CRISPR Sequences

The air hung about him like a wet tube sock, but he didn’t mind it.  He looked good.  Probably all glistening, freshly shaven, foot tapping under the pagoda table.  The magazine article was fascinating, but his brain kept interrupting.  It kept informing him that what he was reading was fascinating.  Craig wished he had a switch or some sort of a breaker to flip off the chatter box--a ball gag would suffice.  Shut up brain! I’m reading here.  He wished he could say that, but then who would he be talking to?  Only mentally unstable people talked to themselves that way, and Venice Beach was overstocked as was.  He wouldn’t even stick out, but that didn’t mean he should make a habit of walking around muttering to himself.  Even if he was a bum, Craig felt he had been graced with an abnormally large amount of social awareness.  Probably why he was a bum in the first place.  Call it a heightened sense of empathy, and compared to Lousy, who was almost psychopathic in the way he tried to manipulate people as pawns, he was a saint.  Not quite.  Well, not at all. He was a loser.

Oh, look at her.  Walking on down the boardwalk, all fly like that.  Get out!  Damn, I mean, the things he would do to that woman.  Because she was a woman.  She was no girl.  No sir, and he would treat her right.  Yes he would.  If Lousy was here, he’d hoot and yell something to make her look--get his pennies worth of fun--but Craig could appreciate the clandestine view--that booty oscillating in its natural rhythm.  It didn’t need to be aware of his penduluming eyes.

“Chica La Natural,” drawled Craig, in the voice of a Latino radio announcer, relishing the last L, with his tongue pressing behind his front teeth--the things he would do to that woman!  

And then he looked back down at the article, the fascinating one he’d been reading.  It was such a good article, wasn’t it?  The scientists could flip genes on and off--some machine type thing that swapped DNA chunks.  No, they weren’t called chunks.  Ribbons?  Little snips off that sweet looking double helix caduceus.  He wanted a tattoo some day.  Cutting and splicing the sequences.  Aha, that’s the word!  Sequences.  How was he going to remember this?  Suddenly he felt humble.

This science stuff was for the smart people.  Not regular people--people like Craig.  He knew the DNA letters, ACTG, but not what they meant.  He could picture the DNA strands twirling together like a braid, but if he was serious with himself, he had to admit that even if he read every article on the matter, he still would have no idea what DNA was.  It was some sort building block amino acid chain, but what was that?  He liked words, but that’s all they were.  Fancy words.  Craig believed he was a real dummy--knew it--and took some pride in the humility.  He was who he was.  He also knew that later, he would be twisting around this sacred science.  Lousy would skate up, and they’d end up drunk together.  At some point Craig would end up trying to regurgitate it, but it would come out backwards or garbled up.  Like everything else he’d ever tried.  Craig would screw it up, but Lousy wouldn’t know the difference.  

Craig looked up from the article, and thought the most clever thing was the acronym, CRISPR.  His mind conjured something familiar, and he tried to form a correlation to help him remember.  Snap, Crackle, Pop.  Mmmm.  Rice Krispie treats would be nice.  Wouldn’t one be good right now?  Krispie treat, with a side of gene splicing CRISPR, which was--he looked back down at the article and read: Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.  He started to say it outloud, but then shook his head, and closed the magazine.  Who was he kidding, and who would care?

He sipped his coffee, the heel of his right foot bouncing, and looked at the invisible people.  Joggers.  So many early morning nylon wearing joggers on Venice Beach.  Whether blue, yellow, red or green, they were passing after thoughts, the whole lot of them.  They were only invisible because they were all innocuous, ghosts of the past and future, but never quite present.  Joggers weren’t really here.  They were just smears of unconscious impressions or white noise.  No one spoke to these vacant souls that bounced along the boardwalk from Marina Del Rey to Santa Monica.  But they did have a soothing effect, when Craig considered.  Nothing more.  Even the most perfectly sculpted convexities of the XX chromosome didn’t increase the pitter pattering of his heart.  Not if they were jogging.  Some of these LA girls--good genes couple with crossfit, yoga and plastic surgery--would be overlooked if they were running.  Even the sexiest joggers could only compare to the perfect rip-curl of a wave or golden sunset.  They were aesthetically pleasing, shapes and stuff, but they didn’t evoke emotion, lust or desire.  They were moving abstractions, to be appreciated as much as fashionable wallpaper on psychedelics, but he couldn’t muster anything more.  

They were a far cry from the high-heeled girl in the mini skirt, La Natural, of a moment earlier.  She was a lady, and he would have treated her right.  The things he would have done...  

Craig took another sip of his coffee, as a roller blader--nearly invisible--unfurled along the boardwalk, a brush stroke of blue and black fading toward the pierre.  From behind, on the bike path, Craig heard the dragon breath whooshing of a noise, so familiar that he didn’t turn to see who was approaching on the skateboard.

“Muggier than shit!” announced Lousy.  Craig still didn’t turn.  He didn’t need to.  Lousy would be wearing the same black pants, the same gray hooded sweatshirt unzipped over the same black shirt with the anarchy patches.  His whole get-up had dramatic Z’s of dental floss stitching.  Bottle caps and lighter heads were bent around the hems of wrists, ankles, and further adorned the seams of his pockets and every other craggily crease--all was festooned with caps and tin.  Lousy was a trashman, but not a gutter punk, and insisted that there was a nuanced distinction between the two.  (If you ever want to experience some unpleasantness, call Lousy a gutter punk, and see what happens.)  

Craig didn’t even turn as Lousy sat next to him, but in his periphery, he confirmed that he’d been correct in his assumption.  Something would have to be very off in the world for Lousy to change his attire.  

“You get wet last night?” Craig asked.

“Wet as your mama.  You?” Lousy returned.

“Nope,” piped Craig, almost bragging as if he’d won a contest.  He didn’t want to give away the spot he’d found on Speedway, some things were best kept secret, so he said the boat was in an alleyway up in Culver City.  

“How’d they fit a boat under a car garage?” asked Lousy.

“It wasn’t like a big boat, and it wasn’t in a garage.  They had a tarpaulin strung over it in the alley, and it was muggier than it is now, underneath, but I stayed dry.  I wasn’t spotted, so I might go back the next time it rains.”

“I tell you, we were cold as hell last night,” Lousy reflected.  

“The beach?”

“Yeah, Santa Monica.  A whole crew of us were under lifeguard tower 28.  It wasn’t so bad at first.  Till about 2am, it was coming straight down, more or less, but then it started to come in sideways.  Cricket slept through it, but he drank half a space bag to his head.  Coulda drown, the way the rain was coming in.”

“One of those Franzia boxes?” asked Craig.  

“Cricket’s space bag?  Yeah, I think.  Merlot or some shit, I don’t know,” said Lousy, thrown off by the question.  “Cricket’s punk ass hoarded the wine and wouldn’t share.  Then he passes out on the bag when there’s still some left in it.  Almost beat his ass for it, but we had 40s to stay warm.”

“I thought you said you were cold as hell.  Not that hell is cold, but were you?” Craig asked.

“Yeah, when the rain came in sideways.  Shit I’m still wet--well, my bag is.  Everyone who was there is taking shifts today, watching our blankets dry in the alley.”  Lousy kicked the tail end of his board, brought it up on the table, and began to spin one of the small wheels.

“Cricket landed a 360 kickflip yesterday.”

“No way,” Craig said, incredulous.

“Yeah, I watched him do it,” Lousy claimed.

“Well, I’ve heard you say all sorts of weird shit,” Craig said. “People will say the damndest things, especially you.  I’ll have to see it.”

As the day wore on, the temperature rose, and the air grew heavy as a Nepalese quilt.  Usually dry, the oppressive humidity made Craig think of home.  Florida.  And wasn’t it good to be out of Florida?  Never again.

“You thirsty yet?” Lousy asked.

“I figure I could go for a little breakfast,” Craig said.  “Some juice might cool me off.”

Lousy had already spotted the couple.  They were walking hand in hand at a slow and casual gate.  They were already smiling too big to be California natives, but it was the stark whiteness of their limbs that left no room for doubt.   

“Well if those two ain’t still in love,” Lousy said, chuckling.  “How adorable.”

He stood up, stretched, and then ambled out onto the boardwalk.

“I don’t know what’s more beautiful,” Lousy began, “your two smiles or this lovely day.”  He was walking over in the manner of a Shakespearean actor, his steps slow and pronounced.  

“Thank you,” they rang out in unison, seeming already amused by this street clown.  But they were in for a let down.  Venice Beach was full of performers, jugglers, magicians, and other starving artists selling their wares.  All Lousy had was words, but if Craig could, he’d wager that Lousy made more than anyone else on the boardwalk.  His bottle capped outfit was only a spectacle lure.  His moxie was the baited hook, and Lousy could reel in the biggest marks, gut their wallets, and return them to the stream. What's more, he could usually get a “you're welcome” for his his troubles.

“You’re welcome,” Lousy said, “and now, if you’d be so kind, could you part with a penny?  See me and my brother?”  Craig was indicated by Lousy, so he waved at the pretty blonde when she looked up to him.  She looked eerily familiar.  A Colgate commercial maybe?  This was LA.

Lousy cast his spell, his net, his charisma, saying “we’re going to see a lot of beautiful people today, and we figure that if we can get three hundred of those people to part with a penny--just one red cent--we can afford a slice of pizza.  You see, we don’t need much, and we can split the slice.  We share, my brother and I.  Just a penny or two would be most appreciated.  What’s a penny, after all, and it’s such a fun way to break the ice, don’t you think?  My name’s Lousy, and it’s such a pleasure to meet both of you.”

The man reached into a khaki cargo pocket and retrieved his wallet.  “Here, you go,” he said, handing Lousy a ten dollar bill.  “Now you can each have your own slice.”

“Oh, you’re too kind,” Lousy said.  “Now, have a wonderful day and keep bringing beauty and joy to everyone you see, as I’m sure you will.  Such shining people!”  Lousy gave his practiced bow, both formal and profane.  The tourists looked satisfied, as though they’d done their good deed, and walked on toward Marina Del Rey.

“It’s not a lie,” insisted Lousy.  “Everyone perceives reality differently.  We can’t know what’s real beyond our perception.  I said pizza, meaning beer, as I assume they knew.  Both meals are carbohydrates: beer and pizza.  Splitting hairs, really.”

Craig only shook his head.  He wished he was a poet like Lousy.  Poets had a way of flipping words to reduce their cognitive dissonance. Whatever gene that was--the candy coated brashness--Craig wished he could CRISPR out a chunk for himself.  No, not a chunk.  A sequence.  That’s what those DNA snips were called, sequences.  

Craig couldn’t bring himself to panhandle.  He loved witnessing true artists like Lousy.  This pagoda was his private theater.  The pizza for pennies show was a hit.  If you asked Craig, the show’s one loyal fan, it would be his two bum thumbs up in approval.  Of course entertainment value  increased with the booze Lousy scored and shared.  What better way to watch the wallpaper of life pass by than the Lousy Penny Pizza Show?  At least it had some action, even if Craig wasn’t part of it.

It wasn’t like the world was missing out.  Craig was guaranteed to fuck up anything--everything--no matter how basic or trivial.  Even panhandling.  If he ever tried to ask for spare change, a toad would surely crawl up to where his vocal chords should be.  This always happened, and no one had ever been inclined to stop and listen to the plea of a whispering vagrant.  As he was clean cut, and well groomed, Craig didn’t even look like a bum.  Most people didn’t suspect him of being homeless.  He was one of the many.  Like a jogger, he felt that he to slipped into obscurity, a pair of eyes that looked out, but were not seen.  Enough people needed the spotlight, and Craig was happy to let them have it.

Once he’d come out of the convenient store, Lousy headed over to Craig and sat in the shade of the pagoda roof, and handed Craig a bottle.

That article on CRISPR was fascinating, but as Craig suspected, Lousy had no interest in hearing about it.  Craig had been flipping through the magazine again, but he was tired of it.  The whole thing was a painful reminder of his inadequate brain.  Looking at the magazine was dragging him into a bit of an ontological funk, and now he wished to pass it along.  

“Just toss it,” recommended Lousy.  

“No, this is Newscientist.  It’s not some trashy gossip magazine,” Craig defended, but Lousy couldn’t have cared less.  Did Lousy know how to read?  

They sipped their 40oz bottles of Steele 211, keeping an eye out for the fuzz.  For a while, Craig had used a 7-11 Big-Gulp cup which could almost contain an entire bottle, but it had fallen apart.  They were back to brown bagging it.  Craig wasn’t quite as familiar with the cops as Lousy, but he’d been caught and ticketed a few times for drinking in public.    

“Veronica got a beer dumped on her head,” Lousy remarked.

“When?” asked Craig.  “By who?”

“A cop.  She was crashed out under a pagoda yesterday, and Jeff had a beer, but said it was Veronica’s when they rolled up.  They dumped it on her.  Woke her right up, I’ll tell you, she was up and screaming like a banshee.”

“Rude,” said Craig.  He sipped his beer.  He couldn’t tell if Lousy found Veronica’s incident to be humorous or an affront.  He stood for a moment, looked down the boardwalk, thinking he saw the nose of a police cruiser poking into view.  No, it was just a trash can catching the sun in an odd way.  He said,  “Do you think they’ll ever can us for not paying our tickets?”

“What are we supposed to do--spare change to pay for our fines?”

“I don’t know, but I have a court date coming up,” Craig said.  

“For what?”

“Vagrancy.”

“That’s it?” Lousy asked.

“Yeah.  I thought the dumpster I was sleeping behind hid my sleeping bag, but apparently not,” Craig said.  He took a mournful pull of the malt liquor--mournful being a larger and more indulgent one than usual.

“You gonna go?” Lousy asked.

“Probably not,” Craig said, thinking that he probably would show up for court.  “Would you?”

“Hell no,” Lousy said.  “I did six weeks last year in county because of all the court dates I didn’t show up for, but I think they’re giving up.  The paper pushers know they can’t squeeze a dime out of me.  All the judges know that I won’t show up for the court dates, so I think they’re done trying.”

“I don’t think that’s the way it works,” said Craig.  

“Sure it does,” argued Lousy.  “Either way, jail ain’t so bad.  My friend Nick is in there right now.  Who knows, he might end up my cellmate.  It’s a small world.”

“It is that,” agreed Craig.  

“Excuse me,” said a familiar voice from behind them.  It was the guy and his girl--the smiling too-white tourists from earlier.  The guy had spoken, addressing Lousy.

“Oh, hi again,” replied Lousy.

“You told me that you were going to spend that money I gave you on pizza,” said the man.  He was an inch shorter than Lousy, but looked like he might have played sports in high school.  His shoulders were broad, and complimented his square jaw.

“Oh, why yes,” said Lousy.  “And thanks for that.  But there’s nothing to wash down a slice of pizza like a cold beer, am I right?”

“You expect me to believe that?” The pale face of the tourist was growing red, and his girlfriend tugged on his hand.  He pulled away, unlinking from her, standing taller, squarer.

“Look buddy,” Lousy said, and sighed, “its not my business what you do and don’t believe, and I’m not trying to convince you of anything.  That’s what makes America so great.  You’ve got the right to believe what you want.”

“So you’re going to lie to my face?”

“Not anymore than you lie to yourself,” Lousy retorted.  “You don’t know the will of the driving force of the universe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Steve, let’s go,” said the girl, trying to pull on the hem of his polo shirt.  He twisted away again.  “Hold on, Courtney, this guy needs to learn some respect.”   

“I do, do I?” said Lousy, and smiled.  To Craig, Lousy looked thinner, lankier than usual.  

“I want an apology,” demanded the stranger, who looked about ready to explode with indignation.

“And I want to drink my beer in peace, but I’m willing to give you a sip,” Lousy said, extending the bottle.  The 40oz tinked as it hit the cement floor, somehow not breaking on impact.  The tourist had swatted it of Lousy’s hand.  

Craig leaned over to keep it from spilling--only a quarter cup or so had escaped.  With all the excitement, he took a foamy sip to calm his nerves.

Lousy rolled his eyes over to Craig and then back up to the tourist.  The guy was red as a beet now.  

“Steve, that’s your name right?--Steve?” Lousy asked, “Isn’t it kind of disrespectful to knock a bottle out of someone's hand? Didn't your mother teach you any manners?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t break the fucking bottle over your fucking head!”

Lousy wiped a fleck of spit that had flown from Steve’s mouth up to his forehead.

Craig hadn’t even seen Lousy stealthily retrieve the skateboard from the table.  He was holding it at his side, looking nonplussed and casual.

“You owe me an apology,” Steve growled.

“Courtney,” Lousy said, turning to Steve’s girlfriend, “Anytime you want a real man, you just let me--”

Craig knew it was coming, but so did Lousy, and he was able to duck under the looping right hook of Steve’s fist.  Courtney yelled, pulling in vain on Steve’s shirt.  Like some sort of steampunk Samurai, Lousy spun around in a 360 spin, and slammed the flat of the skateboard against Steve’s head.  There was a magnificent thwack, and then a blood curdling shriek from Courtney as Steve staggered backwards.

Craig was up on his feet, scanning the beach a mile in each direction for a police cruiser.  There were only the invisible joggers, earbuds in ears, oblivious to the violence.

Steve lunged toward Lousy, catching him around the waist and taking him down to the pavement like a linebacker.  The skateboard went flying out into the center of the boardwalk, a jogger zigging around it.  Craig ran out to retrieve it, and turned back to see that Steve had straddled Lousy and was raining some heavy blows.  Lousy was trying to cover up, futily kicking his feet, and Courtney was yelling Steve’s name over and over, mixing in blitzes of her unintelligible frustration.

Then, out of nowhere--Craig hadn’t even heard them approaching--Cricket and Jeff were there.  Jeff went to soccer kick Steve in the face, but missed because Cricket had just kneed him in the shoulder.  Once Steve was off, Lousy jumped to his feet.

He called out for Cricket and Jeff to stop what would have escalated into a vicious stompdown.  

“Who is this guy?” Cricket asked.  “We just came to tell you it’s your turn to watch the sleeping bags dry out, and you’re getting your ass beat?”  The newcomers were out of breath.

Steve clambered back up to his feet.  He reached in his back pocket and retrieved a badge.  “You’re all under arrest!” he half yelled--half breathed.  Fire engines and lobsters would be envious of how red Steve was now.

Everyone bent in to look at the silver badge.  It looked real--whatever that meant.

“Steve, my God, let’s just go!” Courtney begged.

“No!” Steve bellowed.  “All I wanted was an apology, but now I’ve been assaulted.”

Craig was too stunned, but Lousy had observed that Steve lacked both walkie-talkie and firearm.  All he had was the badge.  

“We’re not on your turf or jurisdiction,” Lousy said.  “You’re definitely not on duty, so fuck off.”  

Jeff and Cricket looked like deer.  They were both caught standing there, staring at the badge as if it were a paralyzing floodlight.

“Don’t move a fucking muscle,” Steve warned and retrieved a cellphone.  

“Wait!” Craig shouted, causing the already skittish looking Jeff and Cricket to bolt, skateboards underarm as they skidded out of sight.  

The stranger, cop or not, paused before dialing to glance over at Craig.  As did Lousy, who was getting ready to bat Steve’s phone down with his skateboard.

“I’m sorry.  He’s sorry.  I’m sorry on his behalf,” Craig strung along apologies, and started dumping the beer into the sand outside the pagoda’s roof line.  

“I ain’t fucking sorry,” asserted Lousy with a mirthless chuckle.

“Sorry isn’t gonna cut it,” said the cop, his hand up to his temple where he’d been clobbered with the skateboard.  Courtney was standing straight with her elbows together, hands clasped under her chin.   

“I understand that,” Craig said.  “And I know this isn’t much, but this magazine I found is amazing.  It has a fascinating article about gene splicing.”

“Gene splicing,” said the cop, his tone flat, but Craig saw that there might be some genuine curiosity--anything to stop him from dialing.  Steve’s fingers looked eager, poised above the touchscreen.

“Yeah,” Craig continued,  “is what they do is take a little snip from a DNA strand so they can splice it with another.  Not a strand, but a--anyways.  Damn, what was the name?  Okay forget the name but...Well, for instance, they have the full genome of a woolly mammal mapped out, and with this technology, which is called crisper, they can splice genes together so that an elephant can give birth to a wooly mammoth.  But that’s just the beginning.  They say the reaches of CRISPR technology is endless.”

“Alright Steve, who’s your friend?” asked the blonde, and then she started laughing.

“What’s your name?” asked the Cop.  Without any perceived reason, he sounded jovial--more jovial than Craig would expect from hearing about DNA.

“Where’s the cameras?” asked Steve, looking in the roof of the little pagoda.  “Really guys, who put you up to this, come on now?”

Lousy and Craig frowned, looked at one another, and then raised an eyebrow back up at Steve.

“This ain’t the fucking Truman Show, this is--” Lousy started in, but Craig stopped him.  This cop and his girlfriend (or perhaps wife) seemed to think they were on candid camera.  

Steve was still smiling, and Craig shrugged as if to excuse the impropriety of a fool who didn’t know any better.  Lousy was no fool, and kept his mouth shut.

“There’s no cameras.  Not ours anyways.  Why?” asked Craig.

The couple looked at each other, and the girl--Courtney--walked up and snatched the magazine off the table.  She flipped to the article on CRISPR and, by God, there she was.  An inch photo of her right under the article.  She held it to her chest, looking at Craig, smiling like she’d won an award.

“Be real with me, did Douglas talk you into doing this?”

Craig didn’t have an answer, so she looked at Lousy.  He began to leer, so Craig spoke up.

“I have no clue who left the magazine on the table,” said Craig.  “It was here this morning.  The article--your article--was the only thing I read.  Are you a scientist?”
“No,” said Courtney.  “I’m a journalist, and we just flew in from Chicago two nights ago.  Tonight, I’m going to cover a lecture at the Ritz--there’s a whole scientific conference--wait, are you telling me you don’t know about any of this?”

“No, but I like science stuff,” Craig said, and then flushed for sounding so stupid in front of a person as smart as she was.  She was pretty too, which didn’t help any.

Steve looked ready to leave.  

“Small world,” Lousy said.  His eye was starting to puff up from Steve's punches.

Courtney kept turning over the magazine, as if checking its authenticity.  “This came out two months ago--this is just too strange!” She handed it over to Steve.  He had an angry red lump on his temple, where Lousy had slammed his skateboard.  His astonishment was fading, as was his good humor.

Courtney noticed Steve beginning to simmer and asked, “Honey, isn’t there someone speaking tonight about parapsychology?  That Dean Radin guy who studies coincidences--you know the doctor, from Princeton?”  She was leaning over and talking to him, and Craig wished he could read all the articles.  Wished he was smart.

“No,” said Steve, and sighed.  “I think it’s Robert Sapolsky tonight.  The behavior guy, the what’s it--”
“Neuroendocrinologist,” said Courtney, and by the way she said it, Craig guessed that she’d known very well who was going to speak tonight.  He appreciated her tact.  Tangential deflections were hard to pull off, but now they’d both done it.  Him with the magazine, and Courtney with the neuroendocrinologist.  Science was saving them.    
“Right, and I’ll never remember how to say it,” Steve said with a weak smile.  “I’ll just call him the brain doctor.”

Craig watched them chat back and forth, wishing he could remember what CRISPR stood for.  He could try to remember how to say ‘neuroendocrinologist’, not that he knew what it meant.  He wanted to go to the conference, see all those smart people, hear them talk.

“How much is the conference?” Craig asked.

“Excuse me?” Steve said.

“The science conference.  Are there any tickets left or is it all booked up?  I was just curious.”

“Tickets?” Steve said and looked at Courtney.  It was an odd look.  “It’s a week long conference, but it's been sold out for months, right babe?”

“Yeah,” Courtney confirmed.

“Oh,” Craig said, a bit bummed.  He heard Lousy gripe about fascism under his breath.

“But how much did they cost--the tickets?” Lousy snapped with more petulence than was called for, and Craig punched his arm.

“Not counting the hotel, plane, all that traveling, the tickets were $700, but the magazine is putting us up, so free for us,” Courtney explained, guileless.  Lousy looked at her for a fault line, and Craig saw that he was about to say something about the elite class of society being oppressive, some such anarchist sentiment, so he put a hand on Lousy’s shoulder and squeezed a warning pinch.

“Get your hand off me!” Lousy complained, and shrugged it off.

“Well if anything,” Craig said, “we can agree that it’s a small world.”

Steve looked at him.  Craig’s grin was a little too big, but maybe it was best to leave on a good note.  Courtney took Steve’s elbow and they turned toward Santa Monica.  As they walked away, Steve called back over his shoulder, “Hey, if you did get us on a hidden camera, post it on youtube.  I wanna see it some day.”

“Will do!” Craig hollered, and waved.

Courtney waved back, and Craig noticed that she’d left the magazine on the table.

As Lousy went off to get more pennies, Craig opened to the article and looked at Courtney’s photo.  He didn’t know why, but he pictured her jogging.  Even someone as smart as her could be lost among the stream of Venice Beach joggers.  She probably jogged.  She should move here.

“Oh my!” Craig heard Lousy exclaim in his stage voice, “it’s not everyday you see a couple as content as your wonderful selves!  When I saw your happy faces, I thought I had to come over and…”  

Craig didn’t look up from the magazine.  He didn’t need to.  It would be a couple, and they’d slow their gate, bewitched by the lanky Lousy, in his bottle caps and tin bits.  They’d think they were in for a show, and they were.  Little did they know, they’d be the stars.  Craig didn’t need to look up to know that the couple would be ordinary, as interchangeable as a strand of DNA.  Not a strand.  The word was sequence.  He’d never remember that.