Kujo

 This past week the US has been faltering, 4,000 deaths a day to covid, hospitals at maximum capacity and starting to triage, nobody able to figure out the who, how or where of getting a vaccine, and the president spends his time on sending an armed mob to storm the Capitol to try to capture and maybe hang the legislators and overthrow the Republic.  Hmm, let's go get a takeout pizza.

I went to the Lost Dog at noon earlier this week, parked just outside its front door and went in at the stroke of noon to order a pizza.  First I went throughout the restaurant, which had limited inside seating for dine-in, and then into the men's room to wash my hands, but I didn't see any thirty-something person with a flower in his or her lapel.

I ordered a Kujo pie, a pizza with artichoke hearts on it.  I waited outside in my car for it to be prepared then went inside again to pick it up when they called to say it was ready.

I ate it in my car while I sat there by the door to see if anybody I knew entered the restaurant, but I didn't recognize anybody so celebrating Johnny's birthday was like all those birthdays for years where I have dined with the empty chair, in this time of pandemic, with the empty passenger seat.  When I was done with my slice, leaving the rest of the pie as a good luck talisman for next month, I went to the post office across the street to mail off a present to the birthday boy, a book about the first WW2 battle my dade fought in, a grandfather he never met, using an address I found recently on the internet on a voter registration form.

Happy birthday, son.  I'd like to see you but I wouldn't like to be you.