Skip

Lewis skipped down the street that evening, as he often did on Friday evenings, hoping, wishing, calculating for a chance encounter with a beautiful stranger who would ask: “Why are you skipping?” He had rehearsed the answer in his head hundreds of times, anticipating every possible interaction that could arise. But this woman, this imaginary perfection, would not really care why he was skipping. She would appreciate the fact that he was skipping simply because he wanted to. She would see that he skipped only for the sake of the joy that comes of skipping. She would take the skipping as a glib act of joyful irreverence, a childish yet charming way of pulling everything he could out of life.

He skipped, passing couples and dog-walkers and people carrying grocery bags. None of them, it seemed, took any interest in his display of free spirit. That was just the type of person his personal rebellion was aimed at: stodgy, pent-up and anal-retentive people, self-involved, jaded conformists leading their scripted lives. It was a rebellion he thought a lot about, a rebellion he felt was much-needed.

Lewis crossed Melrose, then Elm, then Avenue, hopping lightly at red lights before resuming his bouncy trajectory. The patrons at the diner sitting in the window turned their heads as he went by, and he felt them frowning in bewilderment long after he’d passed them. He relished the feeling. The thought that he was the subject of bewilderment was heartening, pushed him on. He smiled, and his smile, he realized, would only serve to support his idea of himself as a happy-go-lucky eccentric. He was larger than life. He was a force of nature. He was a fine example of a life well lived. He felt that he was of another world, a kind of savior to these miserable, trudging mortals.

And then she said it: “Why are you skipping?”

Lewis was bobbing up and down at a traffic light, resentfully watching a limousine as it turned onto Richardson. He was still smiling, but he had forgotten why. This made his grin look alien and something like demented. He didn’t realize that his face was still distorted when he looked at who had asked the question.

She was shorter than he had expected, and younger. When he turned his head and looked down at her, he saw a child, no older than fourteen, looking up at him. She was wearing a plaid skirt, down to the knees, socks halfway up her calves, and a white blouse covered by a green jacket. Her big blue eyes looked out of place. They looked like a fashion faux-pas with the schoolgirl uniform she was wearing. The bright blue disks were trained on his face, suddenly making him aware of the smile that had atrophied there.

Lewis immediately knew that his responses were useless. The prepared answers he had written and re-written instantly became just a collection of words, a script to a movie that would never be made.

“I...” he began. He stopped the lazy hopping and ground his heels into the sidewalk. “I dunno.”

“’Cause you look silly,” said the girl.

“Not everybody thinks so.”

“Well, I do.” The girl said this plainly, as though she had won an argument, then turned her massive blue eyes forward, facing the opposite side of the street. Lewis felt his face turn red. Who was this little girl to stifle his evening of planned spontaneity?

“You must skip sometimes,” he said. “Children skip all the time.”

The girl started crossing the street, the light having just turned green. Lewis jogged to keep up.

“Don’t you skip?” he asked lamely.

She kept walking South, away from his apartment.

“Sure I do. But I’m twelve. You’re, like, fifty.”

Lewis paused for a second, figuring some quick arithmetic in his head.

“I’m closer to your age than to fifty. I’m just twenty eight.” They were halfway down the block now.

“Do a lot of twenty-eight year olds skip down the street?” she asked.

He felt odd now, vulnerable to a girl, not even a teenage one. He knew that most people his age didn’t skip. That was exactly why he did. But there was no way to explain that. Not to her.

“Sure they do. When they’re happy, when they want to feel like a kid...” he fell silent, trying to think of other disingenuous reasons.

She stopped walking when she reached the bus stop and sat down on the bench. He stopped, considered heading home. Then he sat down next to her.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she said offhandedly, like a coworker mentioning the weather.

“Well, you started it. I’m trying to answer your question.”

She turned her head towards the end of the street, away from Lewis, scanning for a bus. There were none.

Lewis shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to look uninterested. This made him look like a repressed pedophile struggling to restrain himself. Anger crept into him. How could he be humiliated by a child?

“I skip because it’s fun!” he blurted out. “It’s relaxing.”

“Just walking is more relaxing,” she said, without turning her head. “Why don’t you just walk?”

Lewis frowned. “Well, why do people go jogging?”

“For exercise.”

“Maybe I’m skipping for exercise.”

“You told me you didn’t.”

Christ! Lewis thought. Why can’t she let up?

From her left stocking, the girl produced a cell phone and proceeded to type into it very quickly. Lewis wondered what she was writing, and to whom. He became acutely aware of the compromising appearance he was projecting to passersby: a twenty-eight-year-old man, sitting and conversing with a twelve-year-old girl.

“I guess...” he said, after the girl had slipped the phone back, “I guess I’m trying to find someone.”

The girl turned to him and furrowed her brow. “You need to skip to find people?”

“No,” he said, slowly. He didn’t know where he was going. He was feeling his way through the unfamiliar, murky waters of honesty. “It makes me different. It makes me special.”

The girl looked at him inquisitively.

“Skipping is special?”

“It is when you’re twenty-eight.”

“Everybody’s got something special,” she said. He thought that she sounded like a tiny Mr. Rogers. He felt like a child again, and this girl had expanded into motherhood.

“That’s not really true,” he said at last.

“Well, how many people would sit down and talk with a twelve-year-old?” said the girl.

He thought for a moment, then offered, “I only talk to the wise twelve-year-olds.”

He heard the bus brake at the light, half a block away.

“That’s special,” she said, getting up. Lewis followed suit.

“So...” he said. “I skip because I don’t feel anything else about me is interesting.”

The bus was pulling up at the stop now, and passengers were getting off, pushing through the line of people waiting to get on.

“You’re just as interesting as anybody else.”

The girl didn’t say goodbye. Lewis watched her pull out a bus pass from her right stocking and get on, and saw her sit down at the back, putting on her headphones.

Lewis walked home. His mind was enveloped by the little girl and what she had said. The same couples and dog-walkers and grocery bag carriers were on the sidewalks, but he no longer saw them as lofty and  bourgeois. They were no more special than him. They were real and flawed and lovable. They were all special, and not a single one had to skip to prove it.

Diner

The diner was so quiet before Nat unlocked the doors that you could hear the heater in the coffee machine when it would buzz on and off. When it was clear, the early sunlight would spill in through the front windows, over the chairs, which were still upside down on the tables, and onto the old-timey linoleum floor. The air would still smell faintly of toast and bacon, as though it were giving a subtle overture to a symphony.

When he got in at five, Fred put on a pot of coffee, then swept and mopped the floors. After that, he sat at the long counter and watched the sun come up until Nat got there. Nat counted the cash while Fred wiped down the tables and set them.

“There’s eight dollars missing,” said Nat from behind the counter.

“I didn’t close last night,” said Fred without looking up from his work.

“I swear I’m gonna buy cameras for this place.”

“It was probably a mistake, Amanda wouldn’t steal anything. Remember the time she found that man’s wallet? Wouldn’t even take a twenty as a reward.”

There was a knock on the glass.

“Dave’s outside,” said Fred. Nat threw him the keys and started counting again.

“Damn it’s cold outside,” Dave said, walking in the door. “I’ll bet it’s minus twenty.”

“Said minus eight on the radio,” said Nat. “That’s not too cold.”

Dave pulled a stool off the counter and sat down. “Anything ready back there?”

“We can make you some toast and coffee. Stoves aren’t on yet.” said Nat.

“Well they should be. It’s six-fifteen already.”

Fred looked at the clock on the wall. It was quarter to six. In the kitchen, the cooks were taking things out of the fridge and placing them on the counter, ready for the day.

“Actually, it’s quarter to,” said Nat. “You can have some toast and coffee.”

“Just the coffee, then. You get the paper, Fred?”

“It’s on the counter.”

Dave grabbed the newspaper next to him. “So it is, Freddy boy.”

From six to seven, there were hardly any customers. A few office workers getting coffee before going to work, two men coming off the night shift on security at the parking lot, and a couple late-nighters. The late-nighters walked in, eyes glued open, and spoke very quickly. One was short and tan, with a faux-hawk and eyeliner on. The other was regular build, dressed all in white. His long hair was dirty and looked wet. They sat near the wall at the back of the diner, and took a long time to decide. When they motioned to Fred that they were ready, they ordered from the lunch menu. “Lunch starts at eleven,” Fred said. Both of them looked at their watches.

“We’re going to need another minute,” the short one said.

Fred attended two other tables then came back to them.

“How’re the pancakes?”

“They’re good. Come with real maple syrup.”

They looked back at the menu.

“And the waffles?”

“Good. Come with the syrup too.”

Fred saw Nat watching them from the cash.

“Alright,” said the tall one. “I’ll have a western omelet.”

“And I’ll have the steak and eggs.”

“We don’t have any steak today.”

The short one rolled his eyes and slapped the menu onto the table. The tall one was looking out the window.

“Well then I’ll just have the eggs, huh?”

“How d’you like them?” asked Fred

“Over-easy. No... Sunny.”

“You mean sunny-side up?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

“You want toast with that?”

“Oh you have toast? It’s not on the lunch menu?”

“You can have toast or hash-browns.”

“Gimme the hash-browns.”

Fred picked up the menus and walked to the counter to put in the order. He opened them up to put them into the holder, and found a wet piece gum inside one.

“Kids,” Nat said to Fred. “Staying up all night is bad for ‘em.”

Dave looked up from the paper. He straightened his back, puffing his belly out. “They’re probably on drugs,” he said.

“Maybe,” said Fred, using a napkin to get the gum off the menu.

The order for the late-nighters came out, and Fred brought the plates to the table, along with ketchup and a refill of coffee. They didn’t say anything when the plates arrived.

After seven, more customers started coming in: retired couples who came in every other day, young couples who made awkward conversation and left quickly, and some regulars, who all sat at the counter, talking to Nat. Dave was telling them that the two kids by the wall were strung out on something. “Wouldn’t get too close to those two.”

Fred was polishing cutlery and watching them from behind the counter. They leaned over their plates, but didn’t eat much. Every so often, they’d look up at each other and smile or give a little laugh. They touched each other’s arms. Fred turned to the kitchen and smiled while he put the cutlery into the tray.

Nat and Dave and the other regulars were glancing over at them every so often and talking quietly.

“... touching like gays.”

“... wife never touches you like that.”

Laughter.

“When was the last time you even...”

“Why, just last week, this pretty little thing...”

Fred went to the table and asked if they were done. They looked startled to see him.

“Yes,” said the tall on with the wet hair. “Thanks.”

Fred cleared the table and brought the bill, which he left between the salt shaker and the ketchup.

He said hello to Amanda as she walked in the door and to the counter. She squeezed his shoulder as she went by. She smelled like watermelon today.

“Hi Nat. Hi Dave. Hi guys.”

“Amanda, the cash was short again today,” said Nat before she had a chance to walk around the counter for her paycheck.

Fred watched him from the table he was setting.

“Sorry, Nat. I must have miscounted it. I can give you the eight dollars.“

“I’m sick of telling you, Amanda.” Nat had both his hands on edge the counter and his eyes were fixed on the cash in front of him. “If you can’t count, that’s a big goddamn problem.”

“I can count, Nat, I just-“

“I don’t want to hear it. You fuck up the cash every fucking week. I could hire an eight year old to do your job.”

Amanda opened her mouth, as though to say something, but closed it again before saying anything. Her eyes were wet.

“What? What are you going to say?”

Fred walked up to Nat. Nat stood straight and faced him. Nat looked very small next to him, and his grey hair hardly reached Fred’s nose.

“Come on, Nat, she made a mistake. You make them too when you count the cash.”

Nat was almost shaking from anger. “Stay out of this. It’s my restaurant. I’ll handle it the way I like.”

Amanda was crying hard now. She took eight dollars from her purse and put it on the counter before running out.

 Fred pushed the eight dollars to Nat. “Happy now?”

The regulars sitting at the counter weren’t talking any more. Dave was watching the arts and life section intently, and the others were pushing around their hash browns around their plates or looking at their coffee.

 When Fred turned back to see his tables, the two late-nighters had left.

“Where did those two kids go?” said Nat, trying to put things back to normal. “They didn’t pay yet.”

Fred checked the washrooms, which were empty, then ran outside to the street. The customers inside watched through the window, one or two even got up to see if anything would happen. There were businessmen, couples strolling down to the Old Port, and bike couriers all along the street. The late-nighters were gone. Fred walked back inside, and the diners seemed disappointed as they turned back to their food.

“Could tell soon as they walked in that they were no good,” said Nat.

“Probably on drugs, those two,” repeated Dave. “Did you see the thin one’s hair? Greasy as your onion rings, Nat.”

The other regulars gave a chuckle.

Fred went to clean the late-nighters’ table. There, under the ketchup, were two crisp twenty dollar bills, enough to cover the 23 dollar bill and leave a hefty tip. Fred smiled and put the forty dollars on the counter as he walked by.

Nat looked confused. He looked at the table, then at Fred, then back at the money. He took it and put it in the cash.

Fred waited tables until 3. Nat took the afternoon off. His daughter was going to the dentist’s. After 3, Fred sat at the counter and talked to Amanda, who came in at 2. She still smelled of watermelon. Her hair was loose, the way it was when Nat didn’t tell her to tie it up.

He watched her until six. They talked about the weather, her boyfriend, her apartment. They stopped talking after a while. He just watched. Every time she put the money into the cash, she would keep a dollar or two in her hand and put it in her apron. At one point, she took a twenty from the cash and stuffed it in her pocket. She didn’t see Fred looking at her.

The next day, Fred came in early. He swept and mopped the floors, then sat at the counter to watch the sun rise. It was overcast, so he watched the sky turn from dark purple to gray. At five-thirty, Nat came in and counted the cash.

“Twenty-fucking-four dollars short today. I can’t fucking believe it.”

Fred kept on setting the tables.

“I didn’t close last night.” 

This Town

What do they say in movies when they’re in situations like this? There’s like an inner monologue throughout. Huh. Guess it’s a lot like this. Now, what what what what what do I do? It’s dark, dark enough. It’s pitch black. No it’s not, it’s the city. Streetlamps. Everywhere, streetlamps lighting the streets. Where are there no streetlamps? The country. I don’t have a car. No can do. Nonono. Industrial neighbourhood. Streetlamps, but nobody to watch. But the cameras. Just go. Do it. Just do it. I’m in a fucking Nike commercial. Fuck. This is serious, I shouldn’t joke. Shouldn’t joke. Somebody’s going to die. Sooomebody. Here, boy. Soooooooomebody. Here, come here, boy. That would be easy, just to lay out a tarp and strap them down. But I have to go out there. I have to bring my knife. Oh shit, I only have kitchen knives. Shit. Well, there’s the vegetable knife. There’s the cleaver. When did I get the cleaver? I never use that thing. Focus. Fooocus. Be real, is it feasible. Do you want to get caught? Yeah, that’s it. Talk to yourself in the second person. YOU are going to kill somebody. Nono, YOU are going to KILL somebody. Tonight. In this city. In an alley. A fucking alley! Why didn’t I think of that earlier? YOU. Why didn’t YOU think of that earlier. Be detached. Deeetachment. Fooocus. Out the door. Don’t forget the knife. In your jacket. There’s no room in this jacket. Fuuuck I don’t want to use the winter coat, I’ll look like a murderer. YOU’ll look like a murderer. Shit, you will be a murderer. Go for it. Play the part. What do they say? Real killers don’t dress like killers. Nobody says that. Fuck. Ok, right jacket, out the door. It wasn’t raining this afternoon. Better get an umbrella. What the fuck are you saying? Umbrella? No killer uses umbrellas.

MAN FOUND DEAD, UMBRELLA THROUGH NECK

An unidentified man was found dead early this morning at the corner of Mitchell St. and Stroud Ave. The man was found behind a dumpster at 3:30 AM by passersby, walking home from a local bar. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Doctors say he suffered from multiple stab-wounds and an umbrella lodged into the mouth, and through the trachea.

Inspector Morris, who believes the murder was committed around midnight, has yet to identify a suspect. No fingerprints were found on the umbrella, but Morris believes there to be a second weapon with which the other stab-wounds were inflicted. The weapon has yet to be found.

The victim is suspected to be homeless.

“JIMBO! Wait up, brah!”

James stopped and swayed in the street, squinting at oncoming traffic.

Tim pulled him away as a GARDA van sped past them.

“You’re drunk, man, how you getting home?”

James patted his pockets lazily and said “how bout we walk?”

Tim took a swig of the beer in his hand, and dropped the empty can into a car window left open on the street. He took a moment to laugh at what he’d done.

“Shit, man, okay. But I’m staying over. I’m not paying for a cab this time of night.”

“For sure.”

Tim and James walked their zig-zag pattern through the streets, daring traffic to hit them and women to come home with them. At Truro Street, James stopped to relieve himself on a wall. Tim took this opportunity to try tying James’s shoelaces together, but James lost his balance and kicked him in the face as he stumbled backwards. Both of them were sprawled out on the street.

“Fuck, man,” Tim said.

James looked at his bloody palms. They were covered in loose pavement and blood. Tim had his hand up to his face, blood leaking through his fingers.

“Fuck you, man. That was retarded. What were you trying to do?”

Tim leaned to one side and spat out more blood.

James got up and said, less enthusiastically this time, “Fuck you, man.” Then he offered his hand to Tim and hoisted him up.

“You should get that looked at, man. I think I hit you pretty hard.”

“No shit.”

They walked in silence for the next few blocks, both of them sobering up and resenting the hard, dirty sidewalks and dark, quiet alleyways more and more. The city at night took on a fragile decrepitude, which both of them felt but neither expressed. This was a place friendships could break and people could break and everything was broken and goddamnit there must be something beautiful here. But they just walked, past all of this, Tim clutching his face and James thinking, “Can you get rabies from scraped hands?”

The rain started suddenly, and the smell of wet cement started seeping up out of the cracks, into the air.

“I always feel cleaner after it rains,” offered James.

Tim grunted and spat a wad of blood out. It twisted and turned in the rainwater before being sucked in by the gutter.

“I need to take a piss. Hold on,” Tim said.

James stood on the end of the alley, having given himself the duty of lookout in case someone were to walk by and notice his friend standing next to the dumpster. No one was out, but he felt his duty was a favour to Tim. This would fix what had happened.

“FUCK. FUCKFUCKFUCK WHAT THE FUCK?”

James spun around to see Tim sprinting towards him. Terrified, James started running too. Tim had snapped. He had had enough of pretending he wasn’t mad and was going to kill him. He was going to slam James onto the ground and beat the life out of him. James ran as fast as he could away from his crazed psychopath friend.

“HELP! HEEEEELP!” screamed James. But he knew there was no one to hear him. He had been keeping a lookout.

“FUUUUUUCK!”

“HEEEEEEELP!”

“GODDAMMIT STOP,” yelled Tim

James stopped and turned to Tim, panting, “What was that?”

Tim sat down on the ground, no longer holding his face, dripping blood.

“Some guy.”

James looked confused, “Some guy?”

“Yeah some fucking guy.”

James bent over, put his hands on his knees and laughed. “Oh fuck man I thought you were crazy. I was running away from you. Some dude was there? Doing what?”

Tim cleared his throat of blood and phlegm and spat it out.

“No, man. Some dude was dead.”

James looked up at Tim, who was holding his face again.

“Are you sure he was dead?”

Tim coughed, then said “The dude had a fucking umbrella in his neck, I’m pretty fucking sure.”

James took the flask out of his pocket and slid it to Tim. Tim picked it up, took a swig and spit it out.

“FUCK. That shit burns.”

“Sorry man. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Tim sat immobile for a while, letting the rain stream down his neck and face, down his shirt and under his belt. James put his hand on Tim’s back.

“Come on, man. What are we gonna do?”

Tim looked at his blood flowing into a sewer grate.

They’ll find me. They’ll think I killed him. All this DNA at the scene. Fuck, I practically pissed on the guy. Can they tell who you are if you pissed on a man? My blood’s all over the place. What can I do about the blood? It’s raining, it’ll wash away. Maybe if I go buy some bleach. No, there’s no place that sells bleach at this hour. What am I saying? That’s what a killer would do, is bleach this place, destroy the evidence and everything. I’m not a killer. I’m no killer. I didn’t kill a man. Shit, I got kicked in the face tonight when I was trying to play a joke! Cops would buy that, right? I would buy that if I were a cop. I would totally buy that. Then why did you piss on a dude? Fuck. I pissed on a dead dude. I’m gonna go to prison or go to hell or... fuck. You didn’t see him. You didn’t see him until it was too late. It’s dark, it’s an easy mistake to make, isn’t it? The cops won’t see it that way. They’ll see it as desecrating a dead body. You’re basically a necrophile with a piss fetish. Shit, you are scum. You’re in for it now. No you’re not. Leave. That’s right! They don’t have you in that database! Do they have a database? How do cops find people with fingerprints? It must be even easier when you have somebody’s DNA. If they get your DNA. They’ll probably just think that it’s all his blood and they won’t even realize you pissed on a dead guy. It’s raining. It’s raining. Fuck I wish I had an umbrella.

Tim looked up: “Is there a payphone near your place?”

Inspector Morris looked at his clock-radio. 4:17. The phone was ringing. He cringed at his own breath as he sighed and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

He listened for a while.

“Alright.”

Another while.

“I don’t know. Twen – Thirty minutes.”

He hung up.

The room was dark, like a black velvet curtain had dropped onto the stage. He lifted himself up heavily. His body was weak and it felt like a bag of cement was strung to his neck. After rummaging in his bedside drawer, he found the bottle of cheap brandy he had left and poured himself a tall one. He drank three large gulps before realizing that he had used the glass as an ashtray the night before. He held the brandy in his mouth for a moment, then swallowed it.

He got dressed without turning the lights on: jeans, the cleaner of his two dress shirts, jacket, wallet, badge, keys, phone. Cigarettes. He pulled one out and out it between his lips before stepping out the door and into the tan Plymouth Voyager.

As he pulled into the alley, only the beat cop acknowledged him and pointed him to a spot.

“Can’t ID him, no wallet, no cards, no nothing,” said the beat cop, walking to the van.

“What’s he look like?” asked Morris.

“Not good.”

The beat cop led Morris to the dumpster.

“Christ,” said Morris.

“Yeah, pretty grizzly.”

“No, it’s a goddamn hobo! Why the hell would I get out of bed at 4AM for a hobo who probably got shanked in the neck with an umbrella by another hobo who wanted his motherfucking shopping cart to wheel around three dollars’ worth of cans?”

Morris rubbed his forehead. The headache was only getting worse.

“I gotta radio somebody,” he muttered, turning to his van.

He reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out his son’s sippy cup. He was glad to have filled that instead of the flask. That would have looked too obvious. He put the bendy straw between his lips and sucked on the brandy. It burned his throat, like swallowing a pack of razorblades and a bag of salt, but it would help his headache.

He walked back out to the body

“Take a couple pictures. Write up a report, ‘Male, ID unknown, dead presumed murdered...’”

As he turned around, he saw a Channel 15 news truck pull up. Out spilled the cameraman, as talkative as a bag of wet mice, the sound recordist, whose face cried out for a fist, and the reporter. Her short skirt rode up when she hopped out of the truck. Her legs were smooth and porcelain white. She looked at Morris before tugging her skirt back down.

“Nobody say anything. I got this.”

She made sure the camera was pointed at her, and as soon as she got close, she hollered: “Inspector Morris! Can you tell me what happened here?”

“It’s not very exciting.”

“It’s a murder? Sounds pretty dreary,” she said, smiling.

“Can’t say that yet. You know the rules.”

“Who’s the poor man?”

”We don’t know who he is, yet,” said Morris.

“So it is a he.”

Shit, stupid mistake.

“Can’t confirm or deny it.”

“Is it this man?” she asked, holding up a tiny photograph. He leaned in, squinting. She seemed to pull the photograph further and further away, closer to her face. He saw her lips out of the corner of his eyes. As his gaze turned to her, he saw the cameraman jogging towards the dumpster.

“HEY. YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED IN HERE!” Morris saw that the reporter smile.

After a moment of indecision, the two officers grabbed the cameraman by the armpits and carried him back to the van as he started to vomit, narrowly missing his own camera, which dropped to the pavement, bouncing and rolling back towards the dumpster.

Morris grabbed the reporter’s arm: “You want this? Fine. A man, homeless, dead behind a dumpster. Fuck, I dunno, he must’ve died at midnight.” Morris turned around and walked back to the van. He called out to the officers: “Boys, just file it. It’s same-old.”

He took another sip from the bright orange and green sippy cup as he left and shivered. He felt around for his coat in the back seat and put it on. He reached into the pocket for a cigarette, but he had left them in his other jacket. He swore quietly and wished he’d brought an umbrella.

“I swear this town could kill a man.”