Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun Read Online Free

dejectedly he moves, it makes me feel selfish for having worried so much about the DMV. I drop back a step and watch as the man’sdog follows, the leash trailing behind. I’m reminded of a summer in Lagos when an American preacher came to Nigeria and walked around carrying a cross on his back. It was the year that Caesar was in between his Delhi and Paris tours and just a few years into our marriage, when I discovered that Caesar had another wife. I was in such shock that I considered leaving Caesar that very day, picking up my own cross and following the preacher. I stare now at the back of this man’s legs, muddied and clad in the remnants of blue jeans.
    On the man’s backpack is a tangle of straps and tags flapping angrily in the wind and when the puppy stops to squat I pass discretely in front of them both, keeping my distance in case of lice or some sudden outburst. I expect him to smell badly but he doesn’t, and, glancing back, I see that he’s actually a she and shockingly young to be carrying such a load. Seventeen or eighteen judging from the slenderness of the girl’s arms; except that when I stop to look again and glimpse those steely, tiger-blue eyes, I’m no longer sure. She could be in her thirties, maybe even forties. I watch as the woman stops, reaches into a nearby trashcan, whips out some newspaper, and tears off a sheet before turning back to where the puppy’s just been. She scoops up the steaming black pellets then chucks them in the trash. ‘Come on, Stupid,’ she mutters to the dog.
    ‘You okay, love?’ I ask.
    ‘Yep,’ she says, then turns at Fredrick Street and yells ‘you fucker!’ to a young man just arrived with skateboard in hand. A flurry of insults rain down on the poor man’shead for having left her on her own to deal with the puppy and backpack. Startled, but then bemused and wishing I’d had more of the woman’s spirit when I was younger, I say to the man in the car that has stopped for me at the zebra crossing, ‘Did you hear that woman? Did you see how tough she was?’ To which the driver only waves me on, but I’ve just looked up and spotted a stracciatella sky, dappled blue and white. ‘Consider the birds in the sky,’ my father used to say, ‘that neither sow nor reap and yet your heavenly father feeds them.’ So why worry about a driving licence? I ask myself.
    ‘Cross the fucking street, would you lady!’ shouts the man in the car.
    The bakery on Cole Street is my favourite because of its walnut bread and the pain au raisin that’s not too sticky, not too sweet and almost as good as the ones we used to buy in France when we lived on the rue de what-was-it-called in the 15 th arrondissement. But it’s not just the food that’s good here: it’s also the chance I have to chat with friends. Here, for example, is where I meet Alonzo and Mike who park in front of the fire hydrant where parking is not generally permitted. They swagger in, hands on hips, just like in the movies with baton, handcuffs and pistols swinging from their waists. They tuck their crackling radio devices into chest pockets while chatting to those in the cafe. I say Alonzo and Mike because they work as a team, but it’s Mike that I’m closest to. He’s writing a novel, you see, so we talk about books. When he’s done with his first draft, I’ve promised to read it and give him feedback. He helped me, years ago, get out of a ticket for an alleged traffic offence. Bless him.
    The incident happened at month-end, which, if you’re familiar with San Francisco, is when the city goes on the prowl for extra money. This would explain why the cop who pulled me over was hiding round the corner, trying to catch people out for traffic violations. I thought I had come to a full stop at the four-way intersection, but I didn’t argue. I wasn’t as fearful as I would’ve been were I younger, but I still knew better than to court a policeman’s anger when he repeatedly asked me if I was the