Tonight I ran for the eetcarstray, hidden as it was behind another eetcarstray marked NOT IN SERVICE that was turning north on rue de l’Église. A left turn like that leaves the next car vulnerable, since the tracks have to be reset to a straight-ahead position. Barrel into a switch in the tracks without checking and it’s three days’ suspension, not to mention a derailment.
I bounded inside and cheerily said to the driver (and whenever I am cheery to strangers I get in trouble), “Does that make you turn left now? With the [I gestured] channel?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” replied the very large driver, getting up to pull out the crowbar used to reposition the tracks. “You don’t remember me, sir, but I remember you. So you have a nice night.”
I sat down, turned on my iPod, and read my book of memoirs. Whatever could he mean?
Coming on the heels of two solid weeks of near-daily electronic-mail messages from a gentleman caller identified only as Akzidenz.Grotesk@Gmail.com, I got to wondering. Mr Grotesk is of the belief that I’m “posting nude pics of myself on the Internet,” which would be a very amusing use of a surveillance camera above the glassed-in showers at the Steamworks, I’m sure, but is otherwise quite impossible. Just who was the streetcar driver, and who is Mr Grotesk? (I don’t think it’s Hrant H. Papazian.)
This would be a good time for my defenders to drop Mr Grotesk a line and actually ask. Remember, “it’s no use trying to rent you, Oscar. You just laugh it off.”