Dust-Bunnies

I always open the double doors, let the air inside.

I like the early mornings.

Just me in the quiet.

Alone in the store.

I use a push-broom mostly. Dust-bunnies are something you got to stay on top of. They multiply. I push them out onto the sidewalk and over the curb into the street.

Jan Classen came to mind, poof, I don’t know why.

Jan Classen was a strange duck. I mean, wacked out weird beyond measure strange.

I don’t know what it was that made him come to mind.

Jan Classen… There was an odd one!

We used to throw volleyballs at his head.

He’d say, “Huh! Stop with the throwing of volleyballs at my head!”

We were boys; we had to. Well, we didn't have to, but we did.

He was different and that was enough. He was uncanny strange. He didn’t come from here. He didn’t dress like us. He didn’t speak like we spoke. He shook his milk carton before he opened it. He never laughed.

Jan Classen…

He played a trumpet. He said he came from a long line of trumpet players. He used to tell us about a great, great, great grandfather of his played one for the Prince of something or other. The King's Court...

Jan fuckin’ Classen…

He shook his milk carton.

He didn’t like us and we didn’t like him and he left. He blew a good horn, though, I’ll say that. Joined the army, we were told. Turns out he led charges down battlefields. He earned a medal… I think it was a shiny gold one.

Maybe it was a really, really, shiny, gold one.

When we found out he was dead, we said—“Only numb-nuts!”

He barely spoke English.

Anyway, I tell you, dust-bunnies. You got to push them all the way out into the street...

It's uncanny.

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