“Yeah, man! Random acts of kindness,” said Appleseed.

Hank looked at Appleseed in dismay. “No, not at all,” he said.

It was 9:35 PM on a Tuesday. It was perhaps the third time I’ve watched the episode in a year’s time. Some episodes as many as fifteen or twenty times. I’ve considered watching other television shows, but it’s not the same. This is why some people go to Disneyland everyday or fall in love with the Eiffel Tower. There’s nothing else in the world quite like it. I know that if I tried those things, I might feel the same way.

Jaime, my neighbor, left a card beneath my door before I got home on Saturday. It asked that I look after their home, which I did. I checked the plants. I checked the front door. They returned on Sunday. We talked about their time in Salinas while making carne asada and drinking Coronas. Jaime’s wife, Migdal, used an excellent marinade, and he knew when to flip the carne asada to leave the right amount of char on the meat. The meat crackled as he dropped it in the pot.

“I have family there,” I said. “Somewhere in Salinas”

“Where?” he asked.

I looked at the grill and then shrugged as I drank my beer. “It’s been a long time.”

“Ah? It’s not far.”

“I’m not, how do you say, sociable.”

He nodded and poked at the meat with the two-pronged fork.

“Each to his own mind,” he said. The only conclusion about any human being.

Migdal and their daughter brought chairs. Their porch was too cluttered with potted plants, so they set them up on my side of the building. They mostly talked about Salinas and I talked about work. No one knows a thing about working in video games. I became jolly enough to simply recount old stories.

This time next year, if I’m still here, I’ll go pick up a table with the hole in the middle for a big umbrella. Some nice chairs to put around it. Better if it’s an old, used wooden set. Something I can fix up. Something for the space beside an old motorcycle and weeds.

Never asked a woman to punch me, but it’s something I’d like to try. A unapologetic wallop to someplace durable. That’s not something that gets forgotten.