vicegrate38ful

@@@@@ That's what I'd tell myself, but I didn't tell Ilse A little farther each day, stamping out footprints behind meBy the time Santa Claus showed up at the Beneva Road Mall, where Jack Cantori sometimes took me shopping, I realized an amazing thing: all my southbound footprints were clearThe right sneaker-print didn't start to drag and blur until I was on my way back Exercise becomes addictive, and rainy days didn't put a stop to mineThe second floor of Big Pink was one large roomThere was an industrialstrength rose-colored carpet on the floor and a huge window facing the Gulf of MexicoThere was nothing elseJack suggested that I make a list of furniture I wanted up there, and said he'd get it from the same rental place where he'd gotten the downstairs stuffassuming the downstairs stuff was all rightI assured him it was fine, but said I wouldn't need much on the second floorI liked 104 the emptiness of that roomIt called to my imaginationWhat I wanted, I said, was three things: a plain straight-backed chair, an artist's easel, and a Cybex treadmillCould Jack provide those things? He could and did From then until the end it was the second floor for me when I wanted to draw or paint, and it was the second floor for exercise on days when the weather closed inThe single straight-backed chair was the only real piece of furniture that ever lived up there during my tenure in Big Pink In any case, there weren't that many rainy days - not for nothing is Florida called the Sunshine StateAs my southward strolls grew longer, the speck or specks I'd seen on that first morning eventually resolved into two people - at least, on most days it was twoOne was in a wheelchair and wearing what I thought was a straw hatThe other pushed her, then sat beside herThey appeared on the beach around seven AMSometimes the one who could walk left the one in the wheelchair for a little while, only to come back with something that glittered in the early sunI suspected a coffee pot, a breakfast tray, or bothI further 105 suspected they came from the huge hacienda with the acre or so of orange tiled roo