Jonathan and the missing back hoes

"Are you going to visit the backhoes?" I asked Jonathan (age 3), his mother and his baby brother, on the way up the hill. Jonathan's mom, Sam, teaches vet tech at WCC; she's the first person to think Lilith is part husky. It's the markings and the strong prey instinct, she says. As Lily and I head up hill, Jonathan asks if we're also going to see the backhoes. I say yes, and ask him what the plural of "backhoe" is. He says "two back hoe" and I say how weird it is that two back hoes makes tobacco. Raja carries 16 year old Daku out to greet us; he's a 16 year old Yorkshire terrier. "You're a great old man," Sam says to him. Her black cap reads RESPECT. We walk past the man who feeds seed to the birds in the morning; his chest is impressively tattooed, but he's too far away to read. (He knew that Lilith was the first woman.) Then we notice an empty space where the backhoes were, the road tattooed with dirt. Jonathan wants to know what it is. I suggest we go around the block, in case the backhoes moved to another wrecked sidewalk area. So we walk down Hui Iwa Street, Jonathan in his 49ers cap, the baby's Old Navy cap flying off halfway down the hill. On our way home we see Prince, the nervous Jack Russell, Bear and a meaner dog with chain collar. "Haven't seen Lilith in a long time!" says Bear's person. Last time we talked, it had turned political. A loud engine sounds behind us. It's a street sweeper! Lilith darts into the ground cover, brings out a bone, lies down to chew it. Jonathan asks why she likes bones. Says we should all stop in the shade and have our snacks, too. Wants me to sit beside him on the sidewalk as his mother opens the Welch's fruit snacks. I demur, preferring to stand. We cross the road ahead of the street sweeper and part ways. When Lily and I come in the house, Bryant tells me that Trump just told Republicans that the virus will go away without a vaccine. Sometime in the Fall.