I park in my favorite spot at the subway station which is usually hard to get but now, of course, it isn’t. Now it, and all the covetable ones in it’s row, are available.

Two Oakland, California transit buses are parked by the bus stop sign. They haven’t moved in a while. It’s 5:30pm on Monday day afternoon and three people are on the street. I go to Cactus Taqueria where there is no wait and several large dots on the floor six feet apart.

I’m near the cash register now because I’ve ordered and I’m standing in my circle appropriately distant from the couple on the other circle.

I’m interested in him. He looks like perhaps skater gone golf pro if that could ever be possible. Wearing a US Coast Guard T-shirt and short hair, the style of Vans he is wearing, don’t look like Vans.

I came to get a burrito partly just to get out of my place. You can’t help but notice people. You can’t help but wonder. He’s cute in an “I-played-sports-in-highschool” kind of way. Not my kind.

He pulls a hand out from his jeans back pocket to scratch the back of his neck above the navy blue tee. I notice a text tatoo on the inside of his forearm.

In big uneven Gothic font, it says “PRAY HARD”

I think to myself , I’m with you buddy.

All that earlier stuff goes instantly away in the mention of the absolute. And besides, I was on his side anyway