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Wile had not signed up for whatever this was, he wanted that noted.
Paul, a friend of Bugs and Daffy, had organized a barbecue and invited everyone he knew because he was the kind of person to do that.
Wile found him likable, the guy was a good man, but he did not consider him a friend. They would see each other on the odd occasion and they got along just fine, but he had no intention to attend a social event when he had so much to do. Bugs, however, had insisted that it would be fun and he would not have to do a thing, just sit and socialize. He had then corrected the sentence to just sit, because he was aware Wile was not fond of meeting new people or having to make conversation with many of the ones he already knew either.
Wile said he would not attend.
He did attend, mostly against his will.
It was sort of a hostage situation, from his perspective.
Paul had taken care of everything up to that day. Invitations, food, the folding tables from his garage, the grill itself; and then Petunia had said something to him across the yard and he'd gone over to respond and somehow that was forty-five minutes ago and he had not come back yet.
So, for some reason, Wile stood at the grill holding the spatula Paul had handed him —again, forty-five minutes ago— and looked at the burgers and then at Paul across the yard, laughing at something Petunia had said, and then at the burgers again. He had not agreed to this. He wanted the record to reflect that he had not agreed to this. This was just his extremely unsurprising luck.
He flipped a burger.
What else was there to do?
"You're doing it wrong," said Daffy, appearing at his elbow with a paper plate and the confidence of someone who was, as usual, loud and wrong and had never grilled anything in his life.
Wile looked at him. Just looked at him.
"The heat distribution," Daffy said, gesturing at the grill with his plate. "You want the coals more to the left. Direct heat on that side, indirect on this side, it's basic two-zone cooking, not that you'd know."
Wile signed, with a lot of patience: "And where did you learn that?"
"I read," Daffy said, with great dignity.
"You read about grilling?"
"I read broadly, Wile. You should try it."
Wile looked him in the eye and moved one burger approximately two inches to the left, which accomplished nothing, and Daffy nodded like this confirmed everything he'd said.
Wile had been here for an hour maybe and he was already regretting it.
To make matters worse, Ray had arrived the way he arrived everywhere, without warning and already in motion. He came through the gate mid-conversation with someone Wile didn't recognize, signing something that made the person laugh. He was impossible to miss, he was quiet but his presence was extremely loud. He simply seemed to occupy more space than everyone else, always moving, always looking around, always finding something to do with his hands even when he wasn't signing anything. Even standing still, he looked like he was about to take off, restless energy practically radiating off him. Wile was also noting, objectively, that he was wearing small shorts that were entirely impractical for the weather, and a top that kept riding up, and that was all he was noting. Those were simply observations, the kind any person would make. It was unnecessary to dress like that for a barbecue.
Ray passed a table on the way. There was a set of keys on the table. Someone's keys, with a small novelty keychain attached, the kind you got at a tourist shop, sitting there next to a bowl of chips like it had been set down and forgotten. He looked at it as he walked past. He picked it up, put it in his pocket, and kept walking.
The expression on his face was the expression of a man who had seen an unattended item and applied a simple finders-keepers logic that had never once been examined for flaws. He pocketed it without breaking stride. No guilt, no hesitation. He had the serene face of someone for whom consequences had simply never applied (and likely never would).
Wile saw all of this from the grill. He put down the spatula, ready to confront that brat, when—
"Oh, Wile, there you are!" Bugs materialized at his elbow from somewhere, with what was hopefully his first glass of wine already in hand, warm and slightly luminous in the afternoon light. He leaned against Wile, softly rubbing his face against his arm the way he always did. It was not surprising, he was simply an affectionate person. "Come look at what Porky did with the centerpieces, he used actual lemons and they're—"
"I saw it, yes," Wile signed, still looking at the spot where Ray had been.
"No you didn't! Come with me... C'mon."
He did not care about centerpieces. Ray had taken something off the table and—
"They're sliced and everything, come with me, come with meee…" Bugs grabbed his arm and was already steering without permission, and Wile went because Bugs in motion once he found the wine was difficult to argue with, and the lemons were apparently a matter of urgency.
Behind him, Daffy stepped up to the grill, spatula in hand, with the expression of a man whose moment had finally arrived.
Wile would later wonder how he managed to burn the burgers in the ten minutes he spent in charge of the grill.
The lemons were nice. Wile looked at them for the appropriate amount of time, which he assumed was about ten seconds in order to keep Bugs happy and be left alone, and then he looked back across the yard to where Ray had been seconds prior and… He was already somewhere else entirely, bouncing on his heels next to a folding table, picking up a paper cup and putting it back down then picking it up again.
Wile watched him for a moment.
He took something. He had seen him. Someone's keys were in his pocket right now. That was crime number— well he did not have the file, maybe 38. He did not have anything to write on, either. He was going to remember it, regardless. He told Bugs about it, but Bugs didn't seem to care in the slightest. He just chuckled and took another sip of wine, before telling him to let it go and enjoy the day.
So Wile just stared, stared as Ray picked up a bottle of ketchup, inspected it, and put it back. Picked up a pair of tongs, decided against it, put those back too. He straightened a stack of paper plates that had been perfectly straight already, and moved on. He could not, for the life of him, stay still.
When he caught Wile's eye across the backyard, he waved enthusiastically as he always did. Wile did not wave back, mostly because his mind did not register that the waving was directed at him. Ray squinted at him. Ate a chip. Turned back around and bounced on his heels even harder.
Bugs appeared at Wile's shoulder again, slightly closer to glass three now. "He can't stand still… Can he?" He observed, watching the athlete with an expression of mild delight.
"He’s always like this, I've seen him," Wile signed, almost absentmindedly.
"Well, someone has been paying attention…" Bugs said, mostly to himself, and drifted toward the food table.
Ray found his way to the grill eventually, which had been inevitable. Wile had reclaimed the spatula from Daffy —who had relinquished it with the air of someone doing a great favor, despite his feat of burning everything on the grill— and was working through the second round of burgers when Ray appeared beside him and just. Stayed there.
Wile wanted to confront him. Wanted to tell him to stay away. But he did not want to make it a whole thing after what Bugs had said. Nobody would believe him, anyway.
Ray signed something about the weather. Then something about the yard. Then he picked up a chip from the bowl on the side table and ate it and immediately picked up another one. He walked a small circle around the yard and came back. He signed something about a dog he'd seen on this morning's run. He ate three more chips.
Wile handed him a burger without being asked, hoping it would keep his hands busy.
It didn't.
Ray took it, ate half of it in approximately one bite, and kept signing, one-handed. Something about the dog, which had apparently been very large and very friendly, and Wile flipped the remaining patties and thought about nothing in particular and found, somewhere underneath the grill smoke and the chip consumption and the constant motion, that this was… Fine. A little overstimulating, yes, but fine. That Ray standing next to him being unable to stop moving was not awful. It was okay the same way certain things just were, without requiring examination.
He handed Ray a second burger before he could ask.
Ray looked at it and then at Wile. He ate the burger. He didn't say anything else about it. He did another small circle and came back and stood next to Wile again and Wile went back to the grill and the afternoon continued peacefully for a few minutes.
And then it didn't.
Something small darted across the yard, which Wile noticed out of the corner of his eye. A little short-haired blonde girl, barely tall enough to see over the edge of the picnic table, was making a beeline straight for the two of them.
Wile's shoulders stiffened.
He knew that deceptively innocent little face. He'd heard enough stories about her from Sylvester to recognize the threat from a considerable distance. She had even snuck into Wile's shop once, and destroyed basically everything in the thirty minutes it took for Sylvester to find her and take her home.
Wile slowly lowered the tongs.
No, please. Not here. Not today. He didn't like children, in fact he found children irritating. This one, in particular, he found scary.
The girl had spotted Ray. Her entire face lit up. Ray looked down just in time for her to throw both arms around his waist. He startled, then immediately relaxed, bending down to hug her back.
Wile stared.
Of course. Of course Ray knew her and liked her. The child was like a younger, and somehow more evil version of him. The little girl squeezed him tighter, practically hanging off him now, while Ray laughed silently and ruffled her hair.
Tweety.
The six-year-old menace Sylvester had been complaining about for months. He would go to the shop and vent for hours sometimes. She looked harmless. That was probably how she got away with everything.
Ray signed something fast and she replied immediately and they were off, conversation moving at a speed that Wile could follow but only barely, something about a bird she'd seen and whether it was the same bird from last week and Ray's opinion on this.
Wile watched this for a moment.
Then he signed, to Ray: "Does she really understand what you're telling her?"
He assumed she didn't. After all, she had completely ignored every single thing he signed to her when he tried to stop her from destroying his shop.
Tweety, looking up, signed back: "Yes, I do. We are talking about a bird."
Wile stared at her, baffled.
Oh, so the ignoring was intentional.
Tweety looked back at him with those big blue eyes. She was clearly proud of herself. Wile looked at Ray, whose hands were very still for once.
"When?" Wile signed.
"She's always playing outside, so we have conversations when I happen to run by her house, she's a fast learner," He replied.
Wile looked back at Tweety, who had returned to her juice box with perfect serenity, and thought about how many times he had signed things in front of her assuming she was simply a six year old who didn't understand.
Tweety looked up, and in that squeaky voice, went: "Ray talks about you a lot, Mr. Wile. He says…"
Ray immediately got in front of her, signing something about the bird she saw again. Was it a sparrow or a finch? Very important, required her full attention.
Tweety considered him for a moment, smart enough to read the room in a matter of an instant. Then she turned back to her juice box, apparently deciding the bird question could wait.
Wile looked at Ray.
What could he possibly be saying about him to a child?
From the other side of the yard, Sylvester had been having a fine afternoon, which was unusual enough that he should have known it wouldn't last. Tweety had left him alone, Granny was busy somewhere chatting with other old ladies, all was good.
He'd eaten three burgers, avoided most of the social interaction, found a chair at a reasonable distance from everything, and had been watching the yard with the detached interest of someone who had nowhere better to be and had made peace with that. Wile at the grill looking exhausted, Ray orbiting Wile like a very energetic moon. Bugs on his third glass of wine getting progressively warmer and more of a social butterfly. Daffy watching Bugs with an expression he couldn't quite decipher.
He'd been putting together a fairly complete picture.
Then Tweety found him. He would've said he hated her, but hate was a strong word, so maybe saying he strongly disliked her and wanted to ship her to a different country was more accurate to describe his feelings.
She had spent the last few years turning their house into a personal kingdom, with Granny somehow always taking her side. If Sylvester complained that Tweety had broken something, she was only playing. If he insisted she'd started an argument, he was being dramatic. If he claimed she'd deliberately gotten him in trouble, Granny would give him that tired look that somehow made him feel ten years old again.
And Tweety would stand nearby looking innocent. Always innocent. And he was always guilty. That was the worst part, she could get away with anything, and she was always Granny's perfect little angel.
Sylvester had long since stopped trying to convince people otherwise.
Instead, he'd learned to pick his battles.
And humiliating her in front of the boy she liked? That was absolutely a battle worth picking.
She came and stood next to his chair with her juice box and looked at Hazel's son.
Gabriel, was it?
A big, pale redhead boy, about her age, who was sitting quietly nearby doing nothing wrong, and there was something in her expression that was almost fond.
Sensing an opportunity to get back at her, Sylvester chose to be an idiot.
"What's wrong, Tweety? Isn't that your little boyfriend?" He said, in a mocking high-pitched voice.
Tweety didn't move.
Sylvester waited.
Nothing.
He blinked.
She looked at him.
He tried again, standing up this time.
"Oh! So you're not gonna talk to him? Are you feeling shy? Scared that I'll tell Granny?"
Tweety's expression didn't change. She simply coughed into her hand, raising an eyebrow.
Sylvester stared.
That was it?
He was disappointed by the non-reaction for a moment, but he quickly found another way to get back at his sister. He looked at Gabriel, quiet, sitting by himself at the edge of the yard— and said, loud enough for the child to hear, in the tone teenagers use when they want to feel clever: "Was that really your only option? I've seen him around. He doesn't even talk. I've heard he's a crybaby. Strange for someone so big to be such a wuss, isn't it?"
Gabriel, who had nothing to do with whatever Sylvester's problem was, heard him. Sylvester saw it land. Watched him go slightly smaller, the way he did when things like this happened, that particular quiet that meant he was hurt. He wasn't going to say anything back. He never did, not even to his bullies at school.
It did not land poorly only for the boy. It did get him a reaction from Tweety. She opened her mouth to say something, clearly upset now. Sylvester leaned down, close enough to be face to face with her, and taunted her, still in that mocking voice: "Puddy tat got your tongue, Tweety? Are you gonna cry? Who's gonna comfort your boyfriend, then?"
Tweety looked at her friend, then back at her brother, at a loss of words.
… Then she kicked Sylvester directly in the shin before he had a chance to laugh at her. Not a tap, not a warning. A full, committed, deliberate kick with those little hard black shoes that had no business being as solid as they were, and the sound was something Sylvester was going to hear in his sleep, and he went down with a gasp. Not dramatically, just abruptly, one knee on the grass, because it hurt, it genuinely hurt. He looked up.
Tweety was already back at her juice box, face completely neutral, like she had done nothing wrong. She looked down at him, very carefully set the empty box on the table, then folded her arms.
"You're bad, Sylvester."
Sylvester stared at her.
"You kicked me, you little—!"
"Leave my friend alone."
"You can't just kick people because you don't like what they say! What the hell is your problem?"
Ironically enough, Gabriel was the one to crouch down next to Sylvester and check on him. "Are you okay?" he said, with genuine concern, because the boy was built that way, because the universe had apparently decided that the target of the comment would be the one checking on the person who made it.
"Fine," Sylvester said, from the grass. "I'm fine, leave me alone."
He was not fine. He sat back down on his chair and decided he was staying there for the foreseeable future.
Wile, who had watched the last four seconds from the grill, signed at him from across the yard, unsympathetically: "You deserved that one, kid."
And from her chair on the other side of the yard, Hazel sipped her lemonade.
She had seen the whole thing, had seen Sylvester, had clocked him immediately the way she clocked anyone near Gabriel, had been already half-rising when he'd said something to her son and watched him go small and thought okay, intervening— and then Tweety had kicked Sylvester and Hazel had stopped moving entirely.
She sat back down, picked up her lemonade. Across the yard Gabriel was helping Sylvester up from the grass, because that's who he was, and Tweety was standing next to them now, new juice box in hand, apparently deciding the situation had been handled and she could afford to be generous and merciful, just this once.
She said something to Gabriel. He looked down at her and smiled a big smile, the one that made him look like a completely different kid, and said something back, making her giggle.
Hazel took a long sip.
She did not examine why her eyes were doing something. She was off duty. This was a barbecue.
Bugs was on glass four by the time he drifted back to Daffy.
It wasn't intentional. Nothing Bugs did was intentional at this point, he was simply moving through the afternoon, and Daffy was standing by the chip bowl with a paper plate and an expression of someone who had been thinking about something and not gotten anywhere with it.
"You know," Daffy said, as Bugs arrived at his elbow, "you've been flirting with Wile all afternoon, his little not-boyfriend might want to fight again if he sees you."
He said it a little smug, a little pointed, expecting deflection or a laugh or anything that would let him say just joking and move on.
Bugs looked at him, slightly puzzled. "Have I?"
"Well. You're always draped on someone. You do it with everyone," Daffy replied. He was going for breezy and landing somewhere adjacent to it. "Just an observation."
Bugs tilted his head. The wine had made the edges of things slightly more honest than usual and he looked at Daffy with an expression that was warm and direct and not going to pretend it was something else. "Actually, I don't flirt with everyone," he said.
Daffy snorted. "You flirt with everyone."
"Not everyone," Bugs said. He was looking at Daffy's face in the particular way he looked at things when he'd decided to actually look at them, and Daffy felt the conversation shift somewhere he hadn't steered it.
"Yes everyone," he argued.
"No."
"Yes."
"Only with the ones I like…" He shrugged, before taking another sip of wine. "For example..." He leaned over and kissed Daffy's cheek, near his lips. A long, unhurried kiss. Like it was something he did. Except he had never, ever done that before.
He had done it with random men, with neighbors, with other friends, yes, because he was Bugs and that's what he did. But never with Daffy. They were friends, they did not flirt. That was the unspoken arrangement.
Daffy went completely still.
Not a frozen hand or face. All of him— mid-breath, mid-thought, every system just… Off. The kiss Bugs gave him felt approximately the temperature of the sun and Daffy was not going to touch his cheek, he was absolutely not going to touch it.
Bugs had already turned. Already moving, drawn by something across the yard—by Wile, more specifically, who was back at the grill looking like a man who had accepted his fate— and Bugs was drifting toward him with that easy gravitational pull, like Wile was simply where Bugs ended up when he wasn't somewhere else.
Daffy stood very still.
His hand moved to his cheek.
He realized his hand had moved to his cheek and removed it immediately and looked around to see if anyone had seen it.
He then looked back across the yard, at Bugs leaning into Wile's arm. The way he always did, the way he'd always done, and watched Wile sign something without moving away, and watched Bugs laugh at it, and felt the small satisfaction he'd felt seconds prior drain away completely and get replaced by something he had absolutely no words for.
Seventeen years and he had never…
He looked at his chip, then he ate it. It tasted like nothing in particular. He looked away, then back at his roommate, then away again.
Sylvester, sitting on his chair nearby with his bruised shin and his plate, watched Daffy gaze at Bugs with the expression of someone watching a very slow realization happen to a person in real time. He said nothing. He had a complete picture of this entire yard and he was keeping it entirely to himself because he had learned his lesson for the day and had a self-preservation instinct and had also just been kicked very hard by a six year old so he was taking the afternoon off from involvement. This was not his business nor did he want it to be.
Wile was explaining something to Bugs with one hand while managing the grill with the other. Bugs had appointed himself assistant and was being no help whatsoever, leaning on Wile's arm and offering commentary on the burgers, when Ray reappeared.
He took in the scene. Bugs. Wile's arm. The leaning. The wine glass. The general arrangement of things.
His eyebrows came down.
He squared his shoulders. He deployed the face— the full one, the one that had made people twice his size reconsider their choices, the one that came with eye contact and a jaw set and an energy that did not match his dimensions at all.
Bugs looked at him.
"Oh," Bugs said warmly, still laughing at nothing. He reached over and pinched Ray's cheek. "You're so cute."
The face crumbled.
Not slowly, all at once. Ray stood there with his threatening expression completely dismantled by a cheek pinch, and Bugs had already turned back to Wile, and Ray was left standing there recalibrating.
Wile's face did the thing. The almost-smile. The slight shift at the corner of his mouth that he couldn't fully suppress when Ray's face went completely blank with confusion.
He looked at the grill, trying to hide it.
Bugs, oblivious, said something to Wile about the wine.
Ray's eyes moved to Daffy across the yard— standing by the chip bowl, not eating anything, staring at Bugs with an expression he recognized because he had made variations of it himself.
He chose to add nothing to the conversation until Bugs walked away, which took another ten minutes. And the second he left to find Daffy, Ray's hands started moving non-stop once again.
He shared his opinion on the fact that Bugs had not one but multiple glasses of wine. Wile nodded. Something about the way Ray signed made it difficult not to watch, even if he wanted to ignore him. His gestures were quick and expressive, almost as restless as the rest of him. Even when he was saying something simple, his whole body seemed involved in it.
Wile caught maybe half of what he was saying when he started going too fast. Ray noticed, and slowed down, making it easier to understand the next question.
"How long have you been cooking? Why are you cooking?"
Wile shrugged. He was cooking for a lot of people, he wasn't even paying attention to the time anymore. And he did not know why he was cooking, either.
Trying to get a longer response out of him, Ray told Wile about something that had happened at the track earlier that week. Then he changed subjects halfway through and started talking about someone's ridiculous lawn ornament. Then he noticed a bird across the yard and got distracted by that.
Wile followed along as best he could.
Every time he thought Ray had finally run out of things to tell him, another thought appeared. Wile had no idea how one person could have this many thoughts. He surely didn't. Every attempt to end the conversation was met with even more questions and fun facts that he had absolutely not asked for. And eventually, to his dismay, he realized he'd stopped trying to end the conversation. He was answering, actually answering. Ray seemed to notice and his smile became a little softer. Wile looked away for a second, but his eyes landed on him again. Still moving, still fidgeting, still finding new things to say.
Wile wondered if he'd ever seen him sit completely still.
Probably not. The thought made him smile.
Then something occurred to him, and he narrowed his eyes.
The keychain. Bugs had asked him to not even mention it, so he wouldn't, but it was bothering him. This was the man he'd been talking to for the past twenty minutes. This was the man who had casually stolen someone's keychain and apparently considered that a completely reasonable thing to do.
Wile should have been annoyed, and he was annoyed, but he was also trying very hard not to smile.
Ray caught him, and his eyes brightened. He was kind enough to not point it out.
His hands were already moving again before Wile had even finished looking at his face. And, despite himself, he watched him as the light shifted later in the afternoon, the golden hour sunlight that meant the day was winding down and highlighted everything eye-catching about the man in front of him. With it came a breeze that hadn't been there before.
Wile noticed Ray rub his arm once. Then again.
He signed, flatly: "Where's your jacket?"
Ray signed back, without any particular shame about it: "I left it at home. I always forget it."
"You forgot it?"
“I can run home and get it.”
Wile looked at him, already mid-motion toward getting up, the picture of someone who had already calculated the round-trip time and found it perfectly reasonable— a sprint home, a sprint back, five minutes tops. But before he could do that, Wile untied the flannel from around his waist, shaking his head.
He held it out. The eye roll he gave was brief and communicated everything: you forgot your jacket, you're not going to run home just to get it, you're a lot. Here, damn.
Ray looked at the flannel, then at Wile. He took it.
It was brown. It looked odd on him, because he was always wearing blue.
It was also too big. The shoulders sat wrong and the sleeves came past his hands and it smelled a little like engine grease and something else Wile apparently used on his clothes and Ray pushed the sleeves up to his elbows and stood there in it looking— something. Wile was not going to finish that thought. He was looking at the grill. The grill was extremely interesting right now.
Ray signed something to get Wile's attention. Wile looked over. Ray's hands were still slightly swallowed by the rolled cuffs but he kept going, unbothered, resuming whatever he'd been about to say before the jacket situation.
The afternoon wound down gradually, with nobody wanting to be the first to leave, the food mostly gone and the folding tables slightly sticky and the light going golden and long across Paul's yard.
Paul had made it back to the now empty grill eventually, looked at it, looked at Wile, and said "T-thanks, Wile," with the apologetic sincerity of someone who knew he'd been gone too long. Wile handed him the spatula without ceremony.
Gabriel and Tweety were sitting on the back steps together, close enough that their shoulders touched, looking at something on the grass that might have been a beetle or might have been nothing. Tweety was signing different words; grass, beetle, sky, and Gabriel was nodding along, learning the shape of the words by watching her hands.
Hazel, from her chair, watched this happen over the rim of her lemonade and did not say anything about it to anyone.
Daffy had not moved far from the chip bowl. He was on his third plate of food and staring at nothing in particular, which for Daffy was unusual; Daffy had opinions about everything and usually shared all of them, but he'd been quiet for the last hour and nobody had commented on it.
Bugs found him eventually. "You've been very still," He observed, coming to stand beside him with the easy familiarity of seventeen years.
"I'm thinking," Daffy said.
"About what?"
Daffy looked at him. At the very familiar face, the afternoon light, the wine glass now empty. At seventeen years of breakfasts, and five years of living together, and shared clothes, and being everywhere together. And a cheek kiss that had probably meant nothing.
"Nothing," Daffy said. "Can we go home?"
Bugs looked at him for a moment. Something in his expression was not quite neutral. The wine had made the edges of things honest and he hadn't entirely come back from that yet.
"Okay," Bugs said. "Let's go home."
He didn't move away. He just stood there, shoulder to shoulder with Daffy at the chip bowl, looking at the yard, and Daffy stood there too, and the evening came in slowly around them, and neither of them said anything else about it. Daffy did not comment on the fact that Bugs was leaning against him, either.
Sylvester, from the chair where he had remained for the better part of two hours, watched this happen and ate his last chip and thought several things he was going to keep entirely to himself.
Across the yard, Ray was still signing something at Wile. Wile was looking at him with that expression, the one he got when Ray was talking and he was listening more carefully than he let on, and Ray was bouncing on his heels again, winding down from the afternoon's energy, and at some point his hand had found Wile's arm briefly to get his attention for a sign and hadn't fully left afterward.
Wile hadn't moved it.
Wile’s mental filing system noted this. Opened a folder. Found it already full of similar entries, and quietly added one more.
He talks about you a lot, the folder said.
Wile looked at Ray.
Ray was signing something about the beetle Gabriel and Tweety had found, which was apparently significant. His eyes were bright. His hand was still on Wile's arm.
The folder stayed open.
For once, Wile didn't close it.
The beetle, for the record, was a ground beetle. Harmless, common, unremarkable in every way.
Tweety had already named it, the way she named many things around the neighborhood in silence, without anyone ever knowing.