He took heed of her caution, for Tracy was always right about the weather. But, he mumbled aloud as his libido assumed control, even if she wasn’t right this time, “Tracy’s got great tits.”

Bitter wind hacked away at the old man in small choppy gusts, snapping him out of his lurid fantasy and testifying that the pretty meteorologist had truly been correct this time. Icy gobbets of snowflakes spattered against his wind-chapped face and clung momentarily to his scraggly beard before morphing into their liquid state. He took another quick pull on the whiskey bottle then gathered the buttonless front of his overcoat in frostbitten hands before hurrying across the dimly lit street. The sign on the bank winked and visually announced it to be four-thirty-something A.M.

Meadowbrook Park. The old man trudged across the hard ground, his numb feet making crunching noises on the frozen grass as he took staggering aim at a not too distant building. The public restrooms were always unlocked and open, and it was here he would seek refuge whenever Tracy warned him to do so. When it was hot, running water and a cool concrete floor would chase away the sweltering heat of a typical Saint Louis summer. When it was cold, cinder block walls and a roof offered shelter from the bitter wind. To a homeless individual like himself, the Meadowbrook Park public restrooms were like a suite at the Adam’s Mark downtown.

Just a few more steps and he would be inside where he could escape the winter tempest and its dangerous chill, and then he would be okay. Tracy had told him so just before she blew him a kiss.