John Tries on Tom's Pants

It's morning in America and the bulls are on the prowl for uncollected bribery and any innocent soul not yet   squeezed firmly down beneath department-issue night watch loafers.  Broom-handle swing catches bone on the corner, eye orbit set-off half an inch.  They got kids back in Baltimore and a girlfriend in Cathedral Park; flatfoots on doughnut patrol, and Smokey playing like a Super-Trooper wannabe.  "He brandished his weapon," is the charge and the punchline, ink stained cuffs and coffee frozen gabardine round out the fashion statement along with nicotine thumbs and fingers indexing inventory up short skirts on 11th Avenue.  It's morning in America and the sun is a cold-cock rising o'er the river and the smell off a day old shirt and a decade old mustache sends them home finally where they no longer belong, the bicycle left out and the dew shimmered mailbox and the gag in the bushes before the screendoor slams.