only cut one tiny hair. Ha ha ha You should see my uncle. It's all fuzz inside. All inside here." 

She rimmed the inside of my ear with her finger. 

"This is fun." 

"What is?"

"Spinning around like this." 

"Ha ha ha Oh yeah." 

It was the fussiest shaviest haircut I ever had. Snipping around my eyebrows. I already trimmed them but she trimmed them more. Awkward, actually because she kept spinning me back and forth being fussy with details in the back, totally into it, blending back and forth, spinning the chair, whipping it back, but stopping me directly facing the guy in the next chair making me out to be the pervy voyeur, so I had to keep casting my eyes down, but it's her doing it not me.

"No really, they're like tuffs."

"Ew, gross. Ha ha ha." 

"He's proud of them. Combs them outward."  The hairiest ears in the world.  As the narrator says in perfect English, "Rally long eh heh."