My spit bubbles, and my quads spasm.  I’m going too fast, but not fast enough.  Downhills are like that.  In my headphones, Toy Caldwell sings to me about freight trains, lost love and Georgia.  Waller Street is all sunbeams and hangovers as I near Seventh Street.  No one is up running this early.

Dogs yap from behind an open fence.  Some mornings the terrier mutts chase me.  Today I only hear them.  My grey synthetic shirt isn’t drenched in sweat yet.  It is only seventy-eight degrees.  It will be one-hundred soon.  I have to pick up my yellow running shoes extra high to clear the overgrown zeroscape garden that is overtaking the sidewalk.  I don’t use good form, and instead of raising my knees I have cactus and decorative rosemary nip at my toes.  I like zeroscaping, but this morning it doesn’t like me.  I lurch forward with the snag and have to jerk my left leg up to keep my face off the ground.  Since my two knee surgeries my left leg is used to doing all of the snap course corrections.  My right leg flings forward in an extra long stride, and my trip is successfully avoided.  I know I am safe when inertia flings sweat from my forehead causing my fluids, but not my face, to kiss the ground.

I am coming to the bottom of the hill, and as it levels off, sunbeams splatter against the murals and graffiti of sixth street.  The decorative intersection of Waller and Sixth is almost a cartoon of colors and crosswalks.  Friendly road humps are placed at the four-way stop to gently remind drivers of their mistakes.  “*Bump Bump* If there had been a pedestrian here, they would be dead.”  I stop in the shadow of the abandoned building on the northeast corner.  I lift my absorbent shirt to wipe sweat off my face.  A Volvo and an E-350 drive past each other.  The Volvo heads toward downtown and the van toward adventure or a paint store.  I walk toward the intersection.  I look at the squinting eyes of a  Civic driver.  I nod her on, but I’m certain I’m either an angelic being in the sunbeams or she didn’t see me.

The Lexus driver stops behind the white line.  He’s memorized the “Don’t block the box” signs posted all over town.  His sunglasses look promising, and the line of five more cars look like I may be standing there too long.  I wave, and he nods his head toward me.  I’m not breathing hard any more as I jog off into the cross walk.  I don’t stop looking at his shades.  I cross the first strip of the crosswalk, the second, the fourth.  *Screech*  With too much gas, the Lexus jumps toward the crosswalk.  I would barely touch his fender if I took another step, but as he sees me his Ray-Bans display horror.  It is hard to think you almost killed or maimed someone before 8am.  But, I’m not hurt at all.  My mistrust saved us.  We both look at the other waiting to see if anyone will be scolded or scolding.  Obviously, I was in the right of way, but I’ve had drivers yell at me for using a crosswalk for walking.  Instead, we are just happy I’m not splattered on his hood.  I mouth, “It’s okay,” and he waves me on.  I give the Lexus a wide berth and continue toward the train tracks without turning back.

At Fifth Street, downtown reflects the light that almost killed me.  Toy finishes his ballad of blindness and new beginnings, and I feel like running really fast.