Coyote shambles north along San Pablo Avenue. At the West MacArthur Boulevard intersection, he trips over a skull. “Oakland, what is this white sphere my paw crushed a hole through?” “This contained the brain of a homeless citizen.” “Did this citizen die on your concrete skin?” “Yes, she did.” “Well, I wish to see Oakland through her skull eyes.”
Coyote slips the skull on and blindly stumbles through Temescal. At 45th Street, he smacks into a street pole. “Street pole, what kind of street pole are you?” “I hold the memory of a lost dog taped to my metal body. Are you a lost dog?” “No, I’m a lost Coyote.”
Coyote walks on past a hair salon spitting out through their door beautiful hair propped on top of skin and blood bags. When a woman fresh from the salon waits at the 48th Street intersection, the skull slams into her hairsprayed hair. “Hair, what kind of hair are you?” Coyote asks. “My hair doesn’t have a mouth. Speak to me,” the woman says. “What kind of hair do you own?” “The-don’t-fuck-with-me-kinda-hair.” Coyote nods. Or really the skull nods.
At 50th Street, he breathes a bone breath when he turns to a bank manager pounding on glass to drive his loitering skull away. Coyote feels his fur for the last smoke he tucked somewhere within. As he strikes a match, a policeman tackles him to the ground. “Policeman, what kind of policeman are you?” “A policeman with a gun. Are you carrying a gun?”
“No.” Coyote looks up at the sky. “Hey Oakland, do you have a gun? Will you defend me?” “I don’t defend the powerless.”