I looked again, and it was a white billy goat, and one that was none too happy about being groomed. I shook my head, and felt the silver ladies swing, and as I turned away, the fortyish man stepped out of the Herb and Tea Emporium with an armful of little brown bags. He swung into pace beside me, smelling like cinnamon, oranges and cloves, and said, “You’ve just got to see this chicken. It plays tic-tac-toe.”

Sure enough, some enterprising 4-H’er had rigged up a board with red and blue lights for the x’s and o’s, and for a quarter donation, the chicken would play tic-tac-toe with you. It was the fattest old rooster I’d ever seen, its comb hanging rakishly over one eye, and it beat me three times running. Which was about half my coffee money for the week, but what the hell, how often do you get the chance to play tic-tac-toe with a chicken?

The fortyish man played him and won, which brought the rooster up to the bars of the cage, flapping its wings and striking out, and I found myself dragging the fortyish man back out of beak range while the young owner of the rooster tried to calm his bird. We just laughed, and he took my elbow and guided me into a little Mexican restaurant that opens off the mall, and we found a table and sat down. The first thing I said was, “This is ridiculous. I don’t even know you, and here I find myself defending you from irate roosters and having dinner with you.”

And he said, “Permit me to introduce myself, then. I am Merlin.”

I nearly walked out right then.

It’s like this. I’m a skeptic. I have this one friend, a very nice woman. But she’s always saying things like, “I can tell by your aura that you are troubled today,” or talking about how I stunt my spiritual growth by ignoring my latent psychic powers.