back when not way back but kind of back relatively speaking say almost one forth of my aged years say if i were eighty say a fourth would be twenty years but i'm not eighty and not about to go into age and weight time and place but say lets just say way back when when i had moved to seattle out of college and was visiting amy down in oakland we would come down to oakland and she would come up to seattle say a long distance thing and it worked pretty well for a while but one trip this time we had been over in san francisco for some reason maybe to go as far as the beach or maybe simply to go to a record store i don't know but she liked to walk and still does and we were walking still do through the down town area say walking down market around where its starts to get hairy right past city hall and the other day looking up at the new federal building over looking a carls jr. where there are some sad people milling about in front of at all hours some more busy than other and the man the guy we were walking down the street and we were younger and looked to be in love and people would stop us and say particularly homeless people would stop us and compliment us and then hit us up for money or whatever because not only did we look happy but we looked nice in that nice nice way that naive way that sucker way and maybe we still do turn the frown upside down or maybe we don't maybe just a quick denial a refusal of the question a knowledge to avoid the eye contact in the first place the idea of seeing what's coming of course not nothing how could we know but the man had red hair a beard grown out of proportion he started talking we stopped we couldn't help it to lend an ear maybe i stopped and she stayed with me i don't know but he was talking and we were talking sort of and actually trying to move on down the street we were by large fountain talking about how beautiful she was and yes smiling and nodding and moving away okay nice to meet you a hand shake moving on and he said yes i remember he said how would you like to watch while i fuck your girlfriend while shaking my hand and that was it we left after that didn't say a word about it really asked her the other day if she remembered but not it was gone i don't remember the guy but remember the feeling a bad one a young one