There was a picture of the Arc de Triomphe on the front. On the back, Leroy had written, “In Paris. Bundle is with me and safe. Home soon. Leroy.”

“He doesn’t say why he took it.”

“Nope.”

“Maybe he wanted something that reminded him of home.”

Bernie wasn’t so forgiving. “Or maybe he thought he needed something to impress the White people in that Wild West show. Something he could use in the show. So they’d hire him. So he wouldn’t wind up at Stony Mountain.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “It sounds as though he planned to bring it back.”

“Sure,” Bernie would say, “but whatever he had in mind, the day that Leroy left was the last time we ever saw the bundle.”

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, standing in the courtyard of the Kafka museum, watching two articulated sculptures pee into a pond.

“I suppose we should get a picture,” says Mimi. “For my mother.”

“You could just tell her about it.”

Mimi shakes her head. “Don’t think words can capture the majesty of the moment.”

So I take a picture of Mimi standing by the fountain with her hands on her hips.

“Did you get one with their penises on the upswing?”

I can feel my blood sugars dropping. It’s not a pleasant sensation, akin to discovering you’re in the middle of Saskatchewan in winter and out of gas.

Mimi moves in closer to the sculptures. “I like the way their hips swivel back and forth.”

I recognize trouble when I see it. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Would you be embarrassed if I just touched—?”

“Lunchtime,” I say quickly.

Mimi pulls her hand back. “You want to eat lunch?”

“Only if you do.”

“You just ate breakfast.” Mimi shakes her head. “This is what happens when you don’t get enough sleep.”

When you’re in a strange city, you don’t have many options for finding a good place to eat. You can go with a recommendation in the guidebook or you can rely on local knowledge. Guidebooks are notoriously unreliable. Much of the information in them is old and out of date. Chefs change, restaurants close.

Worse, an international conglomerate moves in, buys the place, and uses the restaurant’s reputation to sell prepackaged, processed food to an unsuspecting public.

Local knowledge is all well and good, but as we don’t speak Czech, this is not an option. In addition, there is always the chance of falling prey to the gangs that work the tourist areas of the world. “Yes,” a kindly older man tells you, “there’s a restaurant just down this alley. Very good. Very cheap. It’s where locals go. Follow me. I’ll show you.” So down the alley you go, and you turn a corner, and that’s the last time anyone ever sees you.

I share these thoughts with Mimi.