Leon Trokewcy is trying to get the city to tell him a secret.
While he stands outside the noisy club, humming along to something that sounds vaguely like Watermelon man, he has his eyes and ears at the ready, his heart and mind prepared.
He knows that the secret is not the composition being played behind the closed windows and open doors of the club, his haunt, but rather something... else. Divine.
Leon Trokewcy knows that the city has a variety of secrets. That the city doesn’t tell two people the same secret, not if it’s worth something.
And sometimes it will tell different secrets at different times. And sometimes it will act like a best friend, begging you to tell it your secrets, to share your knowledge. Leon knows that anyone who tells secrets to so many people should not be trusted with his private thoughts.
The city, he thinks, is not as stingy with its thoughts as some people seem to think.
Most just don’t listen.
Mr. Trokewcy knows all of this because he his unemployed. That was unkind, rather,
Mr. Trokewcy knows all of this and is also unemployed.
He is not homeless, he gets by on little things, those little things that are only on order in a city, and even then only truly on order in the Heart of all Things. Enough small things so that even a sensitive man may get by.
Yes, sensitive. Leon is a wimp, a strange child - at least he was when he was a child, a sissy, a crybaby and oh so many other things.
He knows that it matters not what others call you, it is what you call yourself, what he calls himself rather, that matters. No person taught him this. No parental figure, no guidebook.
The city did. Leon waits now, outside, for the city to inform him of something new, something else. It has been a while, and he waits for something divine.
The city is Leon’s God. Here, in the Heart of all Things, man can finally pray and live at the same time without the two messing each other up. Praise, preach, pray and fornicate in the same place. The sensitive man waits for a word from the Lord, not above but around.
He has looked now for the duration of the bastardisation of Watermelon man. Turns to go back in, but is not discouraged. The city has told him no secret that night, maybe tomorrow, maybe not. He has touched God more than once, he needs no reassurance.
Leon Trokewcy is a lucky man. Not many can say that they have talked, directly mind you, to their divine entity of choice. Not many sane people anyway.
He reenters the club. His ears and eyes now resting. His heart and mind on ‘low’ setting.
This is why he almost misses out on the secret when it comes.
“Leo? Leo, it is you! Hi, it’s me Laura, from college remember?”
