Salmo vs. Finches- Wandering Thole Linkorama

Josh Thole looked out his window, reading Emerson out loud. He would read a sentence than say it to the outdoors. A collection of pigeons had assembled by his window to listen. A fire blazed in the fireplace and the discarded shells of coconuts were strewn across his floor.

"Pigeons, sometimes I feel you're the only ones listening," he said.

He took a walk down Clinton St, stopping in at Ted and Honey's.

"All of the sandwiches," he ordered.

"You must be a Met," said the human behind the counter.

"Is it in my eyes?" asked Thole.

"Getting there," said the human. In truth, the Met in Thole's eyes still needed some work, but the human liked to be encouraging.

He meandered over to Cobble Hill Park, tossing bits of bread to the pigeons.

"In Los Angelos alone, falling palm fronds kill five people every year!" a man was standing on soap box, saying things. The soap box was not the traditional kind, but rather the small cardboard ones that individual bars of soap often come in these days. It elevated the man's height, almost not at all.

"Cooking brings bears into your home. Bears can wreck a marriage!"

Thole consumed a sandwich while watching the man, but he was only worth a sandwich of his time. He proceeded up to Montague and turned left to go to the Promenade. He sat on a bench and looked at the skyline. A large group of people walked by, saying nothing. Thole followed them, conspicuous due to his young age, his many sandwiches and that he was wearing his full Met jersey. The people he walked with paid him little mind.

They arrived at a building and entered single file. A doorman tapped his foot each time one of them crossed the threshold. Thole was last in line, and as he approached, not one but three doormen converged to block his path.

"Be thee salmon or be thee not?"

"Salmon? That's not a baseball team."

The doormen laughed deep, frightening laughs."

"No," said one, "but some baseball teams are salmon."

"Are the Mets salmon?"

"Mets?! We can have no Mets in here!" They charged toward him and Thole scampered away. He ran ran ran to the Turkish bath house where he knew Jerry Manuel could often be found.

"Skip, what's a salmon?"

"Kid, there's salmon and there's finches. We aspire to be finches. Salmon don't drink coconuts. They get high, but they don't fly, so when they get there they die. We can't lay eggs at that rate, so we take a more measured approach."

Thole took in these words. They were so confusing.

"Are we talking about baseball?"

"And more."

"Is baseball talking about us?"

"Always."

Manuel sipped a coconut. "Stick with the team," he said. "I'll probably be gone soon, and they'll erase my memory, but you, kid, you've got promise."

"Erase your memory? Why?"

"When I leave the team. Before it was just a non-disclosure agreement, but the Twins have telepaths on their staff, so it just wouldn't do."

"This baseball stuff is so much more complicated than I ever imagined," said Thole.

"You're telling me," said Jerry.