The Shoeless Principal
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All that being said, I knew if I headed in one direction I’d hit downtown Middletown and beyond it Portland - or go the other way and you run smack dab into Meriden, Waterbury, and more. It’s why I had been walking around every morning and afternoon since the bizarre, catastrophic pandemic had started. I’d go nuts if I couldn’t do that - if I couldn’t get out and work up a healthy sweat for at least a half an hour. 
Movement and exercise eases my head, brings a placid feeling to my outlook, and the endorphins begin percolating in my brain. It even aids my writing, I think. It soothes me. Rain, snow, sleet or even if it’s humid and stifling, I still try to get out for the air, for the exertion. Eventually, I walk a quarter mile back to see what was going on with my red-meat fan of a neighbor. 
“This is Rusty, my loyal golden, who’s been with me for eight years,” he said. “I’m Stan and I got my vaccine today, so that’s why I’m not in a mask.”
We both leaned toward each other, bumping elbows. 
“I’m Ed, and I’m due for my shot tomorrow – one and done, they tell me.”
“Lucky bastard,” Stan said. “Everyone is still so damn terrified around here. The pressure builds up and wears folks down, eats at you, at me, devours the whole crew on this busy, sickly, wild, and whirling planet.”
“That sounded poetic, Stan.”
“You sound surprised by that fact,” he said. “Are you some ritzy trial lawyer who scowls at the camera and says, ‘Let my family help your family?’”
“No,” I said. “That’s not me.”
“Or a smooth ganja dealer?” he asked. “Making a killing with your homegrown weed in your basement that secretly stretches out for thirty acres underground?”
“No, not him, either,” I said. 
“Maybe you’re the charismatic but controversial head of a mysterious cult, Ed?” he asked. “Do you run the modern structure at the end of our street here? I heard they deal with past lives, dream analysis or talking with souls as old as 2500 years?”
“No, that place is fine,” I said. “Harmless. A legitimate spiritual home for people searching for answers, like any of us. Me, I just write stories.”
“What kind of stories?” 
“Fake, true, and other variants,” I said. “Some novels, or short ones, plus a big fat memoir way back in 2012.”
“Any porn?” Stan asked, one of his eyebrows raised.
“Not in my skill set, I’m afraid,” I said.
“Smart, sensible answer,” he said. “I’ve got a fish tale for you - a real whopper.”
“Yeah?” 
“My girlfriend, Sheila, just got out of the hospital with ten stitches.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Are you, really, though?” he asked. 
“Look, I only wanted to walk down the street here and work up a sweat today.”
 “Until a neighbor asked you about golden retrievers and the Christ child, right?”
“Something like that,” I said, but then twenty-seven minutes later I was somehow still engrossed in Stan’s yarn, willingly sitting on his beach chair now on his porch without a mask, drinking surprisingly good scotch as he worked on grilling three steaks while Rusty, his cherished, golden, and blessed pooch was busy sniffing my crotch.