How Long?

A family of quail, top knots bobbing, ran across the trail, the last in line making a short, hurried flight to get out of the way. The gravel being crunched beneath my tires as well as the various clanking sounds a bike makes when rumbling over rocks should have been loud enough to drown out the sigh; because of that I knew that it, as well as the sarcastic "thanks a lot" that came after, was for my benefit. I skidded to a quick stop, or as quick as the cantilever brakes on the Ibis are capable of, and swiveled my head in the direction of the rough words. I expected to see a familiar face, or at least an unfamiliar one, but there was nothing. 

"How long?" A question or an accusation, I wasn't sure which, redirected my focus. A pair of yellow eyes reflected the last of the sun, lips pulled back in a grin full of sharp teeth. Coyote sat in a gap, an opening in the chaparral. 

Well I'm about to get UPSET

From watchin' my TV

Been checkin' out the news

Until my eyeballs fail to see

I mean they say that every day

Is just a rotten mess

And when it's gonna change, my friends

Is anybody's guess...

"I could taste that fat one, you know, right on my tongue. Dinner tonight; I haven't had one of those for four days now. Times are tough."

"Tough?" I quipped, while taking a seat on a boulder opposite the trail from where Coyote sat. "You paid a visit to the streets lately? They're on fire."

"Just the other day, as a matter of fact, and that's what I'm talkin' about," he responded.

Wednesday I watched the riot...

I seen the cops out on the street

Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff

And chokin' in the heat...

Seen the smoke and fire

And the market burnin' down

Watched while everybody

On his street would take a turn

To stomp and smash and bash and crash

And slash and bust and burn...

Coyote continued, "I mean, really, what is it with you people. You're gifted with the most capable, life-changing brains of any of the animals. For millennia I have watched you evolve, yet through it all you remain the most profoundly stupid of any. Will you ever learn?"

Well, I seen the fires burnin'...

And it's the same across the nation

Black & white discrimination

They're yellin' "you can't understand me!"

And all the other crap they hand me

In the papers and TV

'N all that mass stupidity

That seems to grow more every day

Each time you hear some nitwit say

He wants to go and do you in

Because the color of your skin

Just don't appeal to him...

"So what you're sayin'", I began... "What I'm sayin'", Coyote cut in, "is that you People keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. And over again. What's the point. You know, catching Quail is hard, those damn birds are impossibly skittish; knowing the difference between right and wrong - not hard at all."

Don't you know that this could start

On any street in any town

In any state if any clown

Decides that now's the time to fight...

There ain't no great society

As it applies to you and me

Our country isn't free

And the law refuses to see

If all that you can ever be

Is just some lousy janitor...

(Frank Zappa lyrics, Trouble Every Day)

Coyote's stomach growled, and he sighed again, a more quiet, distant sigh, as if his mind had traveled centuries away. "You know, I hung out with Zappa once. He was a weird dude; a little too weird for me, but man he could turn a few words, dredging up hundreds of years of pain and suffering, and ... Why? Why are they still relevant today?"

Coyote scratched his head as if pondering some matter of thought. "Huh..." Oh, a flea. They grow worse when it gets hot."

I had been watching a couple mountain bikers approaching from a distance. They rumbled up the trail and were just about to pass: It is always a bit awkward passing between two people engaged in conversation. Though they asked me if everything was okay, they didn't seem to notice Coyote who blended into the chaparral now that the sun had left his eyes. The toothy grin. long since turned to a somber, determined line.

"How long?" He repeated, rising from his seat, he stretched and turned away.

"I was really looking forward to that quail, you know."

good thing I can still bunny hop little things in my path. this guy was not going to move

even when I turned around and rolled right up to him

heading home