There’s a godawful electronic squawk outside sometimes, like from the radio in a cop car, but loud. At night. When the weather gets warm. Like a kind of mechanical bird that’s back to life, looking for a mate and a place to build its nest.

Here I am meekly waiting for the software update that will solve it all. The update that reaches into my soul to save it.

When I run past the Pavilion Theatre in the morning I glance at the green plywood covering the entrance, wondering if any progress has been made. Sometimes the makeshift door is open and you can see straight through to the box office on the left. A worker might stroll in or out. There’s a chair in there too for some reason. Other times it’s closed and days and days go by and nothing.

TROOPS

This was more or less the situation when I returned to the neighborhood for the Easter vacation.

TROOPS

Every inch of the garden, the house, and the surrounding grounds was ransacked, yet no trace of the missing lama was found.

There was a discarded flyer on some steps that led to a workroom at the end of the platform at Chambers Street. It read: Win Anywhere. Win Anytime.

TROOPS

“We’re wasting precious time. We