A letter was slid under the door while he was watching TV with the dogs. *Squirrel!*, they all thought as one passed by on the highlighted limb, all tails at alert for a moment. Al might take it for a sign but a squirrel was entering the picture every 10 seconds or so. Too frequent to be useful for synchronicity studies. He moves toward the door, picks up the envelope on the floor. Addressed to Resident. Well, *he’s* a resident of the Homeless Union. At least currently: day to day, night to night he’s taking it. Not meeting anyone here since Groover passed through a couple of days back, another “traveler”, he picks up and opens the thing. “Madame Ruby: Psychic ” he reads aloud, perhaps to the dogs but most likely only to himself. “Hmm,” he says while spotting the meat of the missive beneath the card with the 3rd eye underneath the lettering.
—–
Just down the block, Sarah reads her own slid-under-the-door invitation aloud and then her beau/husband reacts. “Tarnation, woman. A *reading*?! What the blue william is a *reading*!?”
—–
He was talking to Gloria and Wanda a little later who came up from the beach for a visit when the door opened and she walked right in, instantly making herself at home on the remaining seat in the room. “Is Groover here yet?” she uttered. Then: “I usually sleep on the car couch. Where’s the car couch? Did they move it upstairs? Is Groover upstairs? Taking a leak? He’s always taking a leak. Must come with being so blue and all. Vet of the Trojan-Durexian War he is. Never takes off his helmet.” She stops with this, perhaps to catch her breath. Al stares over, thinking: so this is the infamous Olive Olystick Groover mentioned, seeing the scowl, feeling the powerful psychic presence all the way over from his own seat. Gloria and Wanda stopped chatting, as if frozen in place. Olive was only talking to Al. They had a mutual friend.
Sunklands 