Misc OLD MAN

The old man believed that his happiness was his own responsibility and to this end he provided himself everyday with opportunities to be happy. The first of these opportunities arrived every morning when the old man awoke. He coughed and sputtered and summoned up all the phlegm that a night of sleeping with the window open could produce and with a thrust of his head spat the yellow gob out the window.
Now this first action was a bit of a gamble. If the old man managed to successfully spit out the window he was well pleased with himself, if he failed it could put a bad spin on the rest of his day. Though as he often told himself, success without risk isn’t worth the effort. Since he never cleaned up after a missed spit there was an area around the window that appeared to have been badly varnished with a mix of shellac and lumpy porridge.
The reason the old man slept with his window open was so that he would awaken when people were walking on the sidewalk below him. He loved sunny days best of all, days when people did not carry umbrellas. Those days when his intended though random targets would have no protection. His second opportunity for happiness came when flying mucus managed to connect with an unsuspecting pedestrian. When this happened he would laugh long and loud making a sound like a frog being dragged across a cheese grater.
The old man had a rubber stamp he taken from a child’s play set. The stamp was of a pig as seen from the side. Each time he heard someone outside cry out in disgust upon having a ball of unctuous slime the side of his face or run down her collar, the old man, when he was done laughing would always say the same thing. “Squeal for Jesus piggy pig.” And he would push the stamp in a pad of red ink and press it to the wall opposite his bed.
He currently had an army of red pigs covering the wall and marching toward his bedroom door, the older ones starting to fade.
The old man stepped back and looked at the wall. He nodded in a self satisfied manner and throwing on a dirty old robe headed to the kitchen for happiness opportunity number three.

He smelled of onions and urine and mentholated rubbing ointment. He stood at his ancient electric stove as a blob of white lard slid along the bottom of a spotted pan, turning to a clear liquid as it went. The old man watched as people made their way up and down the busy street opposite him.
“Nice hair, Gomez.” He snarled under his breath.
The old man took a plate of chopped liver from his humming refrigerator and dumped the purple meat into the pan. A cloud of smoke and a loud sizzle filled the small kitchen.
“Yeah, that’s some eatin’” He chortled.
The he leaned out the window and shouted “You smell that Gomez? That’s some real food! Jealous? I bet!”
Several people turned and looked as they walked, but no one stopped. The man he had dubbed Gomez was long gone.
“Yeah, real food.” He mumbled. “None of your corns and beans and burros here. That stuff gives me gas and tastes like the floor in the free clinic.”
He lifted the pan to the window and blew across it’s surface.
“Real food Gomez! Do you smell it?”
The pan tipped and a piece of liver slipped out and fell to the street below. The old man’s mouth opened in disbelief.
“Goddammit! That’s mine! Shrieked the old man. Don’t you touch it! “