Peace Dove comes round, tell him John\u2019s not home. Tell him he\u2019s at Needle\u2019s or the VFW. One of two places that John goes to which not coincidentally PD is banned from.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn\u2019s at Needle\u2019s,\u201d is the one you pick today, like a toe-caught tiger, eeny-meeny-miny-mo. PD shimmies up, peers over your shoulder: John\u2019s in the kitchen making soup in his skivvies. Mustard robe flapping, splattered radio cranked, some \u201860s prog-rock on WFMU. John\u2019s en route to an Italian Wedding with the still-good veg he dove the dumpster for.<\/p>\n
Price-Chopper, John swears, they throw away the best shit. Like clothes-shopping at Salvie\u2019s except with food. John knows the best days to score speckled brown bananas, used alligator boots released into the wild. John\u2019s best days, if John\u2019s being honest, are generally the days Peace Dove is not there. Best not just in terms of choice produce and duds, but also in terms of life overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t that John?\u201d PD points with his pinwheel wand. It spins thanks a burst of sour breath and foamy spit, out a rubber band mouth, avalanched by a beard. A wily beard depending from his jaw to his belly, which last saw a shear when Dick said he\u2019s not a crook.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said he\u2019s at Needle\u2019s. Now get outta here, P.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peace doesn\u2019t budge from John\u2019s front porch.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s got one bare foot wedged in the door, the other one muddying John\u2019s WELCOME mat. He\u2019s as stubborn as any old hippie can be. An outdoors plastic Santa lawn-complacent in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to talk to John. Just give me five minutes. Five minutes, Lisa, then promise I\u2019ll leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
PD and his promises. Don\u2019t get you started. Peace makes promises Peace can\u2019t keep.<\/p>\n
Like that time he promised John a fly-fishing trip when he didn\u2019t have waders nor did he have flies. Or when he said let\u2019s go watch the big game when the game was rather small and also it was raining. Or how\u2019s about that trek up to Sunrise Mountain, to watch the sunrise just like its name says? He\u2019ll bring the coffee, John\u2019ll bring the binoculars, now alls they need\u2019s a car that neither of them has.<\/p>\n
John\u2019s saintly patient with crazy old P, but even the best carpenters run out of nails. John said Peace, what you need is a bird, a bird to take pity on your lonely-ass soul. And if John\u2019s being honest, Peace Dove started crying, tears sputtering out his psychedelic eyes. Down his peace sign cheeks and flower child chin, bleeding the rainbow on his faded tie-dye. John felt bad so they did it anyway: watched the sunrise with the pigeons up on John\u2019s roof.<\/p>\n
Got coffee afterwards on the corner at Pronto\u2019s, plus a kaiser roll with butter for $2.95.<\/p>\n
See every small town has its own Peace Dove and a man like John who winds up his friend. And a woman like you, a waitress named Lisa, who John tipped at Needle\u2019s and now look who\u2019s his girl?<\/p>\n
You look over your shoulder, look back at Peace, say okay Peace, what is it this time. You sigh a big sigh to let Peace Dove know just exactly how big a concession this is. It\u2019s the first Saturday in a long long time by which some miracle you both have off. Not that you and John are doing anything really, but that\u2019s the whole point. You don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my bike,\u201d P says, and sweeps back an arm, like Vanna presenting a puzzle, a THING. When is it ever not P\u2019s bike, no need to buy a vowel, Pat you\u2019d like to solve.<\/p>\n
Behind Peace Dove is Peace Dove\u2019s bike. Peace Dove\u2019s bike is like no other. It\u2019s a two-wheel parade, a fixie carnival resplendent, got fifty stars on it, one for every state, A flag off the back, a black P.O.W., red-white-and-blue streamers flickering on the handles. A milkcrate up front, rigged with bungee cords, stuffed with pamphlets about peaceful resistance. About love not war. About helping your brother. About violence in the end does not solve problems. He\u2019s been riding these streets, handing out these pamphlets, since 1967, the year Jimmy died. In a war this country never officially declared, call a war a war if you\u2019re paying in boys.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it the chain again?\u201d<\/p>\n
Peace Dove nods. Yes it\u2019s the chain. That darn chain again.<\/p>\n
John fixes bikes. That\u2019s John\u2019s job. John even fixes bikes that don\u2019t need fixing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait right here P, okay, hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peace Dove watches you go get John.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“See every small town has its own Peace Dove and a man like John who winds up his friend.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1444,764,1443,879,1442],"class_list":["post-14212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-bike","tag-friendship","tag-peace-dove","tag-small-town","tag-vietnam-war","writer-jessica-bonder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14376,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14212\/revisions\/14376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}