between_the_bars raze four black squirrels took turns running away from me. the last of them stopped on a long branch above my head and sat there looking like the smallest cat my eyes had ever seen. he stared at me. still as taxidermy. i left him a snack for later. "don't say i never gave you anything," i said. there was a cover band playing down at the riverfront plaza for canada day weekend. i caught the last few songs of their set without meaning to. they were almost far enough away to make me believe i was listening to the artists they were imitating. they were a human classic rock radio station, pumping out faithful renditions of "comfortably numb" and "carry on wayward son". "sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band" segued straight into "with a little help from my friends". just like on the album. every song was performed in its original key. the singer didn't dodge any of the high notes. the harmonies were on point. they were a well-rehearsed group. but the guitar solos went on a little too long and got a little too flashy. every held note sounded more like a boast than a moment damp with meaning. something fundamental was missing. they closed with "do you feel like we do". there was no talk box solo. "what do you think of that?" i asked chatterbox. he wasn't impressed. newsom was far from where i'm used to finding her. she's been favouring a spot on the other side of the park for a while now. she's a different squirrel over there. nervy. cautious. she'll only take food from me if i drop it on the ground. my gut tells me this is where she keeps her children hidden. but my gut says something else too. and it makes me feel like throwing up. last week i was feeding her close to her old turf when tali showed up. she had that look she gets when she sees a squirrel. all hunched over and smug and sinister. her whole face changes when she's trying to sneak up on something smaller than herself. muriel never has her leashed. i don't know how many times she's scared my friends away or almost caused a fight with another dog who doesn't know her growl isn't a threat. one of these days something bad is going to happen. it won't be tali's fault. but she'll take the blame. i tried to distract her. it didn't work. she chased newsom up a tree. most squirrels will make themselves scarce when a thing like that happens. they'll retreat and wait until the dog gets bored and moves on before they even think about touching the grass again. newsom isn't most squirrels. she wouldn't back off. she kept trying to find a safe path back to me. tali wouldn't let her have it. "sorry to spoil your fun," muriel said. she was smirking. i wanted to scream. we talked for a while. then she led tali away. newsom hung off the side of the knotted tower she'd made her short-term shelter and watched tali shrink into a small brown blur. she didn't bark. she doesn't do that. she let her tail do the talking. it spun around and around like a single-sail windmill caught in a cyclone. i stayed with her until she was calm again. she came down and ate a peanut. but she wouldn't come to me the way she did before tali went after her. she kept her back bolted to that tree. i walked away from her feeling like something had been broken. she trusted me to keep her safe. i failed her. i don't know what went through her head when she saw me petting an animal that could have killed her if she wasn't quick and crafty enough to save herself. i know what would have moved through my mind. maybe the part of the park she was in didn't have anything to do with how she was acting. maybe she made the decision to pull back after i let her down. at the end of saturday's walk, i veered from the walkway to check the bottom of a hill. i'd seen red_tail loitering there a little earlier. the cover band had packed up their gear and left. a woman was playing jazzy extended chords on an electric guitar and singing her own songs. they all sounded the same. i couldn't make out any of the lyrics. she had a nice voice. so there was that. there was nobody there. just an uneaten triple strawberry boston cake, still in its protective plastic shell. it was melting from the heat. i watched it collapse in slow motion. i turned around in time to see red_tail darting down a london plane. it wasn't much more than a sapling. i walked to where he was. he waited for me. he ate right in front of my foot. he's never done that before. "you're not shy at all today," i said. "what's gotten into you, red_tail?" every hair he'd lost from his neck and his chest had grown back. his tail was a fur-covered flame. he was so beautiful. i was heading out the same way i came in when i saw someone standing twenty feet away at the base of a larger tree. i got close enough to see who it was. newsom. she ran to my shoe. i got down as low to the ground as i could and held out a walnut for her. she squeezed her eyes shut and seized the winged seed with her teeth. "did you come all the way over here just to say goodbye?" i asked her. when she was finished eating, i gave her another walnut. she wrapped the skinny toes of one front foot around my index finger to steady herself. like a newborn child speaking love before she had a word to name it. brownie stood and peered at me through the wrought iron fence. i hadn't seen her face in almost a month. i called her name. she ran between the bars and set up shop on the other side of the kentucky coffeetree newsom was using for shade. i threw her a few nuts of her own. i told newsom i loved her. i told her she would always be my favourite. she already knows both of those things. but it felt good to say them again. 220704 what's it to you? who go blather from