5:30 a.m. and Max is serenading me with the dog's version of the Beetles' Penny Lane. — Chippy Lane, he sings, is in my brain and on my mind. Neither of us is very good with lyrics. — It's there all the time. The beat is plodding and insistent. — I can't get it out, oh daddy, he complains, daddy please, can't we go out down to chippy Chippy Lane. You would think that he was about to die. — There's a kebab laying there. It's got my name down down ah-a-on Chippy Lane.
At 5:30 a.m. Sunday in the city centre, there are only drunks and taxi-cab drivers demanding prepayment. On the street corner in front of the Army & Navy store, there's an old man dressed for a Minsk winter, the ears of his ushanka pulled above his head. — Zah Kay Jah Beh stole my soul, he shouts, and threw eat down upon zah ground. He crawls into the otherwise lifeless street, where he begins to sweep up the remains of a shattered glass with his bear hands.
Until I remind myself that it is now 5:45, I think, "This is a bit theatrical" — the old man even sounds like Ian McKellen. — "But, it is effective advertisement for the Army & Navy store." — Luke at me! he demands. "It's hard not to," I tell Max who's only intent is to beat the retired greyhound and the street-sweeps to Chippy Lane, three blocks on. — Looook!" the old man continues to demand as I, myself, am swept along by the four-legged feeding machine's dogged determination. — See how I am shattered!
At the far end of Chippy Lane, in the Market Square, there's a thin lad — he's probably still there — whining to the middle-aged men setting up their market stalls. — I lost my French fries, he cries in a flat middle-American accent, and McDonald's is closed. — Then, instructs one of the men, a Scot, get yee bahk thee-r, lad! He points, tah Rose Crescent, Chippy Lane's daylight name. -- Chips are to be had on the floo-r. — Ah, Chippy Lane! "There's a promise." I tell Max.
Chippy Lane this morning, is a veritable feast. The cornucopia shaped lane is over flowing the remains of split and unwanted unfinished kebabs, burgers, Chicken McNuggets, doner wraps, and yes, chips. Stray dogs might be excused the thought that they'd died and gone to heaven. And, a dog at the end of a lead is only certain of it. — Max is in the moment. He hunkers down if I urge him along. There's a lot to take in.
