Goines On: Goines off and on

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Goines was walking very slowly this morning. He had been moving very slowly since getting out of bed. Partly, he thought, it was because he had dropped one of the Goineses’ Villeroy & Boch saucers onto the floor the previous afternoon, and he worried about his grip. The saucer had just slipped from his hands while he was trying to serve Mrs. Goines her tea. He hadn’t dropped a dish of glass or ceramic onto the floor – that he could recall – and he didn’t want to do it again, any more than he wanted to launch another coffee carafe to smithereens. He was moving very slowly.
    Goines was also tired from lying awake during the night trying to figure out the bump at the year 2200 for the 400-year cycle beginning with the year 2001.
    Even though Goines had, finally – he thought – figured the bump out during the night, he was still tired, very tired.
    But even tired on his walk, when he came upon the sheriff’s car a few blocks away from his house and heard its engine running, he craned his neck to try to see whether someone was inside. And nobody was. He wondered about that, but let it go, and continued on toward the electrical box he liked to do his pushups off.
    But he was tired and passed the box before thinking of the pushups again. He stopped to go back, even though he wasn’t sure he could do a pushup today. But he could. In fact, he managed the usual 50. He guessed he was tired, but not weak.
    He continued on eastward, wondering whether he should just turn around at the country road at the top of the next street and go on back home. Turning around was what he usually did anyway, so that he could look for coins on the opposite side of the street as well, which doubled the small chance that he would find something.

    The thought that his route was determined by a desire to find a coin brought a frown to Goines’ face. Looking for coins? How could something that tawdry determine the path he took? He decided to turn left at the country road, to demonstrate to himself that he was free.

    As he approached the left turn, he remembered the time he had taken that route and seen what he thought was a turtle in the road. It had turned out to be litter (from McDonald’s, he seemed to remember), but it was possible that today he would spot a turtle, or a snake – some slow-moving, still-living (not road-killed) creature he could help across the road.

    Goines saw no creatures, dead or alive, along the stretch of country road before he neared the left turn back into the development. Heading back west, with the sun casting his shadow on the pavement in front of him, he was feeling better, less tired. He was wearing the Tilley hat that his son-in-law had given him in Oregon. He had been alternating wearing it and wearing his old Tilley hat on his morning walks. To thank his son-in-law again for the hat, he stopped to take a selfie to send him.

    After yet another left, and then a right, Goines came back to the sheriff’s car, whose engine Goines heard still running, and he peered through its windows again to see whether anyone was inside. No one was.
    He decided to check what was going on and walked up the driveway to the front door, which had no peep hole and no storm door. Feeling a bit wary of the situation – might something be “going on” inside? – he rang the doorbell and stepped back about ten feet.
    After about half a minute the door opened a few inches, just wide enough to expose a female face.
    In response to the woman’s inquisitive look, Goines said, “I just wanted to tell you that the sheriff’s car seems to have been running for about half an hour. Is everything okay?”

       The woman opened the door a crack wider and explained that she had come back home because the battery of her car’s on-board computer had run down, and she was recharging it. “That’s why the engine’s running.”

    Goines felt sorry to have troubled her. She was apparently a deputy of the county sheriff – mustn’t she be a deputy, to have a sheriff’s car she could call “hers”? He said, “I understand. I was just concerned and wanted to let you know.”

    She rewarded him with a smile and a thank-you, and Goines felt happy and much less tired as he continued home.

Copyright © 2021 by Moristotle